What’s been happening inStar Wars-related news this week? On the Web: Colin Hanks and his daughter brought attention to the lack of female merchandise (Mary Sue) Diego Luna joins the cast for Rogue One (Variety) Star Wars villains for adoption: the … Continue reading News Round-Up
Asajj Ventress, as voiced by Nika Futterman, is a character that fascinated me, and many others, from the first moment she graced our screens in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, both film and series. Initially introduced as a Commander in the Separatists’ army and an apprentice to Count Dooku, Asajj Ventress is a feared force in the galaxy during the Clone Wars and the nemesis of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. Although this post will largely focus on her portrayal in the 2008 TV show, it is worth mentioning that many of the things briefly mentioned below are worked out in great detail in comic books and novels which are all worth reading. This post will contain spoilers for those who haven’t watched Star Wars: The Clone Wars in its entirety.
In the comic series Star Wars: Obsession Asajj says of herself:
“I am fear.”
Ingeniously, this applies to her character in two ways. On the one hand she is a woman feared throughout the galaxy because of her strength and her ruthlessness. On the other hand, she is a woman who is terribly afraid herself. Asajj is a character who is frequently used as a pawn by others. Most notable in that respect is her relationship with Count Dooku, starting when he presents her to Darth Sidious who sends her out to kill Anakin Skywalker. She is used by both men to further their own agenda. Dooku shows his loyalty to Sidious and Sidious is able to trigger Anakin to use his anger as a way of defeating his enemies. After this defeat, Asajj becomes an assassin for Dooku while always hungering to be trained as a full Sith. She is kept on the periphery by Dooku and Sidious, never fully trained, never fully accepted, which means she is constantly striving to prove herself to others and fearing that she is lacking. This comes to a close in the 12th episode of the third season of The Clone Wars when Sidious starts to consider her a threat and orders Dooku to eliminate her. He does so by betraying her during the Battle of Sullust and she is left for dead.
Continue reading “‘I am fear’: Asajj Ventress and the Strong Woman”
Three days ago, director Colin Hanks posted the following note on his Instagram account:
So, the other night, on May the 4th to be exact, I sat down with my 4 year old daughter and showed her Star Wars: A New Hope. It was her first time watching it. She loved it. Her favorite character was Princess Leia. She kept asking “Where is Princess Leia? Where is Princes Leia?” A few nights later, I show her Empire Strikes Back (or as she called it “The Emperor stripes back) and within four minutes of watching the movie she says, “It’s so tiring watching these movies. It’s always boys, boys, boys and there’s only one girl.” I could not of been more proud of her. So today I take her to Toys “R” Us to buy her a light saber and a Princess Leia toy. After being told that light sabers were “in the boys section”, she picks out the light saber of her choosing and asks about the Princess Leia toy. One problem: they only had the “slave Leia”. As you can see, sad depressing, “slave Leia”. So wrong. The only good to come from this is that, once again, my daughter makes me look at the world in a new light. #HelpusJJyoureouronlyhope
Hanks’ post has garnered a lot of attention, rightfully so, and joins the increased media attention for the severe lack of female merchandise. After the release of The Guardians of the Galaxy the hashtag #WheresGamora was started and since Age of Ultron came out there has been justified outrage over the lack of Black Widow merchandise. With The Force Awakens film coming out this year, Star Wars will be bringing out new merchandise as well and this is an issue that Disney should be very aware of. Before going into it more, I want to share a personal experience.
I am a twenty-one year old, female Star Wars-fan. Star Wars, like the Force, is strong in my family and I have been watching the films from the tender age of two. However, when I was seven I had an experience in a toystore which left me feeling marginalized and excluded without even knowing what those words meant. I walked in, looking for either a knight or a storm trooper. As I was looking up and down the walls covered in amazing toys, I was incredibly excited. Shortly afterwards, a male cashier came up to me and asked me whether I was looking for something. When I responded with an enthusiastic ‘yes’ he continued to guide me away from all the toys I wanted to the “girls”-section which was full of barbies and everything pink. Not only did I not like pink, but the male cashier made it very clear that this was where I belonged and that the other section was for boys, no matter what I liked. I was crushed and when I told my father, he was furious. If it hadn’t been for him, I might have accepted what I had been told rather than continue to love Star Wars. Instead, I got the toys I wanted and continued to be a raging Star Wars fan.
Continue reading “Girls Need Their Toys Too: Women In Star Wars and My Experience”
In today’s Scene It? post I’ll be looking at one of the most heart-breaking scenes in The Revenge of the Sith (2005), the third prequel film which depicts Anakin’s switch to the Dark Side of the Force. I am, of course, talking about the scene between Padme and Anakin on Mustafar, shortly before the battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Naturally, this post contains spoilers for The Revenge of the Sith. If you want a quick refresher on the scene, help yourself to the video below, the first half of which I will be discussing:
Some of the criticism directed towards RotS focused on the development of Padme Amidala’s character. In The Phantom Menace she is a young queen, exclusively focused on saving her planet from being taken over by the Trade Federation. In The Attack of the Clones she returns as a senator of Naboo and a key senator in trying to stop the outbreak of a war. We also see her trying to cope with her feelings for Anakin Skywalker and fighting for her life. In The Revenge of the Sith, Padme and Anakin are married, with the twins on the way, while she continues in her role as senator. As the Republic falls apart, so, it could be argued, does everything she has worked for. The difficulty with which Padme switches between her roles as senator and wife is, I believe, on purpose. As Anakin slowly loses himself it becomes harder for her to unite her principles with her emotions. The reason this scene is heart-breaking is because everything Padme believed in has either been corrupted or fallen apart. Below I will discuss why her choice of response to this is one which is probably singular in modern cinema and makes her stand out as one of the strongest women in sci-fi.
What’s been happening in general Star Wars-related news this week? Oscar Isaac hints at Yavin as Poe Dameron’s birthplace (The Big Story AP) Star Wars Rebels is nominated for a Critics Choice Television Award in the ‘Best Animated Category’ (Jedi News) … Continue reading News Round-up
The Atlantic yesterday reported on what George Lucas treatment was for The Force Awakens. Although we can’t find the section of the Vanity Fair article Spencer Kornhaber is apparently reporting on, he quotes VF and Abrams as follows: ‘[Abrams] said Lucas’s treatment had centered on very … Continue reading Corridor Chat: George Lucas’ EpVII Treatment Was to Focus on Young People
There has been a lot of chat that the second Anthology film, currently set to be released in 2018, will be an origin story for one of the most famous Star Wars characters: Boba Fett. The Wrap and other online sources … Continue reading Corridor Chat: Anthology #2 to be about Boba Fett
The brilliant Vanity Fair article this week has given us a lot of scoops. Not only do we have names for two more characters, we also got some great interviews and behind-the-scenes photos. VF also sat down with J.J. Abrams, director of upcoming The Force Awakens, for an interview and unfortunately he once again catered to the so-called ‘prequel haters’ by discussing Jar Jar Binks. Talking to VF editor Bruce Handy, Abrams said:
“I have a thought about putting Jar Jar Binks’s bones in the desert [of Jakku]. I’m serious! Only three people will notice, but they’ll love it.”
Now, I’m all for jokes. I love jokes. However, Jar Jar Binks is a very controversial figure within the Star Wars-fandom. Many fans of the Original Trilogy use him as their favourite stick to bash the Prequel Trilogy with, arguing he is a ridiculous figure, disgraceful and not worthy of being in a Star Wars-film. It has come to the point where saying that you like Jar Jar, like I do, means you have to face a barrage of disagreement, if not abuse. The fact that the same things were originally held against the Ewoks in the OT is conveniently forgotten. Everyone is allowed their own opinion and you don’t have to like everything about Star Wars. Whether you like both the OT and PT or just one of them, you have a right to liking or disliking things. However, as I have previously argued, the disproportionate hate against the PT has led to many of its good points and layers of depth to go completely unnoticed. There is more to the figure of Jar Jar than most people acknowledge and I will be going into it below.
Scene It? is a feature we’re hoping to do frequently, if maybe not each week. As the title may suggest, we’ll be looking at different scenes within the Star Wars-canon and analyse how they can be interpreted.
Today I want to look at a scene that I believe is crucial to the development of Anakin Skywalker and sets him on the path to the Dark Side. This is the scene between Anakin and his mother, followed by the slaughter of the Sandpeople and Anakin dealing with the consequences of his actions. In the second prequel film The Attack of the Clones (2002) Anakin Skywalker goes through an enormous amount of development. The last time we see him he was a child, who had left home behind and was about to start training as a Jedi-padawan. In TAoC, Anakin has grown into a young man who is struggling with being mature at all times. He is torn between following his emotions and his high expectations of himself.
The scenes on Tatooine are truly tragic and, for the first time, we see Anakin take a conscious step towards the Dark Side. Shortly after finding his mother, she dies in his arms before being able to say she loves him. George Lucas and Hayden Christensen show us an Anakin who is already conflicted between what he knows is right and what he feels. I want to spend some time analysing what happens in this moment to show how delicate the film is in showing us Anakin’s development. The two scenes in the video above are the ones I will be looking at.
May the Fourth is always a special day to be a Star Wars fan because it’s the day on which you can be as open and ridiculous about your Star Wars obsession as you want to be. In the case of Vanity Fair, this has regularly meant a cover and a spread dedicated to the Star Wars film coming out. Lucky us, they repeated the tradition this year with some great behind-the-scenes pictures from the The Force Awakens set. Alongside this, there were some name and character reveals, which were all really exciting. All the pictures below belong to Vanity Fair.
The Cover
As far as covers go, I’d say this is a pretty great one. The tag lines ‘The New Heroes! The Old Heroes! The High Stakes’ definitely fits with the five characters chosen here. Although the cover doesn’t show us anything that we haven’t seen before, focusing in on Finn, Rey, BB-8, Han Solo and Chewbacca makes me think that the emotional arc of SW:TFA might potentially be about them. Clearly these are the characters which Abrams wants the audience to focus on most, at least for now. Vanity Fair always seems to have chosen covers with an “emotional” impact, rather than showcasing the villains etc, if one thinks back to the 2002 Anakin/Padme and the 2005 “whole family” covers.
Kylo Ren/Adam Driver
It should come as no surprise to have it confirmed that Adam Driver is indeed playing Kylo Ren, yet I think it’s interesting to see that Kylo is a human. The mask had led me to think that potentially we were dealing with a character that either wanted to remain disguised or was potentially disfigured the way that Darth Vader was. I personally don’t think this is the best of pictures since Driver looks slightly edited in, but I am still a major fan of the costume. It’s different from the Sith costumes we’ve seen before while clearly following in their tradition.
Maz Katana/ Lupita N
yong’o
Now for the character reveal that I am most excited about. There were some rumours that the hand initially holding Anakin’s lightsaber in the new teaser trailer was Nyong’o, but this picture makes it clear that her character is CGI. Best about this reveal for me is the fact that she plays a pirate. If I look at the pirate figure best known to me within Star Wars-canon, that would be Hondo Ohnaka from The Clone Wars series. He is a hilarious character who hides a good heart under a ton of swagger. Personally I think we will probably meet Maz on Jakku within the first part of the film, but any conjecture is still very much valid here. Also known is that she has a castle, which is filled with the riffraff below.
Who could they be?
I’m thinking that, as a pirate with a castle of her own, it wouldn’t be unlikely that Maz Katana has a similar crew the way that Jabba the Hutt, or even Hondo, did. All these creatures look like they would have fitted perfectly into Jabba’s palace. I like the different designs going on here and the throwback that they represent. Clearly there is a continuation here from The Return of the Jedi but I think we can be pretty sure there will be some CGI characters added to the mix.
Poe Dameron/ Oscar Isaac
Clone Corridor 
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