Monday, April 29, 2013

Confession # 5 I despise the Anakin/Padmé relationship, but I once shipped it.

My first exposure to Star Wars was as a young kid watching the Original Trilogy.  By the time I saw Return of the Jedi, I had my own ideas about Anakin Skywalker and his then nameless wife.  I'm sure that I'm not the only one.

I knew something horrible must have happened to Anakin, but I was under the impression that his marriage was a public event and that his wife was someone Obi-Wan took care of for some time after Anakin fell to the Dark Side.  On top of that, I just don't like unbalanced relationships, and I think "secret romance" is just about the cheapest plot device going.

So, okay.  I admit, I was predisposed to be uneasy with the direction things were heading in Attack of the Clones, but because it was Star Wars, I was prepared to let go of the story in my head and keep an open mind about the one unfolding on the screen.


Monday, April 22, 2013

Confession #4: I think the Sith were actually less disturbed than the Old Jedi.

I think the Sith are terribly misguided.  Their philosophy is flawed to a frightening extent, and their actions in the Star Wars franchise run the gamut from reprehensible to horrifying.  Emperor Palpatine is clearly sociopathic.  So, how can I say that I think they're less disturbed than the Jedi of the Old Republic?  I'll point you back to last week's post on the Old Order and let you decide for yourself.

I see the Sith as the other side of the same coin or the other end of the same Force-using spectrum that the Jedi are on.  Both groups take their philosophies on the Force to an unhealthy extreme, (which is why the Force needed to be brought back into balance, but that's another series altogether) and they use opposite but complimentary methods to achieve basically the same level of mystical power through it.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

The Birth of Rose B. Fischer


Okay, this is kind of a personal post.  I'm placing it on both of my blogs and any other place I spend time on the internet.


Monday, April 15, 2013

Confession # 3: I think the Old Jedi Order was run by emotionally disturbed morons.



I know there are a lot of fans out there who think the Jedi are awesome.  You know, they run around in robes and wave big shiny swords with blades made of light.  They have cool mental powers, and they make a lot of mystic-sounding noise about peace, balance, and trusting their feelings.

A closer look at the Old Order Jedi we've seen in the Star Wars films shows a group of people who don't know anything about their own feelings beyond a vague kind of intuition that they get when the Force tugs them in one direction or another.  These people live very long lives, and anything we know about their backgrounds indicates that they've spent a great deal of that time involved in social or military conflicts.  So they know very little about external peace, but are expected to maintain a constant sense of inner peace.  The dichotomy leaves most of them pretty unbalanced and badly equipped to have relationships of any kind.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Confession #2-I Don't Like Anakin Skywalker Either

This one went longer than I planned.  I guess that's what happens when I try to write something a paragraph at a time over the course of a week.

I tried very hard to like Anakin.  He had a lot to recommend him.  Obi-Wan Kenobi--who is tied with Princess Leia as my favorite Star Wars character--gave him high praise in Star Wars: A New Hope.  He tells Luke that Anakin was "the best star fighter pilot in the galaxy, a cunning warrior...and he was a good friend."


Monday, April 1, 2013

Confession # 1: I Don't Like Luke Skywalker

When I first watched A New Hope, way back when it was just called "Star Wars," I thought Luke was a whiny little brat.  In The Empire Strikes Back, I saw him go from whiny to cocky and rude.  Yes, I'm well aware that it's probably an intentional character development arc, and I understand the progression of the protagonist from immature and (somewhat) self-centered to over-confident and then finally to the mystic hero and leader we saw in Return of the Jedi.  That doesn't mean I have any reason to like Luke.  I'm definitely sorry for him.  I sympathize with his feelings of being trapped on Tatooine.  I know he feels guilty and never had a real chance to grieve for Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen. I cheered when I decided to go after Han and Leia because they were his friends and it was the right thing to do no matter what Yoda or Ben had to say.  He was put in a really awful position in Return of the Jedi.  None of those things make him interesting or likable.  They just make him a classic hero.

I always thought Star Wars would have been a much better series if the story had been told from Princess Leia's point of view, and if she had been allowed to explore her heritage as a Jedi along with her brother.  I don't like very much of the Star Wars Expanded Universe (that's a whole other post) but one of the things I like least was the utter failure of its writers to do justice to Leia Organa's character, especially when it came to her development as a Jedi.

That really has nothing to do with my dislike of Luke, but I wanted to say it and I figured this was as good a place as any.

Tune in next week to hear why I don't like Anakin either.

8 Confessions of A Star Wars Fan: Index

My arm is doing a little better, so I thought I'd try a short series of posts.  I recently talked with someone about the way that it seems like most of the things people in my fandoms enjoy about a franchise are things I really don't like.  This came about after that.