Maybe my ode to Star Wars figures got me thinking about this, but I’ve had a couple of interesting thoughts after watching Episode III and then the original Star Wars back-to-back.
Where are you taking this…thing?: Whatever media handles the years between Sith and Star Wars, I hope they realize that a big part of the story is going to have to be the homogenization of the Empire. In Sith, we see Palpatine with a handful of hangers-on who are decidedly alien; by the time we get to Star Wars (or, if you’re one of those people who must call it this, A New Hope), the Empire has not only become completely human, but it has become unabashedly racist. Chewie is a thing. Imperial officers are all not just male humans, but, if you want to read further into it, white male humans. Neimoidians, Geonosians, Gungans, the Kamino cloners, the various races represented on the Jedi Council in its final years…we never see these folks again. Imperial genocide? Did Palpatine order this, perhaps remembering all that fun he had with his little green friend? (Wait, that sounded incredibly bad.) Did Vader? Why? This could be a huge arc story to cover between trilogies, and it’s so conspicuous that it really needs to be addressed.
Who was his father?: On further reflection, I’m infinitely relieved that the connecting tissue was removed from Sith that would’ve explicitly joined the dots from Darth Plagueis’ experiments in creating life to the “immaculate conception” of Anakin Skywalker. There’s enough there for the folks who have been paying attention to make the connection, but it isn’t spelled out as Star Wars gospel…thank goodness. Here is why that’s a good thing. By coming right out and saying that Anakin was created by the Sith, there is an excuse for his actions that declaws the point of the entire saga. If the clone troopers are all preprogrammed to enact Order 66, there’s the implication that Anakin, if he too was a created being and not a natural born one, could simply have been hard-wired to turn to the dark side. Even that implication tries to absolve him from his actions, and while the saga is, when viewed as a whole from a distance, a story about redemption, it completely loses its teeth when there’s even a hint that “the devil made him do it.” Anakin Skywalker does not deserve to get off that easy after all the lives he’s taken in cold blood. He earned those neato bloodshot yellow contact lenses for a reason (though I’d argue that the moment for that to appear would have been following the killing of the younglings, not the killing of the Separatists, who could hardly be described as innocents…sheesh, George!). Anakin is lied to and manipulated, yes, but he also makes some extraordinarily bad choices, and giving him an out that’s as simple as “maybe he was programmed to do it” doesn’t cut it. I’m glad that was left on the cutting room floor.
Teach you to commune with him, I will: Okay, so Yoda and Obi-Wan have to have some special, arcane knowledge to commune with Qui-Gon, who has become one with the Force and yet retains his identity. That’s good. Now, it practically demands that we ask “How did Qui-Gon contact Yoda in the first place if Yoda wasn’t expecting it?” And that’s a good question, because how can Obi-Wan contact Luke if Luke isn’t expecting it (which he clearly isn’t)? Maybe it’s just that Yoda and Luke are that good because of their concentration of MIDI, chlorine and stuff. But any media that deal with Obi-Wan between Episode III and Star Wars might want to elaborate on this. It seems like the initial contact would have to come about because the deceased makes an extraordinary effort to be heard; the listener can then learn to attune their senses to that contact to make it easier. But…who taught Luke this? (Though it seems like the apparition of Obi-Wan we see after Luke has trained with Yoda is capable of doing more – he moves around, he’s clearly visible, and the conversations are longer and more detailed, so maybe Yoda is now making that communion a standard part of Jedi training. Maybe I just answered my own question there.)
Please understand, my obsessing over little details like this doesn’t mean I’m picking the Star Wars movies to bits because I think Lucas hasn’t done his homework. It’s because the whole saga, whether by design or accident, holds together so well that I even put this kind of thought into it. New chapters of the story are going to be crafted soon, and I think these would be interesting things to address in those chapters. There are stories behind these things, and I’m all about the story. (Well, and any action figures that come out of the story, per yesterday’s blog entry. Which reminds me: it’d be a damn shame for Hasbro to ditch the 3 3/4″ scale before we get to the live-action Star Wars TV series…… Read more
So they’re running some new cable here at work, and apparently this is where the cable-running stopped for today. Wow. So…we just leave this hole open, practically exposing my office to the temperature outside, which is pretty low. Normally the equipment in here keeps things pretty toasty; right now, however, I’m wearing the lined denim jacket that you see hanging up in these pictures I took when I first got here.
