#no one knows why but the working theory is that he has everyone but Thrawn muted | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

artsy0wl · 3 years

Text

Maul: A Broken Evil Retrospective

On a Star Wars Amino I’m in, I had made an introspective on why I feel that Maul, while he is a villain is not whole heartedly evil, but broken. I took from said Amino post, with a few needed edit tweaks.

Chaotic Evil

Of course given the fact he was a Sith and some of the decisions he’s made, I don’t completely want to negate that in this discussion. If we were to use the alignment chart (lawful good, true neutral, chaotic evil, etc), he would probably fit best in Neutral Evil. From my understanding, Maul would fit Neutral Evil as a lot if what he does has to do with benefiting himself. Even if that means using allies (i.e. Ezra initially) and potentially betraying them (i.e. blinding Kanan once the Inquisitors were dealt with). He’ll follow things as he needs and can be calculating when he needs (like his take over of Mandalore). He’s not spontaneous enough or lacks enough restraint to be Chaotic Evil (like the Joker for instance), nor is he as calculating and “lawful” to be Lawful Evil (like say Thrawn and/or Palpatine). With that said, I’d agree that Maul has a darkness/evil in him considering all of the things he’s done. Obviously, he’s not winning any hero points by killing people like Qui Gon and Satine or blinding and attempting to kill Kanan.

Onto why I feel he’s broken.

Palpatine: Taken From a Young Age and Molded into what Sidious Wanted

Whether it be Talzin offering Maul as a child in Canon or his mother giving Palpatine Maul as a baby in Legends (Darth Plagueis), Maul was caught in a situation that he really didn’t have much control over. Granted, his life may not have been much better on Dathomir, given how the Nightsisters used their male counterparts, but there’s no telling what kind of life he could have had, had he not been handed over to Palpatine. Maul was molded into a weapon as Darth Sidious’ apprentice. And Maul spent most of his younger years being molded into what Sidious wants. Only to be “cast aside” when he is presumed dead. With Sidious being his only form of human contact/interaction, it’s fair to say that Maul feels a level of rejection/abandonment by the only person he had a bond with.

However, rather than having a level of depression because of it, he’s angry about it. For him that seems to be a common response, along with hatred and arrogance (the latter of which was used to explain how he survived the Phantom Menace). Sidious created a weapon out of Maul. And with that, a character with no real coping mechanism or knowing how to let things go.

A lot of, if not all of, Maul’s issues can be linked back to Sidious in some way. Sidious isn’t exactly Mentor of the Year material. Especially with Maul. Though that could be chopped up to him being a Sith and very manipulative. He wasn’t the kindest person to the Zabrak pre or post Phantom Menace (both in canon and Legends). Either way, a lot of Maul’s issues are a direct result of Palpatine’s involvement in his life.

If it weren’t for Sidious, Maul would have a normal life (or whatever that would equate to on Dathomir). He would have had his family, would have been more level headed and maybe less cocky, and he wouldn’t have enraged abandonment issues. The amount of grief, trauma, and hatred would be vastly different

Family: He Lost a Brother and a Mother

Let’s be real, thanks to Sidious, Maul’s lost a brother and a mother (two brothers when you count Feral, though he never got to meet him). By the time Savage came around in Clone Wars, we got to see Maul sort of build his character more than say the Phantom Menace (the novels did too, but I can’t say that everyone’s read them). We also get to see Maul exhibit more emotion where, again, the movie lacks as well as the introduction of his family, Mother Talzin, Feral, and Savage. And while Maul may not have been what you’d call an “affectionate” brother, he does care for Savage to the best of his ability.

Their deaths still haunted him years after the events of the Prequel Trilogy and Clone Wars. These deaths stuck with him psychologically to the point that he is still effected by it in Rebels. Which in turn, may have contributed some to him wanting Ezra as an apprentice (among other factors).

Torture After Loss

In Son of Dathomir after Maul tries to get back at Sidious, he is captured after his last battle with Sidious in Clone Wars (season 5). It starts off with Maul being interrogated and tortured by Sidious. He makes it through without faltering and escapes with the help of the Shadow Collective. That being said, we never really get to see where his mindset is. During Son of Dathomir, he gets a lot done, capturing Dooku and Grievous (taunting Sidious and working with Dooku to fight Obi Wan and a few other Jedi before escaping). However, we don’t get to see the mental toll Savage’s death here. Though with everything going on, I guess there wasn’t time.

Now the reason I bring this up, is because part of me felt like I should and the timing. Prior to Son of Dathomir, Maul had recently lost Savage. At the end, he loses his mother. The torture and the scheming in between shows how he didn’t catch a break. And while he was able to stay strong when he had to, they never really explored how the torture effected him, which one would think he would have been.

Obsession, Insanity, Arrogance: Maul’s Faults

I do feel like I address this point. I’ve already kind of touched on his anger and arrogance (synonymously with cockiness). While training Maul, Sidious didn’t consider how arrogant he had let the Zabrak become (according to Darth Plagueis, the novel). This has Maul’s Achilles Heel since the Phantom Menace. While having a healthy dose of pride never hurt anyone, a healthy dose, Maul dose not possess.

His obsession with getting Obi Wan and Sidious is another issue. This really only pops up after his apparent death in Phantom Menace. Because after that point, Maul finds out that he was replaced by Sidious (with Dooku) and that he was bested by a mere Padawan (Obi Wan). I feel like this obsessive tendency is a combination of his feelings of abandonment and having his ego damaged.

And of course, I feel like Maul’s roughly decade long battle with insanity really didn’t help his psyche. While his sanity was restored thanks to Mother Talzin and Savage, I do feel like that’s caused more harm than good. Something like that had to feel draining after getting his sanity restored. He was sitting on a trash planet and on his own. Along with not having anything from the waist down and forced to manage with what he had. Hatred may have helped keep him alive, but his psyche during those ten years didn’t.

He has a lot of internal conflict in an emotional and mental sense. Unfortunately, these negative emotions, obsession and pride especially, cause him more harm than good.

The Ezra Bond: Feeling a Need to Replicate a Connection, Even if He Approaches it Incorrectly

By the time Rebels rolls around, Maul is older and calmer (though still proud). Obviously, he still wants to get back at the Empire for what they (more specifically Sidious) did to him. And at first, Ezra seemed like someone that he could use. This is an element that is prevalent, however, not the only aspect of their relationship.

According to Sam Witwer, Maul’s VA, Maul did have a (platonic) fondness for Ezra. And on top of wanting to make Ezra his apprentice, Maul wanted to emulate a sense of brotherhood between him and Ezra. For example, his phrase in Visions and Voices when Maul says “...We can walk that path together. As friends. As brothers.” How he said it shows how he does miss Savage and wants that family back.

That being said, how he approached this connection could be seen as manipulative and more than likely one sided. Sure, over the course of Twilight of the Apprentice, Ezra grows on Maul, to the point where Maul wants to make him his apprentice and has an appreciation for Ezra. However, his pride and lack of planning cause a rift between them and there was a lot of mistrust on Ezra’s part, not that one could blame him.

Subsequent episodes show that Maul is hellbent on making Ezra his apprentice through any means possible.

Maul lost Savage and Talzin, and Ezra was one of the first few people to trust him in years. I think it’s safe to say that, in Maul’s mind, Ezra gave him a sense of belonging or connection.

Maul’s need for a connection could be interpreted as him trying to find something good in life. However, manipulative tendencies and how he was brought up, hinder him doing that in a healthy and positive way. With Savage, he didn’t need to do anything as they both had a similar plan when they met (Savage being indoctrinated into the ways of the Sith). But subsequent relationships (i.e. Ezra), Maul is at a bit of a disadvantage emotionally and morally.

Sure, he could relate to Ezra since they both lost people they care for because of the Empire (and by extent Sidious), but manipulation and harming Ezra’s allies hinder a smoother connection. Even if a force bond was eventually made. Ezra, arguably, could have been what he needed for what he wanted and a possible change/redemption/blank slate only for things not to entirely go as plan.

Could Maul Have Something Along the Lines of PTSD?

Now, I could do a mini theory about this as I’ve speculated that with another character before. It’d be an interesting way to look at Maul’s psychology. It’s one last little avenue I thought I’d address before closing this post out. Of course, it’s worth noting that I am not a Psychology major (as interesting as psychology is). I have, however, done some research.

I do believe that Maul, to some degree, may have PTSD. But instead of exhibiting panic/anxiety, depression or easily startled, Maul has more aggressive tendencies and is easy to anger. He still lives with the trauma of the death of his brother (and mother) and flashbacks of that and other events in his life, I’m sure he’d be effected by.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while I certainly think that Maul is no hero, his life experiences certainly effected what kind of person he became. Being raised as a weapon, abandoned, and tortured would bring any normal person way down. And because that was all Maul knew, I don’t think that entirely means he’s evil. Rather, he’s a character who’s been used and abused to the point that he’s mentally and psychologically broken. Unfortunately, that effects his life in ways that make him arrogant, hateful and obsessive. And when he tries to build bonds later in life, he doesn’t know how to in a way that, while laced in trauma, has manipulative and one sided undertones.

That being said, I feel like I should round out this introspective with a little positive. While he’s definitely been through a lot, Maul is pretty resilient all things considered. He’s cheated death and managed to live through a lot of abuse. The fact that he could keep bouncing back shows just hoe resilient and determined the character is.

#Darth Maul #Star Wars #Rebels #Clone Wars #Movies #Retrospective #Theory #Speculation #Discussion #PTSD?#Chaotic Evil #Maul #Star Wars Rebels #Star Wars Clone Wars #Zabrak #Prequel Trilogy

26 notes · View notes

unpopularly-opinionated · 3 years

Video

youtube

Okay I know this is an old video and everyone already knows how MatPat’s theories are usually cherry-picked but my gods I don’t think a theory has upset me as much as this one did. I don’t even think you could call it cherry-picking because even all of the things he cherry-picks are wrong except for maybe maybe one of them, but either way, it’s too obvious that he’s dancing around the bits that blatantly disprove this theory.

The TL;DW of his claim is: The Empire was actually good because A) the Republic was bad, B) the New Republic sucks, C) the Empire stopped crime and D) there was peace under the Empire, outside of the Rebellion attacking.

The first two are pretty self-explanatory, yes the Republic and the New Republic were both dumpster fire governments but them being bad does not inherently make the Empire good. In fact, for the most part all of the arguments he uses to explain why the Empire is better than the Republic are moot points because the same can be said of the Republic.

For the most part, the galaxy under the Republic was virtually the same as the galaxy under the Empire. Replace the War of Rebellion with the Separatist War and you effectively have the same thing, one group trying to keep everyone united and another trying to break away from that unified group. The only difference being that one was trying to break away from a literal autocratic dictatorship and the other was a conflict completely fabricated by said-dictator.

In terms of peace, while it wasn’t like galactic peace by any means, it was definitely the same if not significantly better than it was under the Empire. Piracy and bounty hunting was still rampant, just as it was under the Empire (arguably there was less bounty hunting under the Empire, but that’s only because they genocided the entire clan of people who were bounty hunters). Not to mention, the Republic actually tried to do something about the Hutt Family whereas the Empire did fuck all and often worked with Jabba instead. End of the day, the Empire never tried to put a stop to crime, they only tried to stop crimes against the Empire.

Now these arguments change when it comes to the New Republic, because when compared to the Republic, the New Republic was hardly anything at all. They had little to no control whatsoever as evidenced by the Mandalorian show as well as the sequel trilogy. They get wiped out almost as soon as they set up shop because they simply refused to acknowledge the remnants of the Empire that were conspiring in essentially the open. Arguably, yes, life under the New Republic was worse than the Empire, but that’s only because the Empire was working from the foundation that the Republic had set up previously, whereas the New Republic had no foundation to work from given that the Empire was completely dismantled (save for the remnants who became the First Order). They were a baby government that was barely crawling, let alone able to even remotely compare to the Empire during the height of it’s reign.

Then comes my favourite argument of his, my absolute favourite argument of all, and the one that honestly pissed me off to no end: The Empire let the Ewoks live so clearly they would’ve lived in peace with everyone :). I should preface this with the fact that he used the Extended Universe (EU) to try and prove his claim, so it’s fair game for me to also use the EU to disprove it. For the record though, I wouldn’t need to use the EU to disprove this claim, it’s just easier for me to.

One piece of evidence that doesn’t come from the EU that disproves this claim is the obvious: they literally enslaved the Wookies. We see this plainly in the Solo movie, which is canon, that Wookies are used as slave labor in the Hyperfuel Mines.

Some canon EU evidence is that Thrawn quite literally joins the Empire purely out of fear that Palpatine would slaughter his people, the Chiss, because the Emperor is well-known to hate sentient non-humans, especially ones he deems as a threat which no doubt the Chiss would qualify.

And lastly, some non-canon (pre-Disney) EU evidence is that the Empire literally poisons an entire planet, Honoghr, to force its inhabitants, the Noghri to serve as bodyguards to Empire officials, like Admirals or Moffs.

So excuse me if I’m not buying the fact that the Empire and the Ewoks were going to continue to survive in peaceful coexistence. Also while I can’t prove this definitively, I’m fairly certain I read somewhere that the Ewoks frequently patrolled the areas around Empire bases and harassed the Stormtroopers who would kill them outright. I think the only reason the Empire didn’t decimate their species was because they lived in the trees and at the time saw them as nothing more than a minor nuisance. Either way, the evidence is abundant that the Empire was certainly not a walk in the park for any sentient non-human species.

The only conclusion that can be drawn from this video is the one that pretty much any Star Wars fan has known for years now which is that everyone pretty much sucks. The sides we were led to believe were the “good guys” are quite honestly just the tiniest step below being as bad as the sides we’re led to believe are the “bad guys”.

It’s honestly offensive to my sensibilities that this video exists.

#random rant #not tagging this deliberately #no hate to him either #obviously #I just can't believe how bad of a video that was

3 notes · View notes

pretendwiseguysofficial · 3 years

Text

MBTI: Star Wars

Written by Ryan (archive post from January 30, 2019)

It’s the gift that just keeps giving! And it will, forever, and ever, and…….ever, because of Disney. I can see both good and bad in that. Anyway, here’s another daunting list of characters, this time from Star Wars. Major characters have gotten their own articles. Rey: ISFP (https://goo.gl/p5TKP4) Finn: ENFP (https://goo.gl/bXp2fU) Kylo Ren: ESFP (https://goo.gl/Fh2cSa) Poe Dameron: ESFP (https://goo.gl/rFc6ob)

Luke Skywalker: INFP (separate thread pending) Han Solo: ISTP (separate thread pending) Leia Organa: ESTJ (separate thread pending) Lando Calrissian: ESTP (separate thread pending) Obi Wan Kenobi: ENFJ (separate thread pending) Yoda: INFJ (separate thread pending) Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker: ISTJ (separate thread pending) Sheev Palpatine/Darth Sidious: ENTJ (https://bit.ly/2B8rzk4) Darth Maul: ISTP (separate thread pending) Qui-Gon Jinn: ENFP (separate thread pending)

Ahsoka Tano: ENFP (separate thread pending)

More Below

PREQUELS

Padme Amidala: ESFJ Padme is the most prominent ESFJ in the saga (aside from C3PO), and she’s portrayed by Natalie Portman with……..wooden acting. How ironic. The basic white girl of the saga is reduced to a monotone delivery in the first film. Who knew the Queen had to act like such a dingus so that her body double would have an easier time imitating her? If you think about it, it’s pretty genius. That being said, Fe is the name of the game here for Padme, as she’s primarily concerned with the needs and wants of those around her, and often champions for social causes due to her role as a senator later on in the films. The Clone Wars series amplifies her primary Fe and secondary Si, as she fights to restore the Republic to its glory days.

Count Dooku: INFJ No one got tricked harder by Palpatine’s schemes than Dooku did. Darth Tyranus himself wanted nothing more than for the Separatists to restore a rightful order to the galaxy (in his eyes), free from the corruption of the Jedi and the Republic. Even as he was in on most of Palpatine’s grand plans from the start, he was unaware of his master’s true deception towards him until his final seconds.

It’s only fitting that the gentlemanly villain of the saga, and even more fitting that he wanted Obi-Wan as his apprentice (another xNFJ), to usurp Palpatine. Count Dooku is basically the Ra’s Al Ghul of Star Wars.

Jar-Jar Binks: ESFP My favorite character! Just kidding. But really, Jar-Jar ain’t all that bad; he’s just an annoying ESFP. Jar-Jar lives primarily in the moment as a comic relief goober that bares little-to-no importance to the plot, except for the crowning moment where he facilitates the senate to give Chancellor Palpatine emergency powers. Oh, now you’ve got a reason to hate him.

Mace Windu: ENTJ “George……I want a purple lightsaber. Pleeaaaase?”

Unfortunately, Samuel L. Jackson himself never got to utter his catchphrase as he portrayed a more stoic ENTJ this time around. Mace Windu, known in the Legends continuity for his infamous Shatterpoint technique (very Te-based), gifts a strategic mindset to the Jedi council. He’ll often say things for how they are in a Te-based manner (but with a little more tact), such as when he states that Anakin is too old to be trained when Qui-Gon presents him to the council. And then he’ll sometimes give us some one liners, such as “this party’s over.” But the signifier of Te-Ni? When he proposes to execute Palpatine because he is too dangerous.

Jango Fett: ISTP Jango Fett? Neevah houd uf ‘im. But what about Boba? Rest aside, Jango Fett just cares about the fat stacks he gets from being a clone template so he can be the best dad in the galaxy there is, and he don’t care who pays him. Sounds pretty ISTP to me.

General Grievous: ESTJ Hello there! Our favorite coughing cyborg general turns out to be an ESTJ. Through primary Te, he barks out orders to his subordinates, often impatiently. It’s like he knows you knew how to do it but screwed up, which is a superpower that ESTJs have and will use to pounce on you and your failures.

Grievous himself is a natural boaster, like any ESTJ. Your GIFs will make a fine addition to his collection!

ORIGINAL TRILOGY

Tarkin: ESTJ Roll your R’s! Heighten your received pronunciation! Peter Cushing is here to add some Britishness to your Star Wars! Tarkin stands as one of the most brilliant tactical minds the Empire has known (rivaled only by Grand Admiral Thrawn). But he is also one of the governors/administrators of the Empire, and it is because of this reason that he has become known for his Te, dishing out orders with an elegant terror. ESTJ it is, folks.

Boba Fett: ISTP Fact: Boba Fett survives the Sarlacc Pit in both continuities. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one. Everyone’s favorite character, Boba Fett, is just like his father (an ISTP); his allegiances do not matter as long as his employers pay him fat stacks. Unless he has to work with Han Solo. Archenemies do not get along that well. The everchanging neutrality of the ISTP is displayed most importantly in the Legends continuity, in one story where Fett himself turned on Vader and dueled with a lightsaber (successfully), when it wasn’t in his own interests to side with Vader.

R2D2: ENTP I’m always under the theory that if we could hear R2D2 speak, he’d be swearing ¼ of the time. This wisecracking little astromech droid always comes up with creative solutions when in a bind, all the while wising off to C3PO in the process. Sounds like Ne to me, right? But more importantly, the moral of the story for most ENTPs to learn is a little common sense and to sit back and think things through a little more. Sure they have excellent reasoning abilities on the spot, but would R2 have ended up in a Jawa sandcrawler if he hadn’t smarted off to Threepio in the desert and abandoned him? He may have had a “mission,” but he could have let Threepio in on it.

C3PO: ESFJ Like a true ESFJ, goldenrod here never learns to shut his mouth. The ESFJ will blab on and on about small talk and things no one cares about, which is often why C3PO gets interrupted all of the time when he explains what he does or where he has been. Much to his annoyance, too. Because he’s a protocol droid, his Fe is slanted to please others, and this is why we have the perfect ESFJ in this galaxy far, far away.

Chewbacca: ISFJ Can Chewbacca really be typed? I think so! Just because we don’t hear him speaking anything, doesn’t mean he can’t be! Solo: A Star Wars Story did a really good job of fleshing out Chewie’s character, giving him motives and ambitions. Such as, his desire to free his people in the spice mines of Kessel. That moment signaled one of the few times that Chewie would act impulsively, to me, and it reeked of ISFJ.

Jabba the Hutt: ESTP Big shot gangster, you say? That’s pretty clear-cut, ESTP. And we see this in Return of the Jedi; Jabba just sits around on his butt indulging in sensual pleasures, changing his mind in deals quite often. He’s a reasonable man, since he uses Ti. In A New Hope, we see the way he deals with Han Solo, and he restrains his displeasure in the hopes of giving him another chance to pay him back. ESTPs, with their tertiary Fe, can often do this, although their patience will ultimately wear thin in the long run.

Wedge Antilles: ISTJ Wedge is your basic everyman, like any ISTJ there is. Does he have much of a personality to him? Not really, but from what I’ve seen of him, he reeks of ISTJ.

THE CLONE WARS

Asajj Ventress: ISFP Ventress has been burned in life before, so it’s easy to assume that she could be an ISTP based upon her cold, sarcastic exterior. However, upon further examination, ISFP seems to fit far better. Ventress lives wholly for the moment, so it would be easy to think maybe she could be an Se-user. However, her biting comebacks that she displays are a very common trait from many other fictional ISFPs, who, when unhealthy, can show a lack of morality when it comes to their enemies and this is displayed in their inferior Te which manifests as either a childish outburst or a calm and collected burn. Her primary Fi is displayed with her sense of purpose with the Nightsisters, fueled by revenge against Dooku. In the New Canon novel Dark Disciple, we see the cold exterior melt a little bit in Ventress’ newfound romance with Quinlan Vos, and we finally see her inch toward becoming a healthier ISFP.

Captain Rex: ISTJ Rex is a simple man, and our main conduit upon which to view the clone troopers who chose not to obey Order 66, all due to a little thing called tertiary Fi. ISTJs are like big cuddly goobers sometimes, and Rex is quite the example sometimes, especially in his appearances in Rebels.

Mother Talzin: INFJ All Talzin wanted was her revenge on Palpatine for double-crossing her and taking her son Darth Maul, ultimately for the Nightsisters to prosper. She wanted power in the galaxy, but even Palpatine saw through her lunacy and said nah. Sometimes, because of their imaginations getting the best of them through Ni-Fe-Ti, the INFJ can seem a little bit delusional. And Mother Talzin seems pretty INFJ to me.

Hondo Ohnaka: ESTP Hondo Ohnaka loves to party, and he loves making material gains out of any situation possible; this only proves that he is ESTP. He’ll ally with you, and then betray you if the reward is greater, and this is fueled by Se as he sees infinite possibilities in the present moment. With secondary Ti, he’ll always choose the right words for the right purposes to weasel his way out of situations, and with tertiary Fe, he’ll also treat even his enemies in a cordial manner!

Cad Bane: ISTP The most grizzled and seasoned bounty hunter there ever was between Jango and Boba Fett’s dominance, Cad Bane means business and business means credits. And if you eff it up, he’ll get mad, because he only cares about himself and his payday, which is a common stereotype of many ISTP bounty hunters in fiction. The severely underdeveloped inferior Fe that he has explains his cold personality toward not only his enemies, but his fellow bounty hunters. And with his quick strategical mind informed through primary Ti, which also fuels his own sardonic wit, Cad Bane is an easy ISTP.

Savage Opress: ISTP There isn’t a whole lot of character development for Savage Opress, but he makes a terrible user of Fe (with the exception of his brother Maul), which is the inferior function of ISTPs. So I’m just going with ISTP here for Savage.

SEQUELS

Captain Phasma: ISTJ Phasma, portrayed by the lovely Gwendolyn Christie, has always managed to keep this air of coolness to her character despite being punked by Finn twice and surviving the explosion of a planet (and possibly a spaceship; we’ll find out in episode IX). Phasma herself is an ISTJ in the best possible way, and we find this out about her character in her work ethic which is displayed in the novels and comics of the new Disney canon. The wild extents of her tertiary Fi is explored more vividly in these new-canon works.

General Hux: ESTJ General Hux hates Kylo Ren (secretly) for his whining, immaturity, and overall terrible leadership skills, and the fact that Snoke clearly favors Ren compared to himself when it comes to leadership. What can we learn from such an ESTJ character? Well, we can learn that unhealthy ESTJs are prone to loud, angry outbursts and shouting matches when their patience wears thin (that which they run low on almost daily). The unhealthy ESTJ is also known for sucking up to their superiors while they ironically continue on to treat their subordinates terribly, such as the case when Hux sucks up to Snoke, or Kylo Ren when he usurps leadership. It is only because of Snoke’s protection that Hux was allowed to say whatever he wanted to Ren, and now that Snoke is gone, well……that’s an interesting dynamic to see in Episode IX to come.

Rose Tico: ISFJ Booooo! An ordinary type for an ordinarily character in Rose Tico.

Snoke: ENTJ We still know literally nothing about him, and quite honestly, I’m fine with that for the next few years. In The Force Awakens, he seemed quite the INTJ in his tiny amount of screentime. However though, he shows a much more charismatic side more indicative of a loony ENTJ. Those gold bathrobes……utter tertiary Se. And what differentiates Snoke from Palpatine, is a slightly more charismatic side that manifests itself in his speech, almost like he can’t get enough of his own voice (a trait also manifested by unhealthy ENTPs, but in a slightly different way), signifying ENTJ more than INTJ.

Maz Kanata: ENTP Maz Kanata is quite the character, being the leader of a den of space pirates and other equally colorful characters. And Han and Chewie seem to love her. Maz is ENTP; making quips about Chewie being her boyfriend, being the “guy who knows a guy” (like Cosmo Kramer of Seinfeld, another ENTP) with the Master Codebreaker, and going on wacky space adventures in her free time, as seen in her hologram in The Last Jedi. Mature ENTPs can add a large amount of wisdom to variety of experiences they’ve seen in their long lives, and it’s no wonder the screen sizzles when Maz is on it.

ROGUE ONE

Jyn Erso: ISFP It’s becoming a real trend, isn’t it? Female ISFPs in Star Wars? Never tell me the odds! Jyn Erso, like many other ISFPs, exhibits a “once burned, twice shy” mentality that often causes her to be reluctant to declare loyalty to anyone or even be involved in conflict. Like The Dude (an ISFP) from The Big Lebowski, and almost all other ISFPs, Jyn Erso doesn’t want to take a stake in any side of any conflict. She just wants her dad.

Cassian Andor: ISTJ It’s a pretty simple conclusion that Cassian Andor happens to be an ISTJ. As a higher ranking official in the Rebel Alliance (I presume?), it’s no wonder that he wants to follow orders first and foremost and eliminate Galen Erso, because his very own Si-Te is on overdrive. But then, the Fi hits. Oh, what the hell, Rogue One it is. Hello, Scarif!

K-2SO: INTP He’s the droid with the sassy wit! He’s gotta be ENTP, right? Nah, I think K2 is an INTP. Because most of his dialogue and humor revolves around skepticism, I’m going to stereotypically label him as an INTP. It just seems right, and I’m getting quite lazy right now.

Orson Krennic: ENTJ He’s the director of a project. That almost immediately indicates ExTJ, right? It does. And boy, what a massive amount of Te he has. With the amount of balls it takes for him to stand up to Tarkin, let alone run off to Darth Vader to tattle on him, I would say that it only signifies Krennic as an ENTJ, because an ESTJ would never have those balls unless they were given them by a higher up or through experience (ex. Tarkin). And why does he have Ni? First of all, he has a vision, and he’s sick and tired of a bureaucrat such as Tarkin taking credit for his accomplishments and then also taking control, something the ENTJ never wants to relinquish. And also, he’s got quite the fiery-hot temper.

Galen Erso: INTJ Galen is a bit reserved and dad-like (his purpose in this film too), and very healthy INTJs, like Galen, are kinda like that. He’s a very realistic portrayal of one that’s closer to real life INTJs. That being, his tertiary Fi is well-developed in that he was willing to betray the Empire and build a flaw in the Death Star.

SOLO

Tobias Beckett: ESTP “Didn’t I tell you never to trust anyone, Han?” Spoken like a true ESTP mentor, through tertiary Fe. As TV Tropes would put it, Beckett is another character that exemplifies the “Heel Face Revolving Door” trope, in which the character constantly switches allegiances throughout the story. A common stereotype of many slimy ESTPs are their tendency to switch sides for their own benefit, due to their primary Se and Ti. Just look at Lando in the beginning. That old scoundrel.

Qi’ra: ISTJ While not so mature as a youth on Corellia (is anyone ever, actually?), Qi’ra later comes into her own type over the years as she matures and we get to see her primary Si in action as she makes reasonable, considerable choices amongst the entire Millenium Falcon crew through the film. And Si is one for order and loyalty; that is, until the ISTJs Fi eventually gets the best of them in the second or third act and they have a change of heart. In this case, it’s her turning on Vos.

L3-37: INFP Freedom for droids! Sound like anyone you know? Probably that Social Justice Warrior or extremely passionate Fi-user that you know in real life. You know, like an INFP or an ISFP (morely likely an INFP though). The rest of you that are just as knowledgeable in MBTI, you can fill in the blanks and you’d probably agree with me on this one.

Dryden Vos: ESTJ Again, all he cares about is the money and the pleasures. So, another xSTP crimelord/bounty hunter stereotype? Actually not this time. Initially, I thought he was an ESTP due to this. However, the scene where Beckett reveals his true colors in the con and Vos temporarily offers an implied allegiance to Han to get him, only to turn on him when Beckett leaves, signifies a key difference between the ESTP and the ESTJ. While the ESTP may go forward and stick with the allegiance, the ESTJ will more than likely feign it. And the ESTJ will sometimes do anything and accept any methods to get the job done (tertiary Ne), but ultimately dish out order in the end after the parties and dust have settled, returning to the old status quo (or rarely, starting a new one). To be honest, I’m still thinking about this one. I might go back and change Vos to an ESTP. Who knows, in time.

GENERAL

Darth Plagueis: INTP Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the INTP? I thought not. It’s not a story Enneagram would tell you. It’s an MBTI legend. Darth Plagueis was an INTP so powerful and so wise he could use his primary Ti to influence the midichlorians to create…… life. He had such a knowledge of MBTI that he could even keep the ones he cared about from calling themselves an intuitive when they were a sensor, or convince an INTJ that MBTI was not baloney. The dark side of the INTP is a pathway to many abilities, some consider to be unnatural. Eventually, he became so powerful… the only thing he was afraid of was losing his Ti, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his ENTJ apprentice MBTI, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic. He could save others from death, but not himself.

Iden Versio: ISTJ I swear, this series churns out ISTJs like an assembly line. With Iden Versio, I hadn’t played Battlefront II, but I’d only seen a few cutscenes on YouTube to know that she’s another ISTJ. For my reasoning, just like at Cassian Andor above; it’s pretty much the same, except for an even greater amount of tertiary Fi from Versio.

Grand Admiral Thrawn: INTJ And now for the last but not least, most interesting character in the entire saga: Thrawn. And while his type is nothing but obvious, it’s interesting to delve into. Unfortunately, I don’t have all the time in the world to grant him his own separate post, so a paragraph or two will do. As an INTJ, what separates him from an ENTJ is tertiary Fi, and as small as it is, it’s still there. Versus being almost non-existent in unhealthy ENTJs. This allows him a more suave, cool demeanor, almost gentlemanly and noble, versus the ENTJ’s “I’ll only display that attitude because I’m sociable and charismatic, but I won’t be it” demeanor. In the Thrawn trilogy in Legends, Thrawn is more considerate to his subordinates and his partners, such as Jorus C’Boath (giving him Luke Skywalker), than Palpatine ever was to anyone. More often than not, when an INTJ makes a promise, you can bet they’ll stick with it.

CHARACTERS WITHOUT DESCRIPTIONS

Alright now, for the sake of brevity of this article, here are the characters I will not type descriptions for, just because either they explain themselves, they don’t warrant enough of an explanation, they’re minor, or they aren’t as relevant anymore (Legends characters). In regards to

SEQUELS

BB8: ESFP DJ: ESTP Unkar Plutt: ESTJ Lieutenant Connix: ISFJ Admiral Holdo: ISFJ

ORIGINAL TRILOGY

Uncle Owen: ISTJ Aunt Beru: ISFJ Greedo: who knows Lobot: ISTJ Bossk: ESTP Dengar: ISTP Zuckuss: ISTP IG-88: INTJ (even more of an awesome character in Legends) Wicket Warrick: ESFP Nien Nunb: ESFP

ROGUE ONE

Bodhi Rook: ESFJ Chirrut Îmwe: INFP Baze Malbus: ISTJ Saw Gerrera: INFJ

SOLO

Val: ISTJ Rio: ESTP Enfys Nest Leader: INFP

PREQUELS

Watto: ESTJ Sebulba: ESTP Nute Gunray: ESTJ Zam Wessel: ISTJ Captain Tanaka: ISTJ Captain Typho: ISFJ Boss Nass: ESFJ

THE CLONE WARS

Plo Koon: INTJ Luminara Unduli: INFJ Aayla Secura: ESFP Kit Fisto: ENFJ Bariss Offee: INFP Fives: ESFJ Duchess Satine: ENFJ Pre-Viszla: ENTP Quinlan Vos: ESFP

REBELS

Kanan Jarrus: ISFJ Hera Syndulla: ISTJ Sabine: ISFP Zeb Orrelios: ESFP Ezra Bridger: INFP Chopper: ESTP

GENERAL

Bail Organa: ISFJ Mon Mothma: ENFJ Iden Versio: ISTJ

LEGENDS

THRAWN TRILOGY

Mara Jade: ISTP Jorus C’Baoth: ENFJ

JEDI KNIGHT

Kyle Katarn: INFJ Jan Ors: ISFJ Jaden Korr: INFP Rosh Penin: ESFP Jerec: ENFJ Sariss: ISFJ Desann: ENTJ Tavion Axmis: ENFP

THE FORCE UNLEASHED

Galen Marek/Starkiller: ISFP Rahm Kota: ESFJ Juno Eclipse: ISTJ

MISC.

Durge: ESTP Dash Rendar: ESTP Carnor Jax: ENTP

KOTOR

Revan: INTP Darth Malak: ESTJ Darth Bandon: ISFP Bastila Shan: ENFJ Carth Onasi: ISTJ Mission Vao: ISFP Zaalbar: ISFJ Juhani: ISFP Jolee Bindo: INFJ Canderous Ordo: ISTP HK-47: ENTP Kreia: INFJ Darth Sion: ESTP Darth Nihilus: INTP Meetra Surik: ENTP Satele Shan: ENFJ

OLD REPUBLIC/TALES OF THE JEDI

Marka Ragnos: INTJ Naga Sadow: ENTJ Exar Kun: ESFP Nomi Sunrider: ISFJ Ulic Qel-Droma: ENFP

25 ABY - 45 ABY (and others)

Jacen Solo (Darth Caedus): INFP Jaina Solo: ESTP Lumiya: ENTP Vergere: INTP Ben Skywalker: ISFJ Jagged Fel: ESTJ Tahiri Veila: ESFP Anakin Solo: ESFP Abeloth: ENTP

LEGACY

Darth Krayt: INTJ Darth Talon: ISTP Darth Wyyrlok: ENTJ Cade Skywalker: ESTP Ania Solo: ISFP K’Kruhk: ISTP Darth Wredd: ENTJ

MBTI CHART

Key = Bold - Important (separate article), Italics - Major, Asterisk - Legends

ESFJ: Padme Amidala, C3PO, Bodhi Rook, Boss Nass, Fives, Rahm Kota* ISFJ: Chewbacca, Rose Tico, Admiral Holdo, Kanan Jarrus, Bail Organa, Captain Typho, Zaalbar*, Nomi Sunrider*, Jan Ors*, Sariss*, Ben Skywalker* ISTJ: Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, Captain Phasma, Qi’ra, Captain Rex, Wedge Antilles, Cassian Andor, Iden Versio, Baze Malbus, Uncle Owen, Lobot, Val, Zam Wessel, Captain Tanaka, Hera Syndulla, Carth Onasi*, Juno Eclipse* ESTJ: Leia Organa, General Grievous, Dryden Vos, General Hux, Tarkin, Unkar Plutt, Nute Gunray, Watto, Darth Malak*, Jagged Fel* ESFP: Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron, Jar-Jar Binks, BB8, Zeb Orrelios, Aayla Secura, Quinlan Vos, Wickett Warrick, Nien Nunb, Exar Kun*, Tahiri Veila*, Anakin Solo*, Rosh Penin* ISFP: Rey, Asajj Ventress, Jyn Erso, Sabine, Galen Marek/Starkiller*, Mission Vao*, Juhani*, Ania Solo*, Darth Bandon* ESTP: Lando Calrissian, Tobias Beckett, Jabba the Hutt, Hondo Ohnaka, Bossk, DJ, Rio, Sebulba, Chopper, Cade Skywalker*, Durge*, Dash Rendar*, Jaina Solo*, Darth Sion* ISTP: Han Solo, Darth Maul, Boba Fett, Jango Fett, Savage Opress, Cad Bane, Zuckuss, Dengar, Mara Jade*, Canderous Ordo*, Darth Talon*, K’Kruhk* ENFJ: Obi Wan Kenobi, Duchess Satine, Kit Fisto, Mon Mothma, Jorus C’Baoth*, Bastila Shan*, Satele Shan*, Jerec* ENFP: Finn, Qui-Gon Jinn, Ahsoka Tano, Ulic Qel-Droma*, Tavion Axmis* INFP: Luke Skywalker, L3-37, Chirrut Îmwe, Enfys Nest Leader, Ezra Bridger, Bariss Offee, Jacen Solo/Darth Caedus*, Jaden Korr* INFJ: Yoda, Count Dooku, Mother Talzin, Saw Gerrera, Luminara Unduli, Kyle Katarn*, Jolee Bindo*, Kreia* ENTP: R2-D2, Maz Kanata, Pre-Viszla, HK-47*, Meetra Surik*, Lumiya*, Carnor Jax*, Abeloth*, Darth Wyyrlok* INTP: K2-SO, Darth Plagueis, Revan*, Darth Nihilus*, Vergere* ENTJ: Sheev Palpatine, Orson Krennic, Snoke, Mace Windu, Naga Sadow*, Desann*, Darth Wredd* INTJ: Thrawn, Galen Erso, IG-88, Plo Koon, Darth Krayt*, Marka Ragnos*

6 notes · View notes

plays-the-thing · 3 years

Text

The Mandalorian S2: Style Over Substance – A Companion Piece

This is a companion piece to this video where I examine the strengths and weaknesses of the first two seasons of The Mandalorian. It’s a collection of ideas and evidence that were cut for time or focus reasons from the main video. I’ve included both timestamps and quotes of what section of the video each idea refers to. Under a cut for length.

[1:48] Akira Kurosawa, whose movies would be very important in the western genre was very big on complete and realistic sets and effects because it helps the quality of an actors’ performance.

“The quality of the set influences the quality of the actors' performances. If the plan of a house and the design of the rooms are done properly, the actors can move about in them naturally. If I have to tell an actor, 'Don't think about where this room is in relation to the rest of the house,' that natural ease cannot be achieved. For this reason, I have the sets made exactly like the real thing. It restricts the shooting but encourages that feeling of authenticity." – Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography

[2:27] Like the original trilogy, The Mandalorian has its fair share of humor. The sequel trilogy also had a lot of humor, and was criticized for it, but it wasn’t the humor itself that I think people had a problem with, it was how the humor was done. See, in the original trilogy humor never changed or undercut the overall tone of a scene. If a scene is tense humor might lighten or even break the tension but never undercut it. The original trilogy would never, ever, make fun of the plot, character, or scenes in its own movie. The Mandalorian follows this mold of lightening or breaking tension without undercutting the scene itself which also helps it feel like the OT.

Just Writes video on Bathos is a good expansion on this idea. Personally, I find that particular brand of humor, popularized by the Marvel movies, extremely off-putting because it just screams at me to not take the story seriously and that makes it pretty hard for me to stay immersed in it. My three favorite marvel movies are Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, and Thor Ragnarok because Black Panther doesn’t really do that kind of humor and Guardians and Ragnarok manage to make it seem natural by genuinely being comedies.

[7:18] This brings us to Episode 4. Last time I criticized this episode, but I wasn’t very specific, I just mentioned that we were starting to get away from showing and towards telling. Let’s take a closer look.

The first part of this scene, where the kid was being a nuisance, was actually really good. It kind of seemed like it was going to lead into some genuine frustration with him being a nuisance and therefore maybe some drama in their relationship.

[9:51] Cowboy Bebop is another space western with a strong style and a mix of vignettes and episodes which advance a characters story. But every single episode builds up the themes of the overall story even if the plot has nothing to do with it.

To be fair, not every episode builds up *Spike’s* story and themes, but Cowboy Bebop has four main characters and every episode works towards at least one of the characters’ stories, characterization, or relationships.

[12:20] Mando’s mistrust of IG, when they really have quite a lot in common, speaks to something about his character.

What does it speak to exactly? Well, everyone might have their own opinion about that but here’s mine:

IG-11 used to be a hunter, but now Queel has reprogrammed him. Mando still sees the droid as the hunter and is adamant that it can’t be trusted no matter how much Queel insists that Mando must trust his work reprogramming the droid as an extension of trusting Queel himself.

Now, why does Mando hate droids so much, and particularly this droid? Well, that’s an open question, but I have my theories. Part of it is the trauma he experienced when he was young, but I think it runs deeper than that. You know how sometimes the traits that really bother you the most in other people are the things that you don’t like about yourself? The IG-11 that Mando met is a lot like the part of Mando that I’ve been calling “The Professional.” IG is efficient and ruthless, just like Mando on a job. They are deaf to moral and personal appeals in the face of a contract. This is also the part of Mando that took the kid to the Imperials in the first place, the part that he conquered and redeemed by the end of the third episode.

But IG has been reprogrammed. Just like Mando, he has changed and now cares for the child over himself. IG even develops a personality, and at one point attempts to tell a joke. But because IG reminds Mando so much of that part of him he had to defeat, he can’t bring himself to trust him. The tension between them persists pretty much up until IG fully demonstrates to Mando that he is there both to care for the child, and for Mando. In this moment Mando begins to really see how similar they are.

This connection makes it hard for him to let IG make his sacrifice, and he even appeals to this by telling IG that he thought his old core functionality was gone. But by reactivating his old functionality as a part of his new core function, IG is also giving Mando a template to incorporate his Professional self into his new self. He shows Mando that those two halves of his self that came into conflict back in the beginning can be synthesized into one new whole. He doesn’t need to reject any part of his identity.

Then the newly synthesized Mando dons his jetpack, fulfilling his only stated desire in the entire season, and defeats a scenery chewing villain to win the day.

But that’s just my interpretation, and I’m willing to haggle over what exact interpretation the evidence best supports.

[15:29] Speaking of Luke, let’s talk about fanservice. Now to be clear, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with fanservice, what matters is what always matters: how you use it.

This also applies to the other two “Trademarked Star Wars Problems” I mentioned in the last video: repetitiveness and hamfisted merchandizing. These things are not necessarily bad. For example:

I would bet Baby Yoda is the most successfully merchandized product since the OT, but there’s nothing wrong with that because they’re part of the story being told. Baby Yoda doesn’t distract from the story, they are part of the story. On the other hand you have Ewoks, which were originally going to be Wookies. I would bet they went with Ewoks at least in part to sell more cute toys…but at least they still sort of work with the story. In TLJ the penguin things are there for no other reason than to be cute and sell toys. Same with the crystal dog. They have literally no purpose in the story, and their obvious and prominent inclusion only to sell toys distracts from my immersion.

Obviously repetition is part of stories. That’s why we have tropes, and the Hero’s journey, as tools for a writer to communicate information quickly. Just from his outfit we know a lot about Han before he ever opens his mouth, same with Obi-Wan. In RotJ, the heroes need to blow up the Death Star again. It’s kind of annoying that we’re literally doing the same thing we did two movies ago, but at least it’s a little different. In TFA Han Solo reassures us that the Starkiller Base isn’t that big of a deal by saying “don’t worry, there’s always a way to blow it up.” This is an example of a character reaching out from the script and telling the writer to change their story because the repetition is getting ridiculous.

[18:32] So…why is it here? Yeah, I know who Thrawn is. I don’t know why Ahsoka does, or why she cares, or why I should care. If the writer had cared about that they would have made her talk to Mando about it so she could give some sort of story or character-based explanation for why she cares, instead of just dramatically saying his name.

I mean I know the most likely reason it was here: to build hype for her solo show, but they could have done that without punching my immersion in the kidney.

[20:20] So it was no surprise that in the end the Expanded Universe’s greatest hit of all piloted his X-Wing into the show. But, I didn’t mind this. They had been seeding that a Jedi would be coming to collect Groghu for a while now, and if you had been running through the timeline in your head you were probably at least half expecting this. It’s foreshadowed well, it’s part of the story, and it triggers our emotional climax.

The reveal is quite well done too. First it’s an X-Wing, then we see a Jedi dressed in Luke’s RoTJ gear but it’s over the security cameras so there’s no color, then we see it’s a green lightsaber, then they clearly show that it’s Luke’s lightsaber hilt, then they finally have him peel his hood back. Each small reveal builds up the suspicion in your mind that it’s Luke until it’s confirmed.

That being said I would totally understand if someone thought it was obnoxious and hamfisted to shove Luke into another story, even though it did work for me.

[29:12] Parts of it even connect back to Mando’s story and character, though not in a new way because it’s mostly a redo of Mando’s relationship with IG last season.

I understand that Mando breaks his rules a little bit more here, but it’s still a riff on the same theme of: Mando has a conflict with a character, the he sees the similarities between between them, and then circumstances force Mando to take his helmet off in front of the character.

However if his arc with the other Mandalorians was functioning properly than this could work as a synthesis of a change in ideology and a reassertion of his willingness to bend the rules, but instead it just comes across as another redo of stuff in the last season. It’s still halfway functional because by this point it’s easy to forget that Mando had a character arc last season and it reminds us of that right before they pull the trigger on his and Groghu’s separation…but redoing the development from last season doesn’t count as a real character arc.

[31:08] There is so much more I could say about all of the bad writing, plotting, and characterization in this season. There are so many things that just don’t make sense, waste our time, or just plain don’t work.

I’m still confused over what the writer was trying to do with the snow planet. Like they crash land there and Mando decides to go to sleep inside his hull-breached freezing ship and the fish chick is like “Mando this is dumb you should fix your ship” and then he just fixes it. What was even the point of handing Mando the Idiot Ball there? Why not just have him fix the ship without trying to commit suicide by hypothermia first? Like…what?

[31:27] Why are you just listing off a bunch of names that mean nothing to us like she’s a video game character telling us where we need to go next?

I want to point out that even though I’m using this footage of Delphine as a reference she’s actually managing to tell you something about Malborn and why he is trustworthy, so it’s actually better than what Bo is doing. Though to be fair the tidbit about “the forest planet” is cute since it will be a deforested planet when we show up, that line needed some character connection to not sound so weird.

[33:13] That’s what the point of Show Don’t Tell *really* is, it’s not about how much dialogue you use or whether a character is explaining something. It’s about using exposition to tell us something about a character at the same time. It’s about putting the camera in a place that shows us something about the character or the action, not just what’s happening. It’s about packing as much of the story as possible into every choice you make.

In Avatar, the way that Zhao tells us about Zuko’s banishment tells us a lot about both Zhao and Zuko. The camera angle here emphasizes Katara standing encouragingly over Aang’s back as he stares dejectedly at the ground (contrasted with Toph’s angry stare) and tells us about the nature of Katara’s relationship to Aang as his teacher and friend as opposed to Toph’s. In the opening shot of A New Hope, the low angle of the camera implies dominance and the length of the Star Destroyer shows us the long reach of the Empire. Every single time Zuko is on screen it is worth paying attention to which side of his face is dominating the shot: scarred or unscarred. Exactly what each side represents is up for debate: I tend to think of it not as good Zuko vs. bad Zuko but more as Zuko’s feelings of obligation to his family and people and Zuko’s obligations to his own sense of what he believes is right and what he needs to self-actualize.

Show Don’t Tell is just a saying. It’s a saying to encourage writers, particularly new or inexperienced ones, to focus on the *art* of telling the story instead of focusing solely on the plot and facts. I am using it somewhat liberally here to say it’s about “using exposition to tell us something about a character at the same time” but since that is about the art of telling stories, and not just a recitation of facts, it does technically count.

[34:32] With television shows and the way they can go on forever, and with how much money there is in going on forever, it seems like they always become a sagging mess at some point. Some of them manage to bring the quality back, but some of them don’t. So to a certain extent, these problems with the Mandalorian are kind of normal for television shows.

I can’t remember exactly where I stopped watching How I Met Your Mother, the last thing I remember is Ted dating some crazy girl and swearing off relationships. I abandoned The Expanse midway through season 2 earlier this year…maybe I’ll go back but boy was I bored. I made it all the way through the Wire. Season 2 had its problems but eventually got back on the right foot midway through or so, but the problems came roaring back in season 5 which it took me almost a year to finish because it was so agonizing.

Avatar is probably the most controversial choice here of a show in which the quality slipped but I firmly believe that if they cut out the second half of season 2 and the first half of season 3 the show would have been much, much better. Most everything in Ba Sing Se is tonally weird and the whole idea of a city with too many rules and bureaucracy is way too complex an idea for this show to tackle. Avatar does tackle incredibly complicated and adult themes for a kids show but in my view this was one step too far. They get Zuko to a place where he’s ready to join the Aang Gang but then have him backslide temporarily. There’s this whole idea of an invasion on the Day of the Black Sun but it would be such a story cheat to allow Aang to beat the Firelord without actually mastering the four elements and so obviously isn’t going to work. All of these things together just make it feel like wheel spinning where the story and characters aren’t actually growing or developing but just being padded out.

Except for “The Tales of Ba Sing Se” and “Appa’s Lost Days” obviously, those are great.

It’s actually pretty funny because the episode before Aang is supposed to fight the Firelord the first time (the Black Sun time) he’s a nervous wreck and everyone is trying out different psychological techniques to try and make him feel better which is…I guess sort of valuable for kids to see that nervousness is normal. But when you compare it to the second time he’s going to fight the Firelord, for real, it’s *so obviously* for real this time because Aang is having a *character* based crisis about the conflict between his pacifism and his duty to stop the Firelord. The comparison of the two is telling in terms of what was going on in the story of each.

[35:03] Now they are spinning it out into not one, not two, not three, but FOUR different shows all based on the Mandalorian. It’s almost gross how hard they are milking this.

Okay apparently they fired Gina Carano so I guess it’s not four anymore. Or maybe it is who knows. Listen, the point is they *intended* to make four shows okay.

[35:06] Thanks for watching all the way through to the end. These videos take a ton of time and effort so that means a lot. Even though I’ve reset my subscriber count to zero now that I’ve criticized the Mandalorian, I will continue to work on the channel as much as I can, so subscribe if you want to see more videos like this.

I promise to always give you my honest opinion.

Also I know I was shooting for one video a month and, well, I still am but these videos are really time-consuming. I want to make sure I maintain a really high level of quality and so sometimes I get halfway through a video, realize it’s no good and have to start over with something else. Sometimes it takes months of rewrites to get it to a place where I’m happy with it. This one came out pretty quickly, it was about 6 weeks from when I started the script to when I uploaded. Hopefully I’ll only get better and more efficient at it as I get more practice.

#star wars #the mandalorian #plays the thing #video companions

2 notes · View notes

shadowsong26fic · 4 years

Text

Coming Attractions!

First Monday of the month, which means Coming Attractions Post!

(Especially since I skipped last month, whoops…)

Before we get into it, as I always do in these things, plug for my Discord server--it’s pretty quiet, but basically a slightly more interactive version of this tumblr. Sometimes I talk a little more about origfic or other stuff than I do here, too.

Also, this is not my only hobby! As some of you may know, one of my others is lacework, and I now have a sideblog for that. I have pictures of my completed projects up there, and will probably have more stuff as I start…well…making more stuff.

Anyway. On to the actual writing stuff aka why most of you are here (also a few requests for feedback/Opinions behind the cut).

So, I didn’t get much done over the month until, like…the last few days. In part because work got super bonkers for reasons I’m still Cranky at but that is a vent for my personal blog, lol.

Precipice:

I have threeish scenes left, which I’m probably going to do as one more chapter (unless they end up Super Long, then I might split it into two). That’ll close out Arc Seven, and the first big chunk of this fic. As I’ve said before, I’ll split off into a sequel fic (working title Protectors) at that point, along with doing a sort of…interquel, working title Preludes, that mostly deals with integrating Rebels content. Also probably Maul.

Right now, I’m tentatively planning six installments to Preludes? Mostly because six feels like a nice number to work with, lol. These will be one-shots that aren’t super interconnected, all taking place during the six-year timeskip. These are the ones I’m thinking about doing as of right now (subject to change, and I welcome suggestions!):

one involving Kallus on Coruscant, shortly before he gets reassigned to Lothal;

one involving Hera and whoever her contact is in this AU (since Ahsoka’s doing something different from the Fulcrum stuff);

one where Kanan and Ezra connect with Obi-Wan et al. (probably through Hondo);

one with Luke, probably similar to that one episode where Leia turns up in Rebels canon;

I really do need to figure out what the heck is going on with Maul, don’t I.

…something else????

The only ones I’m 100% sure about including are the one with Kallus and the one where the various Jedi link up because those are necessary and/or plot-relevant, though I’m still working out specifics (especially on the Jedi one). I may also include something with Thrawn, since I’m doing something different with him than canon did. Like I said, I welcome thoughts/suggestions/etc.

Protectors will then pick up six years after the end of Arc Seven, with Arc Eight. And, as a treat, the working titles for Arcs Eight and Nine are Escalation and Watershed. In theory, I’m planning to post Preludes alongside arcs eight and nine, but we’ll see.

…anyway, uh, what I forgot to mention earlier is that my plan is to wrap up arc seven/the first fic in this series this month. Hopefully I will actually pull that off XD. And then we move on to the other stuff.

Other SW Fic Projects:

Big Bang is coming up again! I think signups will be next month? I’m considering three different plotlines as of right now, though that’s assuming I don’t come up with something new and exciting and/or another ObiAniDala plotline, which is what I seem to do every year…which one I end up doing probably depends at least partly on how S2 of the Mandalorian goes, since two of the three ideas heavily feature Bo-Katan. Of course, one of those lacks a plot and the other is pretty episodic/involves a lot of blank space I still need to fill in…

Anyway, we’ll see how that goes after the show airs and I get more event information, especially since it’s going to be structured differently/teaming up writers and betas much earlier in the process, which will be nice and possibly help chronically-undecided me actually pick something so I’m not scrambling to finish at the last minute but given that it’s me I probably will be anyway XD

As for other SW projects…I still owe a few meme fills from, like, April…but otherwise, extant projects are mostly back-burnered for now.

AtLA Projects:

Aka, the reason why SW projects other than Precipice and SWBB (and any one-shots/prompt fills that occur to me) are back-burnered, lol.

I am working on an AU outline, set to come out this month. There’s a couple of fulltext fics I’m playing with. I haven’t gotten any actual text written down yet, but I know where I’m going with them, at least to start.

The AU outline will be a canon-divergent thing set during the Ba Sing Se arc, and will be hopefully out Soon.

Fulltext fic #1 is…basically, the premise is, Lu Ten had a lover during the Siege, the soundtrack to this fic involves a lot of West Side Story, he left her with someone to remember him by, and then there’s some mindbending and complicated politics after his death. I think I talked a little more about this in a previous post? Anyway, one of the things I’m considering is whether to just tell this story linearly, or to start several years later, and go into the whole star-crossed lovers backstory as she regains her memories of what actually happened. The advantage to the first option is that it’s easier to work with shifting POV, which I prefer; and also involves more canon characters more quickly. The advantage to the second is that I think it would work really well for this particular storyline? Assuming I could get people invested in her and/or Ba Sing Se Politics/Worldbuilding that fast …y’know, when I think about it like that, maybe linear is the best option, lol…

Fulltext fic #2 is an Avatar Zuko AU, where he figures it out at age thirteen, and at that point decides he has roughly three and a half years until the comet, aka three and a half years to figure out how to make all this work (not to mention at least starting to learn air, water, and earth), and hopefully by then he’ll know what he should be doing with it? Whether it’s to resurface and Prove His Worth by defending the Fire Nation during the leadup to the comet, or something else (though Something Else doesn’t quite occur to him until he starts doing the other stuff). This will heavily feature at least one of my old OCs, and probably a few others (and likely one or two new ones), especially during the first two years. I’ve got things more or less worked out up until Aang resurfaces and Zuko’s plans have to shift/he has to cut his earthbending year short (much to Toph’s annoyance). Because once Aang is awake, everyone thinks he’s the Avatar (he’s not; there’s another explanation for how he iceberg’d for a century), and that fact just escalates All Of The Things.

((I’ve mentioned before that I am Pathologically Incapable of not creating a bunch of OCs and AtLA is a particularly strong example of that, so...yeah, that’ll be a Thing in pretty much anything I write in this fandom))

…anyway, this should be fun, once I actually get actual text down XD

Original Fic:

I did write one thing last month! Which was nice. Hopefully, I’ll get a bit done this month, too. For those of you who don’t know, most of my original stuff is posted on rainbowfic, which is a great community and if you guys do original stuff you post online, you should come join.

I’ve also started poking at a couple of new concepts, because that is how my brain do. Including one Arthuriana story despite the fact that I’m not super into Arthuriana but then my brain was like “what if Mordred was a girl?” and welp. Here I am.

NaNo:

I’m proooooooobably going to do a similar setup to what I had the past couple years--set myself a wordcount goal, but not bind myself to any single project. Depending on how things go this month, either with Precipice!verse or SWBB or my AtLA stuff, or if that Mordred thing catches on, I might try to prioritize one or more things (like, have my goal be 20k on X project, and 30k on other stuff), but I’ll decide that closer to the date.

…I think that’s everything! What are you guys up to lately? Does anyone have NaNo plans? Any thoughts on stuff I mentioned on my docket, so to speak? What’s on your mind?

#miscellania #coming attractions #feedback greatly appreciated #shadowsong26fic #shadowsong writes star wars #shadowsong writes atla #shadowsong writes original fic

5 notes · View notes

dexi-green · 4 years

Text

Rise of Skywalker was good. Rant/Appreciation, spoilers ahead. Super long and rambling. This is all personal opinion, if you disliked it, thats fine. If you disagree, great.

First some quick points, then the longer stuff.

I loved Babu Frik and D-O

We finally got to see the Knights of Ren in action!

Also all those Star Destroyers?? Like those things are gotdamn huge... and that many of them? Actually scary honestly.

LANDO LANDO LANDO! LANDO AND CHEWIE IN THE FALCON!!

WEDGE!!!

CHEWIE GETS HIS MEDAL!!!

Also not gonna lie.. I wanted to see a gungan. Put some respect on Jar Jar. Or confirm the Darth Jar Jar theory you cowards.

We got to see a proper version of Rey’s version of Luke’s Dark Side cave vision (The TLJ one just wasn’t it for me. The mirrors..okay...)

Storm Troopers fly now... Did they steal stuff from some Mandalorians. Mandalorians are like..the only ones ever to have jet packs like that (that I’m aware of). Maybe the Mandalorian show will see some leftover imperials stealing Mandalorian armor, which they will replicate (obviously badly, because there stuff is no beskar).

I was so happy to see the interactions between Leia and Connix, because I just loved to see Billie with her mom <3 I’m so glad they gave her a role and just kept expanding it.

Hux... I love the back and forth between him and General Pryde, (I was hoping Richard E Grant would’ve played Thrawn but alas...) wondering who the mole is, and OF COURSE ITS HUX! Because he just wants to see Kylo lose. We love it.. I’m kinda sad he was taken out so quick, but it was good while it lasted.

How they tried to push Poe into some kind of.. not relationship, but not too subtlety trying to tell the audience, no he’s not gay, in like...just a bad writing way, like okay gosh, he’s straight (Also Poe was a drug runner...). That LGBTQ “representation” was trash, but definitely better than Endgame’s so-called representation.

I also wished we woulda got more (legacy) cameos, especially in the final battle when all the ships arrive. Maybe the Ghost Crew (I think you can see the ship though), or a character from the Mandalorian show (I was hoping for more tie-in’s in general (baby yoda), but The Mandalorian did sorta set up the force healing ability). My foolish soul was hoping for a super old old clone or a super old and scarred up Mace Windu, or just super old Ahsoka, but this film 100% confirmed no going back that they are totally dead with their voices amongst the other dead jedi :/ I can’t have everything and thats alright. I’m just glad they were in there in some capacity.

JJ has said that the thing Finn was going to tell Rey was that he was force sensitive (none of the good ships flew sadly imo) but that is still...amazing to me. I love it so much. Especially with that exchange between him and Han in TFA “We’ll use the force.” “That’s not how the force works.”. Hopefully he got or gets the chance to tell Rey because then she could train him and <3 Also I think that now makes it go back to no non-force sensitive people have used a lightsaber in the films (aside from Grievous). I loved the inclusion of Jannah and the other storm trooper deserters. Not only because of the kinship with Finn, but also... They are on a moon of Endor... So moon of the Endor system inhabitants, with slightly primitive techniques and tools and things come to help in the final battle? I love it. Putting some respeck on the Ewoks (also we see Ewoks?!?! Specifically Wickett <3) (Also I noticed a Fire, Water, Earth theme. The final battle in the prequels was in fire/lava. The final battle in the original trilogy was on the forest moon of endor, and while not the final battle, Kef Bir is the ocean moon of endor)

Palpatine doing what we all knew he was, using bodies to live through. I mean thats why he always had apprentices, just so he could skip over to them when his body got gross and weak, or at the very least work through them. I definitely wanna know more about the whole Snoke operation. We knew it was insane for some rando to be that powerful to be whispering and seducing Ben to the dark side from birth. And the cloning? like please, tell me more. I loved Palpatine’s exclamation of “Return of the Sith!” as an obvious nod to the films Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith, but also the fact Return was going to be Revenge of the Jedi.

I LOVE LOVEDDDD the small scene of Luke training Leia. Yeah the CGI on their faces wasn’t the best but just being able to see it and knowing that he did go forward and train her as well as other students was everything to me. I’ve always wanted Leia’s force abilities to be more acknowledged outside of the comics, so you know I went crazy in the scene from TLJ (for multiple reasons). Leia training Rey?! Rey referring to her (and Luke) as her jedi masters?! we love to see it <3 Rey going back to Tatooine, back to the moisture farm (I could just hear Aunt Beru calling out for Luke (but also him calling for her and uncle owen when they got disintegrated..oop)). Calling herself a Skywalker, AND SEEING LUKE AND LEIA’S FORCE GHOST!! WE LOVE TO SEE IT (but hate it because it’s the end). THE TWIN SUNS AS THE SAGA ENDS WHERE IT BEGAN!!

The voices of the Jedi at the end?!? I cried. I mean there was Anakin, Obi-Wan (both old and young), Qui Gon, Mace Windu, Yoda, and Luke of course, but also Aaayla Secura, Luminara, Adi Gallia, KANAN JARRUS (who is voice by Freddie Prinze Jr. aka the best Fred Scooby Doo could ask for) , AHSOKA TANO!!! Nothing I want more than more Ahsoka <3 I would’ve loved to see them all show up as Force Ghosts at the end ala the ghosts of Harry’s family in Harry Potter Goblet of Fire/Deathly Hallows but I understand why they opted for voices only. Also no Ki-Adi-Mundi because while everyone was saying, “Rey, You can do it! We are with you!” he just woulda been like, “But...what about the droid attack on the wookiees?”

Han!! Han!! When he appeared to Kylo, after Leia pulled him back as much as she could, and Rey healed him and inched him further, and then of course, Han finished the job. Leia asked him to bring him back and he did in the end. The person he seemingly hated the most (maybe thats tied with Luke. I honestly would’ve liked to see some kinda of thing between Luke and Ben, some reconciliation). The famous Solo “I know” which we all know means I love you. like come onnnnn <3 AND Ben and Leia’s bodies becoming one with the force... but Leia only after Ben... like she was holding on, waiting for him <3 This really made me like Ben/Kylo a bit more, obviously the light side Ben more, because Kylo is actual trash imo.

I cried when Chewie cried for Leia. Her death was sad on it’s own, but Chewie just broke me. He had a happy family, then Ben went bad, Han and Leia split, and Luke left, then when he thinks everything is coming back together, He lost Han, then he lost Luke, now Leia? If you actually watch him he just collapses to the ground, throwing his arms, sobbing... AND HAVING TO SEE HIM IN SHACKLES!?!? And not like “oh we gotta trick these guards” but actually captured and shackled, After all the wookiees being captured and enslaved and he how he had to deal with that...come on man....

I cried when Luke pulled his X-wing out of the water. We all saw it submerged in TLJ, waiting for that moment when someone would do it. The fact that he does it, when he couldn’t back when it happened on Dagobah. It shows how much he’s grown, showed him stepping into Yoda’s role even more fully. He never got to leave that island in it, but Rey did. Plus Rey wearing his Rebel helmet like she wore the helmet in TFA?! Honestly... Two “nobodies” from nowhere sand planets who become the hope and saviors of the galaxy (you could include Anakin in that as well, but he just...kinda sparked the hope in Luke and was his savior so...indirectly the hope and savior).

The only thing I didn't like was the Ben and Rey kiss at the end but luckily it wasn't drawn out and he died right after. Cause you really expect me to believe that within the same movie of him pushing her to her limits and making her believe she killed a friend that she gone be like...oh but you still cute tho? Also while re-watching everything and watching the prequels last month I remembered how Palpatine influenced the midichlorians/force to make Anakin in Shmi (it might not be canonized though, I’m not sure...). Obviously he’s not a biological father but...he is responsible...so that in a way makes him Kylo's grandfather in a sense. Rey is Sheev’s biological granddaughter so...big yikes. To me Kylo/Ben and Rey have a much better dynamic as brother and sister anyway.. I think a brother and sister bond suit them so much better. A rhyme of Luke and Leia, and the forged sibling bond between Obi-Wan and Anakin. It has pieces of both and would have been beautiful for it to play out that way. About Rey pulling her family in Ben Solo back to the light. I mean she even thought of Han, Leia, and Luke as parental figures... but luke and leia kissed so :/ guess just a family thing.

Running themes in all of star wars is hope, family, and who you are. In this, the prequels were the darkest. They end in a family divided, hope seemingly lost, and giving into the worst parts of yourself. The original trilogy was about finding the hope in the darkest times, becoming more than you think of yourself, and that family can overcome anything together. This trilogy was about clinging onto hope that you can find and making it a beacon for others, becoming more than what you and others think of you, "subverting destiny", and the fact that family isn't blood, not always. Just because someone tells you you're a monster, just because you started to believe it, doesn't mean you are. Once you have hope you hold onto it with everything you have, no matter how many times you fail or slip.

Rey being a Palpatine isn't "the bad guys bloodline living while the good guys die out". It isn't about bloodlines. Sure Kylo and Vader's terrible deeds will live on in infamy, but so will the entire rebellion's. Instead of being like, "oh well by blood I'm a Palpatine so I gotta use that last name" she made a conscious choice to go by Skywalker, because of what the Skywalker family meant to her and the galaxy, so that their deeds live on and not Palpatine. He will become a bad memory, a scar on history, while Skywalker’s, the positive idea of them, will continue to live and spark hope year and years into the future. Her blood isn't tainted and her grandfathers nature isn't hers, if it was she really would be the empress on the sith throne after Palpatine's death. She would've took Kylo's hand and offers before. Its the same with Kylo. He succumbed to what Rey was actively fighting against. Its the idea its harder to be good than bad.

Palpatine's bloodline living on means nothing unless Rey decided to make it mean something. But she didn't. As far as I'm concerned the only thing the bloodline might've impacted is her connection to the force and how strong it was naturally (like Kylo because of Leia (maybe Han..debatable, i like to believe he’s a little force sensitive) and her and Luke's connection to it because of Anakin). Her parents also actively fought against Palpatine as far as we know, Luke and Leia fought against Vader like... To say oh your parent was like this so you are gonna turn out the same? Yikes. Also Finn and the other stormtrooper deserters? Literally brainwashed from such a young age to be killers but they said no? It seems like the theme was you can fight against your destiny or like Yoda said about the future being hard to see because its constantly moving so "destiny" is kinda just a trash idea, be who you are or the person you want to be, not what others tell you.

Also I see some people saying it destroyed Anakin's legacy, and I have to disagree. To the fan's Anakin's legacy was never killing Palpatine. Sure that was the action, but the act was saving Luke. It was coming back from the dark to the light to save his son and in a way, the rest of the galaxy, at least for a time, it was betraying his master. It was the why he did it, not the how. Not only did he save Luke's life, but he fueled Luke to go forward and continue down the path of hope and light as long as he could. Anakin's true legacy lives on in Luke and Leia and the Rebellion. Palpatine's return doesn't diminish Anakin's sacrifice. Because it wasn’t about just destroying Palpatine. Anakin/Vader's thoughts went to Padme and Luke, and the prophecy of bringing balance, he knew he had to do something. When Luke takes off his helmet when Anakin is dying he thinks, “The boy was good, and the boy had come from him–so there must have been good in him, too. He smiled up again at his son, and for the first time, loved him. And for the first time in many long years, loved himself again, as well.” (coming from the novelization of Return). As long as Luke lived, and Luke's legacy lives on, so does Anakin's and so does Anakin’s return to the light. Anakin's legacy and impact, the good and the bad, will continue. Maybe the people of that galaxy won't know of the person named Anakin compared to sith lord Darth Vader, but his impact will always be there.

Yeah they aren’t always the most perfectly written stories with the best effects and yadda yadda, I know there are some missteps and less then stellar things in this films, but they are here to entertain, and I’m entertained. There is probably so much I’m missing, and I really want to go see it again, and can’t wait till it’s out on DVD or streaming services...

It was a beautiful film that did the best it could to end a saga thats bigger than anything ever, thats been going on for years, something that is unheard of and never been done. I just want to honor the history, the memory, and the work it all took. I just love these films so much. <3 Also, always remembering Carrie, Peter M. and Peter C., Christoper, and Kenny, and all other actors and crew who have passed who lent their time and effort to all of these films and this entire franchise <3

#rise of skywalker #star wars #spoilers #rise of skywalker spoilers #ros spoilers #star wars spoilers #rey #kylo ren #skywalker #finn #poe dameron #luke skywalker #leia organa #chewbacca #sw #rant #long post #read more #personal opinion

19 notes · View notes

simonjadis · 4 years

Photo

Anon I’m ASSUMING that these are from the same person; apologies if they are not

I would say that my feelings are similar to yours, but not quite identical ...

Disney’s handling has been imperfect, and some of the mistakes have been made the highest level (I know that people give Kathleen Kennedy a hard time, but if rumor is to be believed, some of the interference that made IX kind of weird came from higher than that)

for example, Kennedy said in an interview that she tries to find people who just make big, successful movies to make sure that these are also big, successful movies. I can understand that as being a safe bet from a business stand point, but that’s not the same thing as finding someone passionate about very specifically telling good, new Star Wars stories, which we did not really get in the Sequel Trilogy

(one of the most common theories that I saw from TLJ apologists was that people didn’t like that it was new/different than what they were expecting, which was really not the issue for me or my friends. Also it was just a speedrun of parts of Episodes V and VI)

I think that I’m “too close” to Star Wars to see it as a financial asset rather than a beloved universe full of characters and stories that I adore, but I don’t think that “literally just rehash the Original Trilogy for two movies and barely acknowledge any other part of Star Wars until IX” was a good idea

Rey deserved her own story. and Luke deserved to not be retroactively robbed of his

as for George Lucas, I do think that years of backlash over the Prequels sucked the fun out of it for him. Also, who doesn’t want four billion dollars? it was a sweetheart deal for Disney, of course

the sad thing is that this meant the end of Clone Wars, because Disney took one look at Lucasfilm’s budget and was like “OH NO YOU CANNOT SPEND THAT KIND OF MONEY ON A CARTOON” which is why Season 6 was paid for by Netflix and why Maul: Son of Dathomir was a comic

I love Star Wars Rebels and I’m not trying to knock the show at all, but the budgetary difference was palpable. Clone Wars did have it a little easier because of the Clone Troopers (all having the same face), but on Rebels, you notice that 90% of the Imperials are the same guy wearing a hat with his visor obscuring most of his face. market scenes show just a few people (but plenty of Storm Troopers)

the designs of the main characters -- Ezra, Hera, Sabine, Zeb, Kallus, Thrawn, Kanan, etc -- are great and loving and detailed and most of those change a little over time, but there’s a reason that we only see so many planets on Rebels. look at the huge armies and crowds in Rebels. my friend @drunkkenobi is the first who pointed out to me that in Clone Wars, you sometimes see lines of ships (Space Traffic) and each ship in line will be unique, distinct from the others

it’s not Rebels’ fault that they didn’t have that kind of budget. that’s also why their space battles (and space ships) never quite look right. meanwhile, for Clone Wars, if they wanted a particular scene or ship that went over their planned budget, all that they had to do was ask Uncle George

eccentric billionaires funding expensive media isn’t necessarily the most sustainable model for storytelling, but it sure worked out well for Clone Wars and for The Expanse

(Jeff Bezos personally called up the head of Amazon Prime programming, who had already been considering acquiring the extremely good but expensive show, and was like “hey the cast from this show is at a thing where I am, I’d love to just tell them that their show is saved, give me it?” and we saw as many new locations in Season 4 as we did in the first three seasons)

but streaming -- where you actually get money directly from customers who then, through their activity on your platform, show you exactly what they want to see aka what is keeping them on your platform -- offers a new opportunity for high quality genre media. remember, scifi and fantasy were EVERYWHERE in the ‘90s and the early aughts, and then because too expensive for regular TV unless they had huge audiences. only through streaming do we have these new Star Treks, The Witcher, and the real possibility of a new Stargate series

why do I bring up streaming? because

The Mandalorian goes to show that Disney can 100% do good Star Wars. Rebels was good, despite its budget, but can you imagine how much better it would have been if it had aired on Disney+

as with the DC movies (three of which are good and I’m also excited for Birds of Prey), the solution to the our-movies-made-a-lot-of-money-but-aren’t-strictly-speaking-good is literally just “let the people who do the cartoons make the movies”

and now we’re getting a final, seventh (half) season of Clone Wars! twelve episodes looking better than the show has ever looked!!

if you’re like me, you probably thought to yourself “gee, only 12?” and, cynically, you figured that it’s a trick -- announced at ComicCon in 2018 to build up the first wave of hype for Disney+

and it is ... but it 100% worked on me, I signed up for Disney+ and will pay anything for Clone War

my HOPE is that this is a test run to see if people really like high-quality animated Star Wars stories enough to continue with it. there’s only so much clone wars that one can cover (my suspicion is that we will see Ahsoka fake her death during Order 66 in these eps, so yep, that’s the end of the Clone Wars right there)

imagine a well-written series with everything that Clone Wars had in terms of content and visual quality, but it’s set after Episode IX. to my frustration, IX ends with effectively the same worldstate as VI which essentially means that nothing much happened in the Sequel Trilogy. but imagine a series set after IX. we could see a new set of (Force-wielding) characters. we could see Rey, Finn, Poe, and Rose during some episodes. Rose could finally get to do something that’s not an insulting fool’s errand (she deserves so much better!!!!!)

we don’t need a new Big Scary Empire/First Order thing, just organized crime and pirates and Hutts and bounty hunters and individual planet systems going to war as the characters try to assemble a NEW New Republic (gods I hate the unchanged worldstate)

now, I know that Star Wars Resistance is not ... reassuring. this is the only screencap that I have from it because I couldn’t get into it. it’s not the animation (I enjoyed Tron Uprising and Iron Man: Armored Adventures and this is the same kind of deal), but three things:

-I watch Star Wars for the Force primarily; other stuff can be cool but I need the Force

-I will never care about ships racing and really I don’t care about an individual ship flying; I’m a Command Ship kind of space nerd

-apparently the writing doesn’t improve much during the first season. people tell the main character to not do something, then he does it, and disaster ensues. that’s ... it’s fine, it’s fine to exist as a show, it’s just not for me

obviously, not all Star Wars media is for me, but when something -- like TLJ or the Sequel Series as a whole (even though VII and IX are enjoyable) or Resistance -- disappoints me, I would never accuse it of “ruining Star Wars”

Star Wars is a whole franchise. the breadth of canon isn’t all wiped away by some disappointments. was the MCU ruined by Age of Ultron? no. it was a bad movie but from the same franchise that gave us The Winter Soldier and Thor Ragnarok. hell, Dawn of Justice doesn’t “ruin” Wonder Woman or Aquaman or Shazam. bad movies aren’t contagious

for the past several years, the Entitled Dude crowd has felt empowered. they were radicalized in the altright/redpill/MGTOW/meninist/nazi/gamergate/comicsgate/etc spheres of the internet and now they just have a reflex where they see any sort of representation and decry it as “SJW,” which they also seem to think is a bad thing

in the same way that well-meaning people on tumblr can get radicalized into being antis/puriteens, people with certain vulnerabilities on reddit or youtube can get sucked into a world that tells them that they are the default and that other people existing is “political” in media and in real life, and that people being upset by outright cruelty towards them is both funny and means that the cruel person is the victor. they need therapy and studios need to not listen to them

unfortunately, sometimes there are movies that are bad despite having things like solid representation. Ghostbusters 2016 was a delight, but my friends and I with whom I saw TLJ (all of us queer feminists) left the theater angry. we’ve bitten our tongues a lot (even if it seems otherwise) because publicly criticizing the film too often leads some incel monster to chime in with agreement, and we’re just like

the redpillgate crowed et all is a natural ally of conservative white evangelicals, even though the former group is generally made up of New Atheists (the short version is atheists who hold socially conservative views because racism/misogyny/transphobia benefit them without using christianity as an excuse). it’s kind of like how terfs will side with conservative hate groups because, though they’re natural enemies, they both despite trans people just for existing

unfortunately, when you’re looking at who went to see a movie or who hated it, not everyone posts with an ID card saying exactly their demographic. which is only going to make studios like Disney even more nervous about including queer content in Star Wars and in the MCU (I mean real queer content with characters whose names don’t have to be searched on a wiki)

that was a bit of a tangent, but yeah. sorry if I missed anything

#star wars #clone wars #anon #ask #anon ask

13 notes · View notes

gffa · 5 years

Text

spectral-musette replied to your post: Scattered Star Wars Thoughts: - One of the things...

Hm, I did really enjoy Alliances, but at this point I feel like Treason might just be sticking with me more (I apparently really love Ar'alani???). I can definitely see your points about Alliances: my big complaint was that it didn’t have enough Anakin/Padme romance. I took it for Anakin being task-oriented, but now that you mention it, he probably SHOULD’ve been thinking about Obi-Wan more (I guess I was doing that enough for everyone?). (continue re: Alliances) - But I didn’t take the Padme POV stuff about Duja to mean that she was particularly closer to her than any of the other handmaidens, just that their friendship was prominent in her mind due to the circumstances.

shadowsong26x replied to your post: Scattered Star Wars Thoughts: - One of the things...

i was talking about this a while back–i overall liked alliances, but it did kind of fall flat for me, too; in part for the characterization issues you mention (though i have more issues with vader than anakin/padme, but i can def. see where you’re coming from); but also bc someone pointed out to me that thrawn is kind of a sherlock holmes expy? and in alliances there’s no real watson analogue, so that dynamic is missing. and holmes sans watson can be insufferable. (cont) whereas in treason, while it’s not quite the same as in other books, he has *way* more compatible people to bounce off of, so…idk, that’s part of it for me at least?

Oh, no, I apologize for this in advance. XD I just really have a lot of feelings about these books! I loved that first Thrawn book so much, even knowing that Zahn had a tendency to write his OC as the most special ever, I was feeling pretty charitable towards the character because he was obviously going to lose on Rebels and I loved Eli in the book, and it was a nicely balanced book re: everything that frustrated me about Alliances. The thing that got me about Alliances is that I don’t think it achieved a very good balance about how to use characters like Anakin and Padme. When Zahn writes more minor characters (like his OCs or like Arihnda Pryce) it works out because we’re not coming in with those characters having a huge established story already in place. But Anakin and Padme have these connections that should have been coming up--this was set not that long before ROTS, right? Why isn’t he thinking more about Ahsoka? Why does he literally only even think about Obi-Wan like twice in the entire story? I can buy that Padme’s thoughts were focused on Duja because she just died, but the way none of the other handmaidens ever seemed to be part of that tapestry just didn’t fit with how Padme handmaidens have always been a group. Even Sabe’s relationship with Padme is littered with the other handmaidens being in and around them! And the final insult came when the book tried to kind of imply that it was Thrawn who got Padme to start thinking about how the Republic was maybe actually kind of terrible, which was mean to be a lead-up into her line in ROTS, “What if the democracy we thought we were serving no longer exists and the Republic has become the very evil we've been fighting to destroy?” Thrawn’s supposed to be absolute shit at politics, that was well established in Thrawn (which takes place many years after this one!) but suddenly he’s canny enough during the Clone Wars to: "Maybe what really troubled here was his suggestion that the Republic and Separatists all played by those same rules." In theory, it’s a neat connection to the events of the movie, something I wanted more of! Connection to the rest of the established GFFA and the events in it! But it gave me this really sour taste of how Padme’s story, her entire arc, as a politician who has an arc across the entirety of the TV show that’s at least somewhat hers, is actually inspired by Thrawn instead. Thrawn, who’s supposed to be shit at politics. Add that together with how Zahn built up that Padme was a character who was about diplomacy, about talking to resolve issues, and in the end her big climactic scene was still shooting a droid with her blaster. Add all that together with how lackluster Anakin felt to me and I just was disappointed with Alliances. I think @shadowsong26x really put it into clarity for me with those comments (THANK YOU FOR HITTING THAT NAIL ON THE HEAD), that Thrawn works for me when he’s the Sherlock in a Holmes & Watson dynamic, but then that follows that you just cannot put ANAKIN SKYWALKER into the Watson role because that downplays the competency of his character. Like, yes, look, I make fun of Anakin and point out all the ways in which he is a dumbass (largely because this helps me forgive him for all the monstrous shit he’s done, but also because it endears him to me and makes him so relatable to me) but when you write a serious novel and have Thrawn explaining electronic stuff to Anakin Skywalker? No, get out of here with that. Not unless Anakin is either geeking out on exactly the same level (NO, MAKE HIM GEEKIER BECAUSE HE IS!!!) or is like, “Yes, we all spent a semester in comm tech class, I get how it works just from looking at it.” or Zahn went even harder on the authority kink. Because I do not believe, for one single second, that Thrawn knows more about machines than ANAKIN SKYWALKER. Thrawn works for me with Eli, because there’s a genuine sense of exasperation there, a genuine and justified sense of “what did you just fucking do?” when Thrawn gets him assigned to the Blood Crow, there’s an organic sense of growing affection between them, and Eli works as someone who is good with his own thing, but isn’t THE CENTRAL FIGURE OF THE SKYWALKER SAGA AND ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL JEDI EVER. I can see Eli being the Watson in that dynamic! I liked the hints of something really delightful going on there--that Anakin and Thrawn clashed with each other, that Anakin’s flying by the seat of his pants kind of style clashes with Thrawn’s need to control an entire situation to get the outcome he desires, that there were moments of hilarity when they snarked at each other (”Do you make a habit of getting captured?” “NO!!!” was hilarious) or when Anakin’s authority kink was on display, but there wasn’t enough of that to balance out the other problems I had with the novel. (As a side note this is why I’m hoping that Zahn isn’t the one to write “what happened after Rebels with Ezra and Thrawn?” story, because I’m not sure I trust him to not try to put Ezra in the Watson role, when I don’t think that would suit his character.) Whereas, in Treason, Thrawn is being put in situations where the people he’s pinging off him can take more of a second fiddle role, where I can take enjoyment out of Thrawn outplaying them (which, yes, Anakin is not a great political player, but he has enough sheer raw power and enough tactical brilliance and mechanical brilliance that I need that to be respected). That’s where Zahn’s Thrawn works best for me and why, when I went back to reread the first book, it still really worked for me even after I was crabby about Alliances.

#spectral-musette #shadowsong26x #anakin skywalker #thrawn #meta #novels #as always it's cool if others loved that book more than i did!#i hope there are people who did!#enjoy that book and flail happily about it and it'll make me feel better about it too!#nothing wins me over faster than someone just genuinely ENJOYING something they like #or seeing things in a kinder way than i did will pull me over far faster than anything #♥

47 notes · View notes

twilightofthe · 4 years

Note

For the Star Wars questions- 16 & 19. :)

Thank you!!! (y’all this got ridiculously long for two damn questions lol)

Send me a number and i’ll tell u my fave/least fave:

16. Book/Comic (Aight, so I’m actually not a huge comic reader in general, most of my comic knowledge comes from other fans on here posting about them, so this is gonna be mainly book-focused)

FAVE: Welllllll, since I’m literally incapable of narrowing down my favorite anythings, I’m gonna do faves for both canon and EU novels.

Canon-wise, it’s a tie beween A New Dawn and Ahsoka. I know I don’t post about them as much on here, but I truly have a super soft spot for Kanera and Kanan and Hera’s characters, they’re just so GOOD and I love themmmmm aaaaaaaaa. You get super good insights to how Kanan was running wild and traumatized and trying to repress everything and how Hera was a little naïve but still tough as nails and she had a dream and she was going to make it happen or so help her, ugh I just love how the story showed how they’re strongest as a team working together and I just love character dynamics where the two are so obviously married and kinda snark at each other sometimes but they have each other’s backs through everything and know each other like the back of their hands and uggghhhh this is just such a healthy good ship and such a good book. The Ahsoka novel is just fantastic all on its own because it shows Ahsoka as a young adult, kinda floundering and lost in this new world, full of guilt over what happened with Anakin and the Order, trying to do what she can to help people and just enduring because she’s a survivor, she was raised (by two argumentative, adoptive parents who love her very much SO SAYETH THE BOOK) to be a survivor and handle herself, but that doesn’t mean she’s not lonely as all hell. And oof I just fucking adore Kaeden Larte and her relationship with Ahsoka (who absolutely comes back and marries her once the war is over oh yes) and her relationship with Miara and ugh just all of it is A+++++. E.K. Johnston is just an amazing author in general and her other book, Queen’s Shadow is one of my two canon runner ups because I am in love with her Sabé and her Padmé. Other canon runner up is A Certain Point Of View, if only for the “Time of Death” chapter. Don’t get me wrong, the rest of it is also fantastic, but oh god it kills me DEAD OBI WAN DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER AND I CRY I REALLY CRY

EU-wise (oh god, I haven’t even gotten to least-faves yet), it has to be the Revenge of the Sith novelization. Without a question. Y’all it’s SO FUCKIN’ good, and in my personal opinion should be considerrred canonnnnnn (look I think the reason they gave for excluding it is that there’s no mention of Ahsoka or Rex or Mandalore or any of the stuff that happened literally the day before which is valid, but I counterpoint that Anakin is a mess with A Lot Going On At The Moment, he could have just forgot? He forgets most of his morals, all of his common sense, and three of his limbs by the end of the story, Snips could have just slipped his mind! xD). Anyway, besides the fact that it’s like 99% written in Obikin-colored glasses which really just makes me happy as a person because I love it being acknowledged just how important they are to each other, it really offers a deeper insight INSIDE the chaos going on in Anakin’s head, the mess, just why he falls so quickly and so awfully. I love it gives the Padmé plot that got cut on screen some validity. The beautiful beginning and the goddam introductions to Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi are just A++++++++++++++ and oof other people can more accurately describe just how good this book is, but I love it a Big Lot ok?

LEAST FAVE: Okey doke, here we go.... So firstly for canon, I’m not the biggest fan of how Claudia Grey writes Leia’s character. She’s a wonderful storyteller and I love her worldbuilding, but just the way she characterizes Leia herself never felt... right, ya know? Idk, I can’t really explain it, but it makes it difficult for me to enjoy her Leia novelsWarning right now that this is a VERY unpopular opinion and my opinion alone, please do not yell at me! So as skilled and admired an author Timothy Zahn is, I don’t like the Thrawn books. I’m sorry, I don’t. To me, Thrawn is just.... ok so he’s like BBC!Sherlock but in space. The plot makes a big deal about how “oooh cool and intelligent and Literally Better Than Everyone Else” Thrawn is, but the only way they really show his “cleverness” is by either him solving problems by pulling together information that literally no one but the writer knows and then acting like it was oh so obvious and in front of everyone OR, the story dumbs down other characters to make him look smart. And maybe it was because the one Thrawn book goes after Anakin/Vader in particular to do the latter is what kinda ticked me off on Thrawn books in general, but y’all, it really ticked me off, because Anakin is like the lowest hanging fruit for an author to pick to make their character look good in comparison, and therefore it is done All The Time (LOOKING AT YOU, CLONE WARS), which I think is lazy and an insult to Anakin’s character. Look, I am fully aware Anakin Skywalker is a dolt to the highest degree sometimes, but he is ALSO A GENIUS. He is SMART. IT IS CANON THAT HE IS SMART. So when the Thrawn book has Thrawn constantly one-upping Anakin The Useless Doofus (and Padmé a bit!!!) and then doing it again once he meets him as Vader, that just makes me hmmmm.

The canon comics are actually gonna be featured on the list here a bit because if y’all don’t already know my hatred for That One Particular Vader Comic (not the rest of the series run as I have not read it and from what I hear, it’s excellent and I’d probs like it a lot) doing the implication in a dream sequence where it says that Palpatine used the Dark Side to impregnate Shmi and create Anakin, well I HATE IT. Look, I know the plot was literally about Sidious trying to mess with Vader’s head and that dream shouldn’t be trusted, but it fooled all the fans too and now like 60% of Star Wars fans actually believe Sidious fathered Anakin and I am so damn tired of hearing about that. Yeah, now that Reylo is canon, that comic’s authors are trying to do damage control by saying that no, Sidious isn’t Anakin’s father and Rey and Ben are not second cousins, but they’re still being mysterious about it and “oh well it COULD be this--” so now there’s just more fans who are digging into that theory just because they don’t like Reylo and I don’t really care for the ship either but I really HATE the entire “Born of the Dark” concept for reasons I can explain more separately, so I’m pissy at that particular comic for spawning it. I know it’s petty but I do.

EU-wise, well, this is gonna be unpopular too, cuz I haven’t read most of the EU stuff, and from what I’ve heard of it, there doesn’t seem to be much that I WOULD like. The movie novelizations all seem good, but everything else??? “Obi Wan prequels but guess what, he had a shitty childhood too!” uh, no thanks, the rest of his life sucks enough, I want to see him happy. “Mandalorian worldbuilding, but they’re all a bunch of stoic, overpowered badasses who are Good At Everything And Better Than Literally Everyone and the plot bashes the Jedi left right and center!” ehhhhhhhh pass. “What happened after Return of the Jedi, except the Skywalkers still don’t get a happy ending because the galaxy goes to war again, Han and Leia’s son turns evil, Luke Suffers, and Palpatine comes back again!” nah, that sounds too depressing-- oh wAIT :) :) :)(at least the EU actually lets Han and Leia grow old and happy together okay okay that’s enough sequel salt for one day)

19. Outfit

FAVE: Everything Padmé Amidala wears in the movies. No I will not narrow it down. I am in love with her whole wardrobe and I want it.

I also love the standard Jedi tunics and tabards and cloak (c’mon, the cloak completes the picture!) It’s just such a signature and unique look that’s supposed to combine medieval European knight tunics and samurai warrior clothing and just the #aesthetic is oof, just wonderful.

Also Sabine Wren’s armor and its various paint jobs. It’s just so uniquely her and bright and beautiful and badass in all its stages and yes good I like it.

Also Lando Calrissian’s cloaks! Swooshy and colorful and good! I love cloaks!

LEAST FAVE: Gonna go with my petty, silly ones first, and those are all of Padmé Amidala’s outfits that are only seen in the The Clone Wars TV show (so not the ones that were based off of movie costumes). Eh, actually three of them were nice, her orange outfit she visits Mina in, her white casual housedress, and her black slinky Clovis dress. All of her other series-only outfits made me highkey pissy because they were either A.) Wrong for the situation she was in, B.) Defied the laws of physics and should not have held the shape they did/stayed on her body, or C.) just plain UGLY (the highest crime of all), and for the animators to have the audACITY to put any of those things in the mere vicinity of the most stylish woman in the galaxy is an insult to Padmé, an insult to ME, and an insult to Star Wars as a whole (yes, I am mostly joking, but come on!). No, I will not give the designers the excuse of clothing being difficult and expensive and time consuming to animate because I have SEEN the fancy, PRETTY outfits of the other ladies of Padmé’s status on the show. Everything Satine Kryze wore was intricately beautiful as all hell and I loved it. Riyo Chuchi’s two outfits were lovely and fashionable. Heck, I’m pretty sure I liked Mina Bonteri’s outfit too. There were tons of people on that show with stylish clothing! How hard would it have been for the animators to remember Padmé doesn’t wear exposed midriffs on official government business? That dresses with no sides or back cannot be sleeveless or they will not stay up? Not give her hairstyles that looked like either a goddam tuning fork or like Jimmy Neutron’s mother? That beige jumpsuits are BORING and adding a mauve vest is NOT enough to make it exciting!!!! xD xD xD

Aight, now in more seriousness, I also hated both of Ahsoka’s outfits in the original TCW show. Enough people have spoken on why sending a fourteen year old into an active warzone in a tube top and miniskirt is a BAD IDEA, but like it just makes me extra mad when you remember her older and more experienced at Not Getting Pulverized Masters were both in full concealing robes and chest and shoulder and shin armor, so you can’t even pass it off as Jedi not getting hurt as easily. Her updated outfit was only slightly an improvement because her Masters STILL got at least fully covering robes and arm bracers, while Ahsoka still had her entire back exposed, leg holes exposing valuable arteries and stuff, and a goddam boob window that basically signals “shoot me here”. Look, I know the animators goofed, and I know how they have learned from it because from Rebels on, they never show her as improperly covered for battle, in the new TCW season both outfits are cute and practical too, but seeing her running around in her red outfits actively impeded and took me out of my watching experience because I was cringing over her having a lack of protection, that it made her that much more vulnerable to injury.

Finally just gotta give a standard raised finger to the Slave Leia Bikini. Carrie Fisher hated it so I do too.

#thanks so much!#now i'm all worked up over Padmé's TCW costuming jeez #like there was one other outfit of hers the purple midriff exposing dress that was pretty i liked it #but like.... it was NOT something she would wear to meet the fucking Queen of Naboo like seriously #@ liz i got your ask too don't worry but it is a wee bit longer and i'm still working on it lol #asks #nerdgatehobbit #star wars #star wars stuff #queen of my heart #snip snap #ahsoka tano #padme amidala #ship: space parents #space cowboy #mvp (most valuable pilot)

6 notes · View notes

ramajmedia · 5 years

Text

Star Wars 9 Theory: Why Rey Turns To The Dark Side | Screen Rant

New Star Wars 9 footage teases Rey turning to the Dark Side, but there are a few theories as to why Disney's Star Wars Sequel Trilogy hero is apparently turning evil. Directed by J.J. Abrams, who has co-written the script alongside Chris Terrio, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is bringing to an end the Skywalker Saga that George Lucas started all the way back in 1977.

Although much of Star Wars 9's plot is still being kept under wraps, there are a few key details we know of, including the return of Emperor Palpatine and the wreckage of the second Death Star. Both are important to the new footage for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker shown at D23 Expo this week, which features a duel between Rey and Kylo Ren, and also ends with a shot of Rey wielding a double-bladed red lightsaber while dressed in what appears to be a Sith-type robe, suggesting she has turned to the Dark Side.

Related: Why Does Star Wars 9’s Emperor Palpatine Look Like A Cartoon?

Of course, this is Star Wars, and on top of that, it's Abrams, so we shouldn't just take this at face value. There are compelling ways to have Rey turn to the Dark Side, but just having her simply go evil on its own isn't really enough, not least when we've already seen that with Anakin Skywalker. After the Star Wars 9 footage, there are three major reasons why we're seeing Rey join the Dark Side.

Rey turning to the Dark Side in Star Wars 9 would be a huge deal, and one of the biggest plot twists in the entire saga - so why, then, would they give that away during the marketing? Sure, trailers have spoiled movies before, but J.J. Abrams and Star Wars are both notoriously spoiler-phobic and instead love to tease and misdirect fans, which is what this Rey twist feels like. Rey wielded a red lightsaber in a TV spot for Star Wars: The Last Jedi too, which ended up being part of her brief team-up with Kylo Ren to take down Snoke's Praetorian Guards, but since this is a different lightsaber, there's likely something different again at play, and the most obvious idea is that it's a dream or vision sequence.

These aren't uncommon, either in Star Wars or general trailer marketing: there's Rey's vision in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Tony's in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and the Knightmare sequence from Batman v Superman. All of these were cases that seemed like potentially big spoilers, but actually ended up being visions/dreams, and there's a great chance that's what is happening in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker too - not least because there's actually a good reason for it to happen.

We know that Palpatine is returning in Star Wars 9, so it wouldn't be a surprise if this vision was created by him in order to torment or control someone. It could be that he is showing it to Kylo Ren, or perhaps even Rey herself. On the flip side, it could be a dream or vision Rey has, much like Luke seeing himself beneath Darth Vader's mask in The Empire Strikes Back. It could be a warning of things to come, if she allows herself to be controlled by Palpatine, rather than something that is set in stone, which feels more plausible as she was so committed to the Light Side by the end of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Since it's in the Star Wars 9 marketing footage, then this feels more likely right now - but then, maybe that's what they want us to think.

Related: Star Wars 9 Theory: WHO Rey Is Doesn’t Matter, WHERE She Came From Does

A Dark Side clone of Rey being in Star Wars 9 sounds like a crazy idea - but then, so did the return of Emperor Palpatine not so long ago, and it's directly because of that the theory of Evil Rey being a clone feels somewhat plausible. It's not only the kind of thing Palpatine would do, but something he has done before in a sense. Star Wars Legends has a number of Force clones, and since Abrams hasn't been shy in tapping into elements from the EU previously, it's not beyond reason that he'd do so again.

In The Last Command, the final installment of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy, we're introduced to Luuke Skywalker, a clone of, as you might've guessed, Luke Skywalker, who was created from cells extracted from the hand Luke lost during his duel with Darth Vader on Bespin. Luuke was a physical replica of Luke, possessing all of the same attributes when it came to dueling and using the Force, but mentally he was a mindless clone who could easily be controlled, and thus used to do the Dark Side's bidding. Dark Empire, another key EU story, was about the resurrection of Palpatine - something Star Wars 9 is sure to explore in some way - by using clone bodies.

In canon, meanwhile, there's, well, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, which gives us both Clone Troopers and reveals that Boba Fett is a clone of Jango. It might not be quite as major as cloning one of the main characters, but it nonetheless means that clones are a) a well-established part of Star Wars canon, and b) something Palpatine has weaponized before. If he can create a clone version of Rey in order to defeat Kylo Ren, or use her to convince him to join his side too, then it's very much the kind of trick he'd pull. It's not beyond major franchises to try this with the main character either (see: Logan), and it'd mean that they can tease it in the marketing, but it still keeps it as a real twist.

J.J. Abrams is a director who likes to mess with audiences, convincing them that what they're seeing isn't what they expect: he spent months telling everyone Benedict Cumberbatch wasn't playing Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness, only for it to turn out that Benedict Cumberbatch was indeed playing Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness. He knows that by including a shot of Rey wielding a red lightsaber in Star Wars 9's marketing, there will be a variety of fan theories as to what it means, and he could be using that to his advantage in order to have Rey genuinely turn to the Dark Side - but that's not where the story ends.

Related: Star Wars 9 Should End With George Lucas’ Original R2-D2 Twist

Star Wars 9 ending with Rey turning to the Dark Side would be a bold move, but it'd also be hard to pull off. For starters, it essentially repeats Revenge of the Sith, but it'd also mean there'd surely have to be another trilogy to explore what comes next. Star Wars 10 may happen, but it's far from a sure thing, and it'd be a weird way to sign off the entire Skywalker Saga. If Rey turns, she also has to turn back, so that means she goes to the Dark Side early in the second act, and then comes back to the Light towards the end. But doing that within the space of a few days in-universe is tricky, so the real kicker would be that Rey does turn to the Dark Side - and then turns back after a significant time jump.

Disney revealed a new timeline for the Star Wars Saga at D23, which noticeably did not end with Star Wars 9, but instead runs for another 13 years. There are various possibilities as to what that means, but having a 13-year time jump in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is very much in-play, and would allow for them to cement Rey's turn to the Dark Side. She could join Palpatine's side, and all hope could be lost, before then being brought back to the Light Side - or at least, finding a sense of balance - after such a long period of time, thus giving more weight to her turn and allowing greater consequences to come about from it. It'd also be a means of expanding Disney's Sequel Trilogy, which so far has all happened incredibly quickly. To jump forward into the future, bring Rey back, and then end the Skywalker Saga on a big note of hope feels like a more fitting conclusion to Star Wars 9, and the best way to have this twist - if it really happens - actually work.

More: Every Star Wars 9 Reveal From the D23 Panel

source https://screenrant.com/star-wars-9-rey-dark-side-theory/

#screenrant

0 notes

aion-rsa · 5 years

Text

What Star Wars: Dark Empire Tells us About The Rise of Skywalker

http://bit.ly/2GnpBj1

Dark Empire was one of the early Star Wars expanded universe efforts, and it may have an influence on The Rise of Skywalker.

facebook

twitter

google+

tumblr

Feature

Books

Ryan Britt

Star Wars

Apr 15, 2019

The Rise of Skywalker

With a single cackle, the childhood memories of countless Star Wars fans have been reignited. Though he isn't actually seen in the first teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Emperor Palpatine’s laugh at the end means the darkest of dark side dudes is totally back. And if bringing back the famous Sith Lord feels like the oldest trick in the book, you’re not wrong. But, in this case, the book in question was a 1991-1992 comic book miniseries called Dark Empire, published by Dark Horse Comics back when new Star Wars stories were far more rare than they are today.

For those who might not remember, Dark Empire focused on the resurrection of Emperor Palpatine after his “death” in Return of the Jedi. Published as a six-issue mini-series from December 1991 to October 1992, it was the first major Star Wars comic book release after the Marvel run concluded in 1986. Written by Tom Veitch with art by Cam Kennedy, Dark Empire was also the first comic book entry into the ‘90s “expanded universe,” which, at the time was brand new. As Dark Empire was coming out, the only other post-Return of the Jedi EU material was the Timothy Zahn Thrawn Trilogy, which began, famously with the novel Heir to the Empire in June 1991, and concluded in April 1993 with The Last Command. Published in the middle of this was the Dark Empire comic series, which, was — in universe — set 6ABY, one year after the events of Zahn’s 5ABY trilogy, despite finishing its run a year earlier in real life.

These days, savvy fans are probably aware that the Thrawn Trilogy has partially been retconned thanks to Rebels and some new in-canon novels. But Dark Empire gets less public love, despite its incalculable influence on canon. While the Clone Wars are mentioned in A New Hope and are central to Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, it was Dark Empire that introduced the idea of cloning a major character, well before the mad Luuke Skywalker (not a typo) clone showed up in Timothy Zahn's The Last Command in 1993. Dark Empire also brought Boba Fett back from the dead, introduced the Smugglers’ Moon of Nar Shaddaa, and created the concept of Jedi Holocrons (really, Holocrons were created by Tom Veitch!). Bad guys also use some creepy attack dogs calle Neks in the opening pages of Dark Empire, which seemed to inspire those scary dogs on Corellia in the first big chase scene of Solo: A Star Wars Story.

And, just like The Rise of Skywalker seems poised to do, Dark Empire brought the Emperor back to life, and tempted Luke Skywalker to turn evil in the process.

The central plot conceit of Dark Empire was that the Emperor had been moving his consciousnesses into a variety of clone bodies for a long time, but because he was such a Dark Side baddass, his evil energy meant he burned through these bodies quickly, making each clone-body age rapidly. This fact made the Dark Side of the Force seem like a drug addiction that ruins your body, predating Mark Hamill’s 2018 comments which likened Luke’s death in The Last Jedi to an overdose. This explanation for bringing back the Emperor — in the flesh — is so good that if The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t copy it — at least a little bit — it will be a shame.

Aesthetically, The Rise of Skywalker will be nothing like Dark Empire. How could it? The interior art from Cam Kennedy is moody and often monochromatic. In fact, when Luke has a lightsaber duel with a clone of Emperor Palpatine, everything for several panels is nothing but green (other panels are totally purple, and all of it is, in a word, weird). In fact, in terms of a color palette, Dark Empire has more in common with the striking, almost minimalist art direction of The Last Jedi, than the lush organic feeling in the teaser for The Rise of Skywalker. Like bringing an inky, ruminative comic book out into the bright light of desert heat, the tiniest taste of the next Star Wars film feels like the franchise is blending a dark, bittersweet narrative with an Oz-like aesthetic. The Rise of Skywalker looks more like the art of Ralph McQuarrie and Chesley Bonestell than Cam Kennedy. This is likely because J.J. Abrams — at least visually — is less adventurous than someone like Rian Johnson. Still, one aesthetic from Dark Empire has survived, in a roundabout way, to the sequel trilogy: everything about Kylo Ren.

Back in 1991, the Luke Skywalker of Dark Empire dressed somewhere between a half-assed Darth Vader cosplayer and a vampire who goes to techno clubs. So in the sequel trilogy, a cipher for Dark Empire Luke clearly exists in Kylo Ren. In Dark Empire, much of the plot centers on the idea that Luke “pretends” to turn to the Dark Side of the Force in order to take it down from within. Since Kylo Ren’s shocking betrayal at the end of The Force Awakens, fans have floated the idea that he too, is a cynical double agent. Now, I’m not saying this theory is literally true, but the parallels between Dark Empire Luke and Kylo Ren are clearly there.

In Dark Empire, Luke feels like the only way he’ll truly understand his father is to turn the Dark Side and serve Palpatine. Ditto for Kylo Ren’s feelings about his grandfather and serving Snoke. In Dark Empire, Luke is initially confident about his plan, but then, gets a little lost in it, these leads to him getting busted by Imperial Officers who know he’s lying. Kylo Ren has similar power struggles within the First Order. And finally, the only way Luke can be pulled away from the grip of the Emperor is with outside help, which, in the climax of Dark Empire comes in the form of a fully-realized Jedi Knight version of Leia Organa.

For The Rise of Skywalker, all of this feels like a ready-made set-up for the existing characters. Instead of Luke and Leia, you can just swap out Kylo Ren and Rey. The evil Clone emperor can remain the same, mostly because it allows for Ian McDiarmid to return as the cackling old Emperor we all know and love, but then, when the time comes, jump into a younger clone body. This is what Dark Empire did so well, and honestly, if you go back and look at those old panels of the young clone Emperor, you’ll find yourself wondering if Richard E.Grant’s secret character in Episode IX isn’t just the young cloned Emperor.

read more: Complete Schedule of Upcoming Star Wars Movies and TV Shows

So, what does this mean for the plot? How will Kylo Ren react to all of this? It seems like the short answer is: poorly.

Throughout both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi it’s clear that Kylo Ren thinks the only way to fix the universe is to work from the inside of the Dark Side. This is just like Luke in Dark Empire (and Anakin, obviously) but it also means that there’s no way Kylo Ren will be happy about the return of Palpatine. In The Last Jedi, Kylo clearly is done with “old things.” If anything, Palpatine represents everything Kylo Ren claims he hates: an obsession with nostalgia and the past. Even so, it feels unlikely that Kylo can take the Emperor on his own. Which means that a team-up between Rey, Kylo Ren, and literally everyone in the galaxy might be the only way to get rid of the Emperor forever.

read more: Why Emperor Palpatine is the Most Entertaining Star Wars Character

J.J. Abrams has said that the new film will feature the “new generation” of characters facing the “ultimate evil.” But, since The Phantom Menace, what’s made the evil of the Emperor so interesting is that we aren’t really even sure what his motivations are. Mostly, characters in Star Wars make deals with Palpatine because he has something they want. Amidala goes along with Palpatine in The Phantom Menace because she needs him politically. Anakin goes to the Dark Side because Palpatine promises him the secret to immortality (pssst...it’s just clone bodies). And finally, in Dark Empire, Luke decided the Emperor had emotional knowledge about the Force that he also wanted. In all of these ways, the Emperor is scary because the good guys tend to really need him.

So, if The Rise of Skywalker takes any one page from Dark Empire, beyond the obvious return of the Emperor, it should be connected to what the protagonists need from the Emperor. Having a villian who is super-destructive is one thing. But having a seductive bad guy who offers good people things they can’t turn away from is much more interesting. Which means the central question about Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker isn’t really about how the good guys will take him down. Instead, it’s all about what he’ll offer them to join him.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is out everywhere on December 20, 2019. We have everything you need to know about Episode IX here.

from Books http://bit.ly/2V40CsQ

#aion-rsa #Books

0 notes

kuwaiti-kid · 4 years

Text

The Case for The Mandalorian Season 2 Casting Rumors

With Star Wars Day behind us and the looming threat of Star Wars Celebration being canceled due to COVID-19, a suspicious amount of potentially true rumors about the second season of The Mandalorian have been feeding the Sarlacc-like fandom.

If you do not like rumors which may prove to be major spoilers, turn back now.

The Rumors

In January, two tweets appeared on Twitter from an alleged fansite leaking the full cast slate for the second season of The Mandalorian. Most people brushed it off as wishful thinking, considering it included characters like Ahsoka Tano, Iden Versio, Sabine Wren, and an unnamed character played by Temuera Morrison.

The rumors were lent credence back in March when entertainment journalist Peter Sciertta with Slashfilm was the first to break the news that Rosario Dawson was allegedly joining the cast of The Mandalorian to portray the fan-favorite Ahsoka Tano. Again Sciertta provided the exclusive scoop that Katee Sackhoff, the voice of Bo-Katan in The Clone Wars, may bring her to life on screen.

Taking into consideration The Hollywood Reporter’s exclusive reporting about Temuera Morrison’s franchise-return as Boba Fett (or Rex), it sounds like audiences may be looking at a Clone Wars reunion in the second season of The Mandalorian, which certainly has undoubtedly helped in the days following its series finale. But, like with anything in the Star Wars fandom, not everyone is happy.

Shortly after the announcement of Morrison’s return, displeased fans jumped to the argument that Boba Fett should be dead at this point in the story. But is anyone ever really gone in the Star Wars universe?

Yes, we saw Boba Fett fall into the Sarlacc pit in Return of the Jedi. Still, if we’ve learned anything from watching The Mandalorian, we know that the Mandalorians are surprisingly resilient. It is certainly not outside of the realm of possibility that Boba Fett could have survived.

Especially considering that fans believed the character was already teased in the first season of the series. Remember when the mysterious figure approached the body of Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) in episode five, “The Gunslinger”? Audiences only saw the figure’s boots, but even then, fans were convinced it was a Boba Fett cameo.

Personally, I have a lot of theories about episode five, which was written and directed by Dave Filoni himself. During the first episode of Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian Filoni and Jon Favreau discuss the throwaway moment in the episode when the Mandalorian walks past Stormtrooper helmets on spikes.

It may be a moment that truly is a throwaway visual, but it also bore a striking resemblance to a poignant moment in the series finale of The Clone Wars. Now, this may just be Filoni putting in an easter egg for his other work, or it was an intentional decision to make audiences think about the two series. This episode also took place on Tatooine — the planet with the Sarlacc pit that Boba Fett “died” in.

It is easy to think that the introduction of characters like Ahsoka, Rex, Bo-Katan, and even Sabine Wren in the live-action series might fall under the idea of fanservice. Still, I am here to argue that it most certainly is not fanservice. Fanservice has been bandied about quite a bit in the wake of The Rise of Skywalker and the controversy surrounding the end of the Skywalker Saga.

Still, everything that involves fan favorites does not equate to fanservice. Especially not when the characters which are rumored to be appearing are already tied to existing plot points in the series.

Sabine Wren

When Moff Gideon ignited the Darksaber in the closing moments of the series finale of The Mandalorian fans went wild. While there is no confirmation about Sabine Wren’s appearance in The Mandalorian, many fans believe it is only a matter of time.

If you haven’t watched Star Wars: Rebels, you should rectify that immediately. Sabine is a Mandalorian and one of the wielders of the Darksaber. In fact, Sabine passed the Darksaber off to Bo-Katan, believing that she was the rightful person to lead the Mandalorians against the Empire. If the Darksaber has fallen into the wrong hands — looking at you, Gideon — this would be the perfect opportunity to introduce Sabine into the live-action canon.

Bo-Katan Kryze

The rumor of Bo-Katan’s arrival in The Mandalorian plot isn’t too much of a surprise. In The Clone Wars episode “Shattered,” Bo-Katan tells Ahsoka about the relic of a bygone era that they had trapped Darth Maul within.

It was a Mandalorian device that restricts Force users and allegedly the last of its kind. With only forty minutes left in The Clone Wars series, this dialogue certainly wasn’t frivolous. A lot of fans were quick to question whether this device would make a return in The Mandalorian. Especially with the internet’s favorite little Force user, The Child being a central part of the plot.

The Mandalorians have a long and complicated history in relation to Force users. In fact, the Mandalorian-Jedi war was what rendered their homeworld Mandalore inhospitable, changing the path of the Mandalorians forever. You can understand why there’s a lot of hard feelings when it comes to Force users. The Mandalorian-Jedi war also has implications for the darksaber. The darksaber was created by Tarre Vizsla, who was the first Mandalorian inducted into the Jedi Order.

In Rebels, Fenn Rau tells Kanan the legend of the darksaber. It was kept by the Jedi Temple after Vizsla’s passing, but was stolen by members of the House Vizsla during the Mandalorian-Jedi war. From that point forward, the darksaber was passed down through the generations, even after the pacifistic New Mandalorians shifted away from their warrior origins.

Needless to say, there’s a lot of mythos behind the darksaber which has been hinted at in both Rebels and the Clone Wars lending credence to why these characters should be the ones to carry that plot.

Darth Maul

Do you know who else has connections to the darksaber?

Darth Maul. That’s right—everyone’s favorite bad boy Sith Lord who survived being cut in half in The Phantom Menace. In 21 BBY, Pre Vizsla, the leader of Death Watch, was in possession of the darksaber.

During this period of time, a lot was going on with the Mandalorians. Duchess Satine Kryze (Bo-Katan’s sister) was trying to lead the pacifistic branch of the Mandalorians, Darth Maul was forming the Shadow Collective which the warrior Death Watch group eventually joined, and all of this took place while the Clone Wars were underway.

Needless to say, no one was surprised when Darth Maul took the opportunity to kill Vizsla, steal the darksaber, and try to take over Mandalore. If you’ve watched The Clone Wars, then you know that Maul becomes one of Ahsoka’s prime adversaries, which makes her yet another character connected to the darksaber.

Rex

Sabine, Bo-Katan, and Ahsoka all have connections to the darksaber, which is already a plot point in The Mandalorian. It makes sense to bring these three women into the plot, rather than to create new characters that audiences have no emotional attachment to. Boba Fett makes sense, given that he’s probably the most well known Mandalorian in Star Wars history.

Not to mention he had some pretty awesome storylines in the expanded universe that fleshed out his on-screen presence. Without Fett, we would never have a series like The Mandalorian. But what if Morrison isn’t just playing Boba Fett?

There is a strong possibility that he might also be portraying the former Clone Trooper Rex, who — like all the clone troopers — was a clone of Jango Fett, just like Boba.

Rex also appeared on Rebels, where he was reunited with Ahsoka and involved in the plot involving the Mandalorian group The Protectors, as well as the storyline around Grand Admiral Thrawn’s pursuit of the Arc Pulse Generator (which was a terrifying device which was able to disintegrate beskar wearers).

The Timeline

In case you’re not familiar with the Star Wars timeline, here is a quick explanation for how much time has passed between the end of the Clone Wars and The Mandalorian. The current timeline is based on the Battle of Yavin, which is depicted in A New Hope. BBY is “Before the Battle of Yavin,” and ABY is “After the Battle of Yavin.” Easy enough, right?

The final episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars takes place in 19 BBY and Star Wars: Rebels takes place fourteen years later between 5 BBY and 1 BBY. The Battle of Yavin takes place, starting out as year 0. A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi take place over the next four years ending in 4 ABY. The Mandalorian then takes place five years later in 9 ABY.

Roughly thirty years have passed between the two series.

22 – 19 BBY — Star Wars: The Clone Wars 5 – 1 BBY — Star Wars: Rebels 4 ABY — Return of the Jedi 9 ABY — The Mandalorian

One of the other complaints surrounding certain characters appearing in The Mandalorian is their ages. But with the rumored casting choices and the timeline, it seems likely that the characters would appear accurate for their ages.

Ahsoka was in her 30s when she appeared in Rebels, meaning she would likely be in her late-40s. Bo-Katan’s age was never confirmed in The Clone Wars, but her older sister was a peer of Obi-Wan’s. She was likely in her mid-20s during the Siege of Mandalore, making her closer to 50.

Sabine was born in 21 BBY, so she would likely be in her late 30s. Rex is the only one who might not still be alive. While he was created in 32 BBY, clones were created to age faster. In Rebels, he appeared to physically resemble someone in their 60s, suggesting that he might be somewhere in his 70s if he appeared in The Mandalorian.

The Bottom Line

We likely won’t find out if the casting rumors are true until later in the summer. Still, there’s definitely a strong case for the fact that we will see some of our favorite animated characters in live-action this October.

Sam Witwer, the voice of Darth Maul in The Clone Wars, recently teased that the new season would be mind-blowing. Rosario Dawson tweeted about fans wanting her to play Ahsoka Tano. But with Deadline’s confirmation about Sackhoff joining the cast, it seems like theories may just become a reality.

The Mandalorian season two premieres in October only on Disney+.

The post The Case for The Mandalorian Season 2 Casting Rumors appeared first on Your Money Geek.

from Your Money Geek https://ift.tt/3dCnl4U via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Your Money Geek

0 notes