Category Archives: Opinion

R2-D2’s Greatest Saves In Star Wars

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Via Blastr.com:

I’ve written before how R2-D2 is not just the best droid in the galaxy, but the all-around MVP of Star Wars. Of course, I’m not the only one that knows what’s up — a few like-minded individuals have also championed for the underappreciated hero of the franchise. Clearly we all know greatness when we see it, and that it doesn’t always come in the obvious packaging.

Artoo is the Mariano Rivera of the Rebellion: No one is more clutch or has more success in a save situation. Of course, ranking the seemingly endless string of accomplishments of all the great ones is never easy. And as more movies are being developed we’re bound to have to revisit this list in the future. But until then, here are Artoo’s greatest saves in Star Wars saga, ranked.

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2016-08-16 12_44_45-R2-D2's 12 greatest saves in Star Wars, ranked _ Blastr

Ways a ‘Star Wars’ TV Show Could Go Wrong

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Via Zap2it.com:

A “Star Wars” TV show is being developed by ABC! Call the neighbors, alert friends and family, tell your job you’ll soon require time off!

Or don’t. Because if you’re a true fan of the galaxy far, far away, your heart has undoubtedly been broken time and time again by promises of live-action Lucasfilm adventures. True, this promise by ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey that she would “love to say yes” to a series is slightly different because now Disney and behind-the-scenes talents like JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson could be involved rather than George Lucas — but as philosopher George Santayana once famously remarked: “Those who cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it.”

With that in mind, let’s look back on the long, sad history of “Star Wars” on the small screen — and five reasons to be very afraid as we tiptoe over the Aunt Beru-like charred ruins of Lucasfilm mistakes.

It could be a show about Wookies
We won’t go over the head-scratching, well-documented history of 1978’s “Star Wars Holiday Special” here, but what we will focus on is the worst part of the worst thing to ever come out of the “Star Wars” universe (sorry, Jar-Jar). We’re speaking, of course, about the brutally-difficult-to-watch part of the show that focused on Chewbacca’s non-verbal family.

Hold on, you might say, no one working on the new Star Wars TV show would be crazy enough to let minutes upon minutes of airtime be devoted to men in walking fur carpets roaring and pointing at each other incomprehensibly. Well, once upon a time, somebody thought it was a good idea.

It could be ‘The Godfather’ in space
That was the pitch for 2005’s “Star Wars: Underworld” — well, actually it was “The Godfather” meets “Deadwood” in space, which sounds even more confused. The announcement of the show, which was to be set between “Revenge of the Sith” and “A New Hope,” garnered a lot of media attention (much like this latest ABC news).

But as fans eagerly anticipated the one-hour show to be produced by George Lucas, which intended to teach us Corsucant was as much a “hive for scum and villainy” as Mos Eisley, a funny thing happened. Fifty scripts were written, and then somebody realized that the cost of producing the show was more than Han Solo could raise with a hundred rebel missions. Not a single episode ever aired.

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Rogue One: 8 Ways It Could Enhance The Star Wars Mythology

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Via Whatculture.com:

There are a healthy number of Star Wars fans who aren’t on board with upcoming spin-off flick Rogue One for the simple reason that it’s a prequel.

Set to recount the gritty tale of how a group of Rebels managed to steal the plans for the Death Star out from under the Empire’s nose (thus enabling Luke Skywalker to destroy the moon-sized weapon at the end of the original film), they see Rogue One’s aim to fill in this particular gap in the mythology as an unnecessary endeavour.

We already know how the story ends, after all; we know that the good guys are going to ultimately prevail, nab the schematics and send them across to Princess Leia kicking the original trilogy into action.

What the naysayers have failed to see, however, is all the ways in which Rogue One could enhance the Star Wars mythology; ways in which this prequel could lend a lot of weight to the films that follow on from it chronologically, which – in turn – could actually serve to make the classic Episodes even better…

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The Announcements We’re Looking For From Star Wars Celebration

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Via Moviepilot.com:

For any Star Wars fan, this coming weekend is a huge deal. Star Wars Celebration starts on July 15 and is sure to be packed with wonderful little Star Wars tidbits. Star Wars Celebration always comes with the same two questions as well. First: What do we want to see? And second: What will we likely see?

I want to talk about our wants — our Star Wars Celebration hopes and dreams if you will. Celebration comes with so many possibilities, so here are a handful of things we hope to see at Star Wars Celebration this year.

For any Star Wars fan, this coming weekend is a huge deal. Star Wars Celebration starts on July 15 and is sure to be packed with wonderful little Star Wars tidbits. Star Wars Celebration always comes with the same two questions as well. First: What do we want to see? And second: What will we likely see?

I want to talk about our wants — our Star Wars Celebration hopes and dreams if you will. Celebration comes with so many possibilities, so here are a handful of things we hope to see at Star Wars Celebration this year.

Star Wars: Episode VIII

Let’s be honest, we can’t expect a lot of news concerning the eighth installment of the series. However, I think I’m speaking within the realm of possibility when I suggest that we could get some behind-the-scenes moments. I’m dying for something along the lines of the black-and-white photo of the first script read of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. That photo had everyone and their mother talking for months. The speculation that sprung from that single photo was amazing to say the least.

I’d love to see Mark Hamill or Daisy Ridley goofing around on set. Maybe an interview with the props director or the head of wardrobe. Any tiny tidbit of information could have us guessing and writing fan theories for months. I’m not expecting much, but I’ve just got to have something Episode VIII related to hold me over until Rogue One.

Something along the lines of this teaser released earlier this year would be great:

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Luke Skywalker Is More Awesome Than You Thought

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Via Therehasbeenanawakening.wordpress.com:

In a lot of discussions and forums, the way I see people speak of Luke Skywalker is usually with some form of disdainful tolerance, or a tone of “He’s alright, but this other character is so much cooler.” There’s also a Buzzfeed article explaining why Luke’s the “absolute worst.” But the people who criticize Luke haven’t considered all the reasons he’s actually a soundly crafted character:

He makes mistakes.

In A New Hope, Luke is designed to look weak. The film is a modified form of the Hero’s Journey, and that journey involves a weak character growing into a strong one.

This weakness doesn’t just fulfill a story type, however; it actually makes us understand who Luke is and care about him. The poorly thought-out Buzzfeed article points out some of his valid weaknesses (among other completely useless details) as though they make the audience hate him, but some of what Luke does actually makes us relate: he’s a just a restless kid with little to look forward to. He’s beat up, saved by an old man, and then he just complains about his mind-numbing tasks that he’ll have to do for the rest of his life.

Like a lot of people, Luke’s made some stupid mistakes and has a rather dim future, but he wants something more. His hope to join something useful, to have a purpose and an adventure, is a pretty universal desire. Seeing him play with a model of a ship shouldn’t make us scoff—it should make us realize that we’re a lot like Luke, just finding some kind of menial entertainment when we really want a powerful, useful journey to go on. Seeing this flawed farmboy helps us root for him to succeed in becoming something greater, and it sets a stark contrast against his former self when he finally does.

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Why Disney Should Let ‘Rogue One’ Rebel Against Star Wars Formula

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Via firstshowing.net:

“This is a rebellion, isn’t it? I rebel.” Who would have thought that line, spoken by actress Felicity Jones’ character Jyn Erso in the Rogue One teaser trailer, would have such great significance for the actual film itself? According to several unconfirmed sources, Rogue One might’ve rebelled a tad too much. That’s the story that has been sweeping the internet this week with major rumors that the first film in the Star Wars Anthology series, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, will undergo significant reshoots after initial internal test screenings at Disney apparently failed to impress senior executives. Let’s examine why I think that might not bode well for the spin-off and why the film should rebel against the famous Star Wars formula.

When Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (at first called Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One, a much clunkier title before this one) was originally announced, it was met with much enthusiasm by Star Wars fans. Even though we’ve seen seven installments or episodes in the Star Wars saga, they have all been in one form or another about the Skywalker family. Thanks to the Expanded Universe (which is now referred to as the “Legacy” series and deemed “not canon”), die-hard Star Wars know there’s a wealth of stories to be told that don’t feature someone named Skywalker or a Jedi Knight. There’s been tens, if not hundreds, of published material (both in narrative book form and graphic novel/comic book form) that focus on bounty hunters, aliens, side characters and all others in between. The Star Wars films have only scratched the surface at the untapped potential the franchise possess in those galaxies far, far away.

As details further emerged during pre-production regarding Rogue One, the prospect of a live-action story existing in the Star Wars universe but focusing on new, different characters became much more enticing. Once the trailer dropped, fans got to see firsthand how different and unique Rogue One would truly be. As a refresher, check out the original teaser trailer that got fans so excited in the first place:

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‘Star Wars’ Is About Choice

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Via Washingtonpost.com:

If you’d told me a year ago that I would end up writing a book about “Star Wars,” I wouldn’t have believed you. But when my young son, Declan, fell for the movies, I got hooked. One reason is that the saga makes a series of claims about freedom — not only in politics and law but also in individual lives. If George Lucas had one thing to say, it’s this: You are free to choose. (That’s the title of a famous book by Milton and Rose Friedman, but it could also be the epigraph for “Star Wars.”)

You can take that as a claim about politics — about what distinguishes a republic from an empire (and I’ll get to that in later posts). But in “Star Wars,” it’s also an intimate claim about the pervasive presence of forks in the road.

Here’s Leia, speaking of Han’s apparent desertion of the rebellion in “A New Hope”: “A man must follow his own path. No one can choose it for him.” Here’s Obi-Wan to Luke, again in “A New Hope”: “Then you must do what you think is right, of course.” Here are Lucas’s own words: “Life sends you down funny paths. And you get many opportunities to keep your eyes open.”

In the original trilogy, Darth Vader tells Luke: “It is your destiny; join me and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son.” Wrong! The Emperor tells Luke: “It is unavoidable. It is your destiny. You, like your father, are now … mine.” Wrong again!

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The 10 Best ‘Star Wars’ Deleted Scenes

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Via Collider.com:
Ah, deleted scenes — the backbone of any good special features menu. When it comes to Star Wars, they can be hotly contested, due to The Almighty Canon. Some scenes offer additional insight into George Lucas‘s world, while others have been revisited or reworked in comics, books and TV shows. Then there’s the vast majority of Star Wars deleted scenes, which either pad out or bog down already existing sequences — in other words, they were probably deleted for a reason.

That said, the saga does include a few gems, which is why I pored over every Star Wars deleted scene and picked out what I think are the best ones from Episodes I-VII (listed in chronological order).

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Expanded Universe Is Worth Saving

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Via Techtimes.com:

When I first learned that Disney planned to obliterate the Star Wars Expanded Universe in a way not so different from how the first Death Star annihilated Alderaan, I don’t remember being upset. There was no disturbance in the Force. In fact, the opposite was closer to the truth.

You see, I never enjoyed all that much of the Expanded Universe, which mostly existed in book form but was also comprised of various video games and comics. For every cool addition it introduced to Star Wars canon, it seemed to have a knack for introducing far more negatives. There were exceptions, of course. I loved the X-Wing series. Knights of the Old Republic I and II are among some of my favorite games of all time. Here and there I found aspects of the EU to love.

But for every Knights of the Old Republic there was a Masters of Tera Kasi. For every Heir to the Empire, there was a Darth Maul with robot legs (which is, bizarrely, still canon). It still baffles the mind that the character of Luuuke is actually a real thing. Over the course of the EU’s more than 20 year life span, the bad stuff started to pile up.

So when Disney announced that the EU would be rebranded “Legends” to distinguish it from new certified “canon” stories told outside of the films, I was actually relieved. No more EU stories would be published, though the old books would still remain in print under the Legends brand. Everything would make sense once again, and it would all be under one Star Wars banner. This is what Star Wars needed, I thought. A blank slate. A fresh starting point. A new hope.

Now, two years after the EU as fans knew it died, I realize I was wrong. Though the books, games and comics that made up the EU were far from perfect (believe me, some weird, weird stuff happens), for many years they were the only new Star Wars stories being told. In the early 1990s, fans didn’t know if a new Star Wars movie would ever be made. More than a few fans latched onto these new tales with a passion never before seen as a result. To many, the EU is Star Wars.

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You Were Right to Stay a Star Wars Fan All Those Years

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Via Wired.com:

YOU KNOW WHAT movie is seriously pretty fun? Star Wars: The Force Awakens. You no doubt saw it last year—probably multiple times—and your initial reaction was likely either “OH MAN, BEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME, FINN HEART POE 4-EVA” or “Enh, it’s totally fine, too many New Hope nods, Rey is cool tho.” Those were the prevailing online attitudes about the movie throughout its winter-long, record-disintegrating box-office run, and they made perfect sense: This was the first Star Wars movie in a decade, and it needed to not only restore what had become a robotic-feeling franchise to greatness, but to also re-energize the base of (admittedly somewhat older) Star Wars devotees who felt the series had already peaked decades ago.

The Force Awakens had to be a million different things to a gazillion different fans, including myself, and that may be why, on first viewing, I wasn’t overjoyed or underwhelmed. I was simply…whelmed.

But after a bunch of re-viewings, and a few scene-specific replays upon last week’s home-video release, it became clear that, when removed from the suffocating context of huge expectations and attention, The Force Awakens is all it needs to be: Namely, a really good Star Wars movie, with zippy dog-fighting sequences and sly Solo one-liners and some really dope menswear. The dippier elements of the movie—much like the rusty elements of the original trilogy—feel less frustrating, even less visible, when you allow yourself to wade into all the creature-weirdness and space-skirmishes and just the general Admiral Ackbarness of the whole thing. I’ve loved this franchise for nearly four decades, and I never expected to get that kind of grin-spurring, head-swimming buzz from a Star Wars movie ever again. I was (thankfully) wrong.

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