EPISODE 246 – #MTFBWY
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
So here we are. Forty plus years after Episode IV: A New Hope, the newest chapter in the saga of the Skywalker clan, Episode VIII!
I should be bouncing off the walls at this point, but my feelings the last few weeks have been unexpectedly muted. Don’t get me wrong, it’s exciting – Lukey Skywalk, in da house! But it hasn’t seemed to have that sense of something special it usually does.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, and I’ll deny it and call you names if you ever quote me, but ... maybe Disney is releasing new Star Wars films a little too fast? Like, maybe they should have done this whole trilogy, then begun a set of stand-alones?
I don’t know. It’s not a big deal. I just don’t want Star Wars to ever feel... familiar, or standard. Routine. (Marvel.)
On the other hand, I’m seeing the film tonight, and I have been literally unable to focus my mind on anything at all today. So yeah, okay, maybe there is some excitement building.
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Everything this week is Star Wars-related. (This should not surprise you.) But the first bit has kind of a strange lead-in.
Recently I was in a follow-up interview with a guy involved with environmental issues in a small rural community. He’s a passionate guy, smart and friendly. And, what really interested me, he doesn’t full out condemn the organizations he’s attacking; he expresses concern for their long term viability, too. In our age of argh, that kind of concern for one’s opponent is so very unusual.
The thing is, the more research I’ve done on the story, the more it seems like his take on what’s going on may be wrong, that the businesses he’s attacking are actually following the laws and may not be causing the health issues he’s asserting. His heart is definitely in the right place, but his commitment to certain principles and beliefs may have occluded his vision of the actual on the ground reality.
So this week I had to back to this guy to ask the question, What if you’re wrong? A hard conversation to have, but such an interesting question. What if the Empire you think you’re seeing is actually just a bunch of generally well-meaning (if imperfect) individuals?
And more than that, after years of accusations of polluting not supported by state or local authorities, what if rather than the hero trying to save the day you’re actually kind of the villain of the piece?
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I don’t know that Last Jedi will have anything to do with any of that, but those sorts of questions do feel like they run along a very Star Wars-y kind of road. The monster at the center of the universe is actually my dad, long since broken by grief and trying to connect with me even though it fundamentally undermines what he’s about; and rather than saving the universe by following the guidance of the mentor who said he was trying to help me I actually find myself with blood on my hands, at just the start of a very dark path.
Even the notion of what constitutes good and bad society is in some ways unsteady for Star Wars. In many ways the fascistic government of the Empire we meet in the original trilogy emerges not from the Emperor and his minions but from the Republic that long preceded him, a government so big and bureaucratic that it is no longer a tool for justice and human flourishing. It serves really only itself.
(I can’t believe I’m saying this but are Episodes I-III actually prescient? Master Yoda, what do you think?
Okay, phew.
You see that inhumanity in the Jedi, too. For me one of the worst moments in the whole series is the Jedi Council surrounding Ani Skywalker, a little orphaned boy whose mother is still a slave, coldly discussing whether or not he can join the Jedi.
Who treats a child like that, even if he can’t act and has a bad hair cut? Not an organization we’re supposed to want to belong to, that’s for sure.
The battleships of the Republic are basically Imperial star destroyers but smaller and sort of Lego-like, with weird color-coding and curved edges. The Jedi’s little arrowhead ships are exactly the same, just smaller still. Some of other fighters we see towards the end start to have TIE elements, especially the spider-eye-like windows. The cold metal aesthetic of the Empire is also pretty close to the Republic’s capitol world of Coruscant. (The whole idea of a planet that is nothing but city, while painted as the Star Wars version of Oz, is kind of a nightmare when you think about it.)
The fact is, Star Wars does not love big institutions. Big institutions are almost always the problem. Even smaller institutions – in Rogue One the Rebellion’s leadership refuses to give permission for the attack on Scarif. If they’d been heeded, the Star Wars series would just be a long sequence of planets getting blowed up.
No, the good life in Star Wars is found in the mess and lived-in improvisation of humanity. If the Empire’s image of perfection is the Death Star, a million absolutely identical soldiers marching through soulless corridors, the Rebellion’s is the Millennium Falcon, worn, unpredictable, in frequent need of repairs, but a home where people and robots and wookies play and fight and flirt and mourn and live.
Some have wondered why in Force Awakens Princess Leia is in charge of yet another resistance, rather than the Republic. From a political standpoint, it doesn’t make any sense.
But from within the “rules” of Star Wars, Leia as the head of some bureaucratic organization would actually seem to suggest the rebellion lost. That inhumanity and bureaucracy won.
For Star Wars, winning is not about creating institutions but about being free of control from them. Free to fly in my souped-up Chevy across the galaxy with my pal and my best girl, or shoot womprats in my T-16, or connect with God in a way that makes sense to me. It’s about casting off oppression with the (pretty idealistic) belief that with freedom comes the possibility of a life of happiness.
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Mark Hamill did a profile recently in the New York Times. This is an actual photo from it.
Your big article with Luke Skywalker and you go with "dog licks actor's mouth"?
New York Times, what is happening?
The article, though, is amazing. Zero spoilers, just Hamill reflecting on being involved with this big crazy beast of a series. A great thing to read pre-movie.
A couple great quotes:
On Harrison Ford
"He’s a brilliant actor — that’s a given. He’s also a leading man. When I tested for this thing, I assumed he was the protagonist and I was his annoying sidekick.”
On Getting Offered a Role in the New Trilogy
“When Mr. Lucas said their characters would be included in these new films if they wanted to play them, Mr. Hamill said, “I was completely stunned. Carrie, not a minute went by — she slapped the table and goes, ‘I’m in!’ I said, ‘Carrie, poker face!’”
J.J. Abrams on Hamill discovering he was not in The Force Awakens After All
“Eventually Mr. Abrams had to tell Mr. Hamill that Luke would not be a significant character in “The Force Awakens.” ‘I let him know before he read the script that his role was minimal,’ Mr. Abrams said. ‘I don’t think he knew just how minimal until he read it.’
In their next conversation, Mr. Abrams acknowledged, Mr. Hamill was ‘not particularly happy with how little he was in it.’”
(YOU THINK, JJ?)
Another Great Carrie Fisher Story
"Several years ago, when Ms. Fisher noticed in a theater program that Mr. Hamill had referred only elliptically to his “Star Wars” work, he said, “She goes, ‘What’s your problem?’ I said, ‘Well, it’s theater, I want it to be more focused on theater.’ She goes, ‘I am Princess Leia. You’re Luke Skywalker. Get used to it.’”
Carrie Fisher with her daughter Billie Lourd, who is also in the new films.
(Note her Leia buns.)
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I know absolutely nothing about the new movie other than what I’ve seen in the trailers. I’ve avoided everything else; I don’t even know why the little made-to-be-sold-in-stores Porg creatures are such a big deal or where they appear.
But I do know that, in the words of one article I read recently, Star Wars likes to “rhyme.” It likes to repeat events and bits of dialogue in new ways, to make new things in one way or another an echo or funhouse mirror version of others.
Sometimes that goes too far. Honestly, I would not be sad if no one in Last Jedi had a bad feeling about this or expressed the odds of something happening. I’d also be happy to see some lines from Force Awakens or Rogue One picked up and carried forward. The idea of rhyming is fine, just expand it outward. Make it count; take what is familiar and turn it in a new direction that is unexpected and strange.
After all, the saga continues, it doesn’t circle.
Having said that, there are quite a few repetitions or rhymes between the middle movies of the first two trilogies. Maybe they mean nothing. *rolls eyes* Maybe they give some hints as to cool things that could happen in some form in Last Jedi.
I’m going to list the parallels without too much serious hypothesis about what they might mean. As the great Kieron Gillen writes, the problem with even just public speculation about a film is that it can still ruin the surprise. You only get that first experience of a film once.
If even listing echoes seems spoiler-y, do skip to the next section. I do not want to steal your joy!
OR DO I.
Okay here goes. Here are some things that happened both in The Empire Strikes Back and Attack of the Clones that might be worth looking out for:
There’s a chase amongst asteroids.
There’s a love story. It is cheesy. (There’s one great fan theory about this that could be so much fun.)
C3 loses limb(s) and is rescued by R2.
A hero gets a vision of loved ones in peril and makes a very dangerous choice that changes absolutely everything. Anakin’s decision eventually ruined the universe. Luke’s saved it.
Something mind-alteringly enormous and unexpected is learned. (This may seem a little less true in Clones--do we really care who ordered the clones? The fact that Obi-Wan never figures out what all the breadcrumbs point to, that Dooku is behind both the clones and the droids and therefore is not what he seems, makes it even weaker. But the idea is there.)
A hero is made an offer to join the Dark Side – Luke in Empire, Obi-Wan in Clones. And they reject it.
The movie ends up being in part about fathers and sons. (Again, this may seem less true in Clones. But at the end of the movie it turns out pretty much every Jedi is every other Jedi’s mentor or pupil. Yoda begat Dooku who begat Qui-Gon who begat Obi-Wan and Anakin. And in a way part of Anakin’s problem is that his Jedi father figure is gone; I don’t care how much he calls Obi-Wan “master”, those two are clearly peers. His real father figure turns out to be Palpatine.)
(Hard to see Jedi going down this route with one of its leads being Rey. But parents and children as a theme seems like a gimme. Even for Finn, whose parents so far have not been considered.)
A hero loses an arm. (I’d be very surprised if that happens -- how many limbs are there? But if it does, expect it to be in some completely different circumstance, like Poe Dameron loses an arm in a hair gel application while flying his X-Wing why is that guy even here.)
Our hero loses a blue light saber. (Given the importance attributed to Rey’s saber in Force Awakens, I’d be surprised to see her lose it. But again, maybe there’s a fun play on that to be done.)
Ultimately the hero learns something that the good guys don’t want him to learn. And in both cases, it has something to do with mercy. Luke learns that Darth Vader is his dad, which leads him down a completely different course than Yoda and Ben want. And Anakin learns about the power of his rage.
Jedi is in many ways a very different kind of film, in that it has at least two clear protagonists, Ben and Rey, and probably three, with Finn. Could lead to a whole other set of ideas and possibilities.
We’ll see.
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Favorite Star Wars-related quote from this week: a writer describing the way the GOP's tax plan benefits the very wealthy at the expense of everyone else: “they are willing to cut you open and climb inside like a taun taun.”
A fantastically nerdy message (even if the correct spelling is tauntaun, SHAME).
++ LINKS ++
Remember when I wrote that short story about kids playing with light sabers in the future? Well, someone else did me one better and made a short about the same thing.
Vanity Fair has two Last Jedi stars play a game and their terror is hilarious.
Have we misunderstood Chewbacca all this time?
Pop culture writer Mike Ryan talks about the last time he saw his father and why Return of the Jedi is the saddest movie of all.
Star Wars as our postmodern myth. (I know that’s a very familiar way of thinking at this point, but there were still some cool ideas here I hadn’t heard before).
Mark Hamill, saint.
And if you’re looking for things to buy me for Christmas.
(Actually if you’re looking for a great Star Wars-themed Christmas gift, this book of short stories about different background characters from the Star Wars universe is exceptional. I just read a story about a Jawa that you absolutely have never considered but is key to the story of Star Wars that was incredible.)
That’s it for now. Stay on target, people! Be good to yourselves. See you on the other side.
Meesa Jedi now. Me gonna ruin everything.