Star Wars came to Comic-Con 2015 and it was great! There will be plenty of discussions all over the Internet about all the little clues etc. which can be taken from this real. So rather than doing that as well, … Continue reading What Comic-Con Gave Us: The Force Awakens Reel
It started out quite harmlessly as a ground-breaking turn-based Star Wars role-playing game. But since it has grown into an indispensable art of the Star Wars Universe despite it being largely non-canon. On the one hand the legends run so deep that at some point it seems unavoidable that the Old Republic era is going to get a canonization treatment. But what kind of treatment will that be? I will try to keep thing relatively spoiler-free for those who have not played any of these games … yet. Continue reading “Once upon an Old Republic”
For ‘a generation of Star Wars fans’ Boba Fett was the archetypal bounty hunter, except of course for the fact that he wasn’t. Just like Anakin Skywalker did not turn out to be the stereotype bad-ass that some original trilogy fans were expecting, also Boba Fett turned out to have a much more complicated back story. In view of the fact that we may very well be getting a Boba Fett anthology film, let us take a slightly closer look at this character. Continue reading “Boba Fett, the motherless orphan.”
Sir Christopher Lee was born on May 2th, 1922 and is best known for his roles as Dracula, Francisco Scaramanga and Saruman. Today is Sir Christopher Lee’s birthday and in honour of this amazing man, we have a post about Count … Continue reading Christopher Lee’s Dooku: The Importance of the Count
‘I love you.’ ‘I know.’ These two lines are some of the most iconic from the original Star Wars trilogy, first heard in The Empire Strikes Back and again in The Return of the Jedi. Yet this second time is no way … Continue reading ‘I love you.’ ‘I know.’: Leia, Han and Love
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”
The WW2 narrative and Star Wars
From the very first instalment of Star Wars in A New Hope there has always been a clear link between its narrative and the history of Twentieth Century Europe. On the one hand there was Lucas’ deliberate use of Leni Riefenstahl‘s cinematography, as exemplified in her Nazi-propaganda film ‘Triumpf des Willens’, in depicting the Imperial menace. The shots of Imperial Shuttles landing in areas with large numbers of perfectly aligned storm troopers conveyed the sense of total control that the Empire sought to exert on its subjects. The mere facts that Imperial Officers were dressed pretty much like Nazi-officers and that Imperial soldiers were called ‘storm troopers’, a word that in the Anglo-Saxon world is almost exclusively connected with the Third Reich, already provided enough reason to consider the connections. But what stood out for me was that my parents, WW2 survivors, immediately recognised the Empire as a reference to the forces of oppression that had created such havoc in their lives and throughout Europe. The 70th anniversary of VE-Day seems an excellent moment to reflect upon this.
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.
With the release of the second The Force Awakens teaser trailer on the 16th of April, Star Wars has once again positioned itself as a major Force to be reckoned with. I myself was swept right along by the excitement and spent the following days in a state of ecstasy while watching the live feed from Star Wars Celebration: Anaheim. In the excitement, however, there were a number of extremely bittersweet moments for me, starting during the opening panel with JJ Abrahms and Kathleen Kennedy. It seems that not a single conversation about Star Wars can occur without subtle, or not so subtle, shade being thrown at the prequel films (The Phantom Menace, The Attack of the Clones, The Revenge of the Sith). And after mulling it over, and over, I have realized I can’t be the only Star Wars-fan who is wondering why and questioning what this will do to the fandom.
Continue reading “The Risk of Ignoring the Prequels”
Clone Corridor 