Hello friends! I thought I’d share some more of my drawings in a separate post instead of waiting until next month’s catch-up post. I just have so many! And there will be more next month, too, lol (fair warning!). So here goes:
I’ll post again when I have another handful of drawings; I seem to be doing one every couple of days. I’m starting a drawing class this Thursday (general drawing, not portraits specifically, should be fun) so we’ll see. Hope you enjoyed this post!
Hello friends, happy Spring! Here’s what I’ve been up to for the last month or so:
Reign of the Empire: Mask of Fear, by Alexander Freed. If you like the political maneuverings of Andor, you’ll like this book. It takes place mere weeks after Order 66, when Palpatine takes control and declares himself Emperor. It focuses on Mon Mothma and Bail Organa, mostly, with some Saw Gerrera and a new character called Soujen. Mon Mothma is determined to curtail the Emperor’s power by legislation and keeping the Senate relevant in this new Empire (I know, good luck with that, Mon). Bail, meanwhile, is obsessed with what happened to the Jedi and is convinced that if the truth about their slaughter was known, it would ruin Palpatine (again, good luck with that, Bail). The two central figures of the Rebellion are not seeing eye to eye at this point. Saw is just out doing his thing when he and his group discover Soujen, a Separatist soldier who had been put in hibernation before the war ended as a contingency plan. Soujen has been surgically altered with implants to make him into a deadly warrior, and when he wakes his only thought is to continue the war against the Republic. When he’s apprised of the new situation, he still wants to continue his mission somehow and bides his time with Saw.
It’s a big, dense, political book but I didn’t find it hard to get through at all. Both Mon and Bail need to come to terms with how they deal with this new Empire–Mon figures out just how little power she has as a Senator but decides to continue to persevere anyway; Bail learns that he has to let the Jedi go in order to move forward; Saw continues to do what Saw does best: sow chaos; and Soujen finds that he’s obsolete in this new world order.
I’m eager to see what the next book in this series will offer, which will be written by Rebecca Roanhorse (who wrote Resistance Reborn, a favorite of mine) though I don’t think we have a release date for that yet. Can’t wait, though!
The Clone Wars: Gambit: Stealth, by Karen Miller. I started this one on my e-reader (a new Nook from B&N). It’s the first book in a duology, and I found the second hard copy book in my local comic store. I’ve read Karen Miller before (Wild Space, with Obi-Wan and Bail Organa) and I quickly realized why her writing style is slightly annoying: the characters are always arguing, quibbling, contradicting, and otherwise getting on each other’s nerves. And I mean ALWAYS. I get that there needs to be tension in a book, and between characters, but this goes above and beyond, like badly written fan-fiction, lol. Aside from that, her stories are usually pretty interesting. In this one, Obi-Wan and Anakin are sent on a clandestine mission to a planet called Lanteeb to find out if the Separatists are making a bioweapon there. I’m about halfway through, and besides the annoying arguments, it’s a pretty good book so far. I’ll report back next month.
Upcoming: I’m waiting for my copy of Into the Light by Claudia Gray, the next High Republic novel in the final wave of books. I should be getting it tomorrow, and I can’t wait! I’ll have my thoughts on that one next month.
Tales of the Underworld. On May the fourth, we’ll be getting Tales of the Underworld, focusing on Asajj Ventress and Cad Bane. I was hoping we’d get more Tales in this series, and while these characters are unexpected, they’re not unwelcome. Especially Ventress; with her appearance in the Bad Batch, I wanted more of her story: how she survived, what she’s been up to, how she’s atoning for her Sith ways, etc. And where’s Quinlan Voss??? So many unanswered questions, lol. Bane I’m not so interested in, but I’ll take it, and it all looks very exciting.
Drawings: Since March was Women’s History Month, I decided to draw the women from Star Wars. I have a few more in my sketchbook, but I’ll share those next month.
Now I can get back to some of the boys, lol. It’s been really fun learning how to draw portraits and I think with each one I get a bit better at it. It’s also been good for my mental health, as I get so absorbed I forget everything else (I’m in the US, so…yeah, there’s that, lol). Eager to share more sketches with you!
What’s been entertaining you? Let me know in the comments and we’ll talk about it!
Thrawn: Alliances, by Timothey Zahn. I love Thrawn as a character, particularly in Rebels and the Ahsoka show, but I’ve never been a big fan of the books. I just don’t have the patience for his Sherlock Homes-style exposition that makes my eyes glaze over. I thought I’d try this one, though, because the premise seemed interesting: Thrawn and Darth Vader have a mission together, and it flashes back to when Thrawn met Anakin Skywalker and they did a mission together as well. Put Padme in there, too, and I’m intrigued enough to check it out. There was still plenty of tedious Thrawning, but was just interesting enough to get me through it.
The Emperor sends Thrawn and Vader on a mission to investigate a big disturbance in the Force he’s feeling. The flashbacks deal with Padme going to Batuu to meet up with one of her handmaidens who’s discovered something important. She turns up dead, though, and Padme investigates a Separatist factory on a planet called Mokijve. Anakin hasn’t heard from Padme and goes to investigate her whereabouts and encounters Thrawn, whose mission on behalf of the Chiss is a bit vague. They decide to work together, however, to find Padme.
Meanwhile, Thrawn and Vader inevitably clash, as their leadership styles are decidedly different. Vader is constantly questioning Thrawn’s loyalty to the Emperor and the Empire. It becomes quite clear that Thrawn–naturally–has figured out that Vader was once Anakin Skywalker, and he walks that tightrope for most of the book. They deal with a group of Grysk (enemies to the Chiss in the Unknown Regions) who are, it is revealed, kidnapping female Chiss children who are Force-sensitive. These children are what allow the Chiss to travel across space, as they have no hyperdrive navigational systems. Ironically, they are called “Skywalkers.”
Anakin, Padme, and Thrawn find that the Separatists are manufacturing droids and clone armor with cortosis, which are impervious to blasterfire, as well as lightsabers. They work together to destroy the factory, and Thrawn gets the intel on something or other he’s after for the Chiss (he takes some piece of equipment, idk, lol). Vader and Thrawn retrieve the Chiss girls and come to some sort of stalemate and truce, as well as mutual respect.
The book was fairly entertaining, but I doubt I’ll read any other Thrawn book. I’ll take my Thrawn in animation and live-action.
Comics: Legacy of Vader, and Ghost Agents. If you know me you know I’m not a huge comic book fan, but you also know I’m a huge Bad Batch fan. So when it was announced that there would be a comic run with the Batch, I knew I’d check them out. So I walked down to my local comic book shop and found the first issue. Kylo Ren is another special interest, so I thought I’d pick up the new one with him, too.
Ghost Agents takes place during the Clone Wars, so no Omega or Echo, just the original Batch. They’re sent on a mission by Mace Windu to find someone who stole a list of Republic secret agents. They descend into the lower levels of Coruscant and almost find the culprit but run into the bounty hunter Embo, who is also after the list. As a result, the suspect gets away. Stay tuned.
Legacy of Vader takes place between The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker. Snoke is dead, and Kylo force-throws his corpse off the ship into space and tells Hux to make him a throne, lol. But even after killing his father and Snoke, he still feels trapped by the past, which includes Vader. He decides to go to Mustafar to…I’m not really sure, but he runs into Vader’s old assistant, Vanee, who is a head in a fish bowl with a robotic spider-like body. Kylo was going to kill him, too, but Vanee tells him that Vader was strong because of his past. Kylo is intrigued, and we’re left waiting until the next issue to see what sorts of stories Vanee tells him.
I’d never been to my local comic store, and it was a great little place with lots of comics and other things, too. I picked up a book–Clone Wars: Siege, by Karen Miller–while I was there, too. I would have stayed longer, but it was stifling in there and had to get out, lol. But I plan on returning to get the subsequent issues of these stories.
Non-Star Wars entertainments:
Pride and Prejudice (1995). I was rooting around in my new Hulu subscription and came upon this gem. It had been years since I last watched it and decided to indulge in it once again. This is the golden standard of Jane Austen adaptations and it truly is a delight.
Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James. Since I was in an Austen kind of mood, I decided to read this one I had on my TBR pile, which I’d found in a free little library a few months ago. It takes place six years after the events of Pride and Prejudice. Preparations for Lady Anne’s ball at Pemberley is interrupted by tragedy: a murder has taken place on the Pemberley grounds. The victim is Captain Denny, a friend of Wickham’s. The prime suspect is Wickham himself, who, along with his wife Lydia, had been in the carriage with Denny on their way to dropping Lydia off–uninvited, of course–at Pemberley. When Darcy, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and a young lawyer named Alveston investigate, they find Wickham–quite drunk–bent over his friend proclaiming that he’d killed his best friend. What exactly happened that night is the central mystery as the book covers the inquest and trial of Wickham. If you like mysteries, as well as Austen and Regency England, this one’s for you.
As promised last month, here are my drawings for the rest of the Bad Batch:
I posted my drawings of Tech, Hunter, and Crosshair last month, so if you’d like to check those out, they’re here.
Here’s a bonus drawing of Ahsoka from the live-action show:
What’s been entertaining you lately? Let me know in the comments and we’ll talk about it!
Skeleton Crew. I really enjoyed this one. I thought this show about four kids getting lost in the Star Wars galaxy would be a bit kiddie, and it’s certainly appropriate for the whole family, but I was surprised by how much I liked it. It did take a few episodes to pull me in all the way, but once I was invested, I was all in.
The 80’s kids-on-bikes-having-adventures vibe made it fun, and although suburban Star Wars felt a bit jarring, it soon fell into classic Star Wars mode, with lots of cool aliens, pirates, and space action. The whole mystery surrounding At-Attin was cool, the kids were great, and Jude Law as Jod was fantastic. It wasn’t my favorite live-action show, but it was certainly enjoyable and I’m all for a Season 2, if it happens.
Last Shot, by Daniel Jose Older. I tried reading this book back when it first came out (it was one of the first crop of canon books that came out), but after a few chapters, I just couldn’t go on. This writer is terrible, I thought. I have no idea what’s going on. And I was sad, because I really wanted a Han and Lando adventure to enjoy. So I thought maybe I’d try again someday and I’m glad I waited this long, as I’m 1.) more familiar with Daniel Jose Older’s style from the High Republic, and 2.) more familiar with some other canon lore that is subtly referenced in the book, such as the Aftermath Trilogy, and the movie Solo (I hadn’t seen it yet). So, this time when I picked it up, it was much easier to get into and enjoy.
That’s not to say it was a great book, but it was fairly enjoyable. It takes place a few years after ROTJ, as Ben Solo is two years old at the time. Han feels distinctly out of place as a husband and father, so when Lando comes around demanding he help him with something, he’s ready to go. That something is finding out where the Phylanx Redux Transmitter is, as Lando had been attacked by a droid-like being who demanded he find it. See, the last person who had seen it was the owner of the Millenium Falcon, and this person thought it was Lando. But guess who it really was? And what, exactly, is a Phylanx Redux Transmitter? They don’t really know, but they figure they better find it.
So then we go back fifteen years when Lando and L-3 still have the Falcon and L-3 drags Lando on some secretive mission involving droids; then we go back ten years when Han, Chewie and Sanna Starros (I’m still a little fuzzy on who she is, but Leia had referred to her as Han’s “other wife.” Okay.) are on Takodana and Sanna convinces Han to help her with some score, going after a device that is very valuable to many different people. Then we go back twenty years to Utupau, where a doctor there is kidnapped by thugs, his friend is killed by other thugs along with many others, but there are plenty of droids around. He’s so traumatized that he decides droids are the superior beings, and outfits them with the limbs of dead people.
Confused yet? Yeah, me too, but I was determined to make it through this book. It shuffled between all these timelines, and we finally figure out the Phylanx is a device created by that Utupaun doctor that, once activated, will cause all the droids in the galaxy to turn on their masters. Yikes!
This book was sloppy, confusing, and I’m still not fond of Jose Older’s writing style (his HR books are usually my least favorite). BUT–I did like the banter between Han and Lando, seeing L-3 again, seeing little Ben Solo, and seeing Lando fall in love with a Twilek woman named Kaasha Bateeen. I’m assuming this is the mother of Lando’s child who got kidnapped, presumably by the First Order when she’s two years old (who we learn about in the book Shadow of the Sith). So ultimately, I am glad I read this book, but it’s easier to read if you’re familiar with other canon material.
Announcement: A Bad Batch Novel coming in August 2025!
I’m super-excited about this news, as some of you know I’m a huge Bad Batch fan. There are some upcoming comics with the BB (“Ghost Agent,” a Clone Wars mission story) but as I’m more of a book person, this is great news. Here’s the synopsis:
Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, and Omega gamble on a mission to help rebuild Pabu in this thrilling adventure for The Bad Batch.
A good soldier knows that life is all about change — whether it’s on or off the battlefield. Surviving, living, means adaptation. Hunter is well acquainted with this lesson. He’s on the run from the Empire, Echo’s off on a mission with Captain Rex, and Crosshair is . . . still Crosshair, but amidst all the change, Hunter still has Tech, Wrecker, and Omega.
And it seems that his small family might have finally found a safe place to land, far from the increasingly vigilant eyes of the Empire: Pabu. But their potential new island home is in desperate need of resources if there is any hope for the fledgling community to recover from a devastating sea wave. That’s where Phee Genoa, self-proclaimed liberator of treasures, comes in, with a couple of jobs she swears will get them the funds they need. Despite Hunter’s concern with Phee’s precarious plans, the rest of the crew is fine following her lead.
Things go wrong almost immediately, as Phee’s droid blows the crew’s cover at a high-stakes auction, and they barely make it out with the relic they’d been paid to acquire. Hunter insists they finish their first mission and deliver the relic before taking on more work, but Phee and the others push forward with a second job: ferrying a couple on the run, one of whom is due to give birth at any moment. Hunter worries what they’re risking, especially when their mysterious new passengers cling to lies and secrets that trace back to an Imperial Security Bureau officer hot on their trail.
As Hunter tries to get the crew back on a stable, safe path far, far away from anything to do with the Empire’s watchdogs, their overlapping missions only invite more danger and chaos. On the verge of failing both their desperate passengers and their community on Pabu, the Batch must remember that the only way they succeed, the only way they survive to fight another day, is by trusting each other.
I was kind of hoping for a post-finale story, but I’ll take this, as at least we have Tech back (and I’m hoping for a bit of Tech/Phee flirtation, lol). The drawback is no Echo or Crosshair. Also, I have to wait until August to read it. 😦 But I’m very happy it’s on the Star Wars book horizon.
So I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been getting back into drawing and practicing portraits, mostly because I want to draw Star Wars characters. I’ve made some progress, though I have a long way to go. I do like this Obi-Wan Kenobi drawing I did a little while ago:
Yes, the top of his head is not there, lol, as the photo reference cut it off and I didn’t dare fill it in at the time. And yes, that’s an envelope at the top covering up some comments for improvement I made. But otherwise, I like it. I drew a lot of other SW live-action characters, but I’m not particularly happy with them; I need to improve a bit before I share them.
However, I have been drawing some Bad Batch characters, as they’re animated and already 2D, so I thought I’d have an easier time with them. I wouldn’t say they were easier, but they did come out better than the live-action characters. Here’s what I have so far:
I’m happy with these. Omega is up next, as well as Wrecker and Echo. I’ll share those next month.
Lastly, here are some non-Star Wars books I’ve enjoyed lately:
That’s it this month. What’s been entertaining you? Let me know in the comments and we’ll talk about it!
Hello friends, long time no blog!
I hope everyone had a happy Solstice/Christmas/Hannukah/Life Day. I’ve been taking a break from the blog for a few months, as I was busy taking care of my elderly Dad. He ended up getting pneumonia and sepsis and passed away at the end of November. Then I got sick for a few weeks. I’m just now feeling as if I’m getting back to “normal” and have missed the blog, so I thought I’d give a quick update.
I’ve been reading a lot of great non-Star Wars books* (see brief list at end of post), but I did read the latest High Republic novel, Tears of the Nameless, and I think it’s probably my favorite HR book so far. It focuses on Reath Silas, one of my favorite HR Jedi, and his quest to solve the Nameless problem. He gets help from a Padawan named Amadeo, and oh yeah, his old Master, Comahc Vitus returns with some vital information. I was thrilled to see Comahc return, as he had left the Order at the end of Midnight Horizon. Fantastic book.
Another SW book I read was the Mace Windu book The Glass Abyss. This one was…interesting. Mace has never been one of my favorite Jedi, but I do respect the guy. But I’ve always wanted to like him, as well. The Clone Wars went a long way in helping me with that; he was great whenever he made an appearance there. I tried reading Shatterpoint, the Legends book about Mace, but I just couldn’t get interested. I didn’t have much hope for this one, to be honest, since I saw that a lot of people didn’t really like it. But you know what? It wasn’t bad. It was definitely different for a Star Wars book, and especially different for a Mace story. But maybe that’s the point. Here, Mace goes to an Outer Rim planet at the behest of his now-dead friend, Qui Gon Jinn, who had a mission there several years ago. The people are under the thumb of two different crime lords who hold a tenuous balance there. He befriends a community who have a symbiotic sort of relationship with giant silkworms (!) and comes to deeply respect them. He also falls for the leader of these people, and it’s weird seeing Mace all romantic and stuff (once he realizes he’s in love, that is), lol. One of the villains is strange, as well, as he’s two different beings bonded as one, a Rodian and another humanoid species, named Chulok. The other crime boss is a giant insect. Yeah, very weird stuff, but I found it kind of entertaining. I also read it in the hospital while my dad was dying, so it holds some weird emotional heft with me. So yeah, I do like Mace now, lol.
In live-action news, I’m quite enjoying Skeleton Crew. It took a few episodes to really hook me, but I’m fully on board now. It’s a fun, weird, mysterious adventure and I can’t wait to see how this is going to turn out. I’m curious about Jod’s past (is he just a random Force-user, or a former Padawan who escaped Order 66?) and if he’ll come to use his Force powers for good instead of piracy; I’m also wondering about the whole At Attin thing and what’s going on there. And if any harm comes to our sweet Neel there will be hell to pay.
Star Wars things I’m looking forward to: there will be some Bad Batch comics in January, a Clone Wars adventure I think, and this will be a comic series I’ll need to have on my shelf. I’m also hearing rumors about a Bad Batch novel coming out in April or May? If so, I’ll be in Bad Batch heaven! I’m looking forward to the conclusion of The High Republic series with the last wave of books, and of course, Andor Season 2. I recently rewatched Season 1 and I’m totally ready for that great series to continue and conclude.
So instead of blogging and/or writing these past few months, I’ve gotten back into drawing, specifically, portrait drawing. I just needed to do something different, and I have this crazy dream of creating Star Wars fan art. If you know me, you know I LOVE Star Wars fan art, and I’ve often thought, You know, I want to do that too! So I’m going to. I’m still practicing my portrait skills, but once I feel ready, I’m going to start drawing Star Wars characters, and I will certainly share them here if I feel they’re any good, lol.
Anyway, hope everyone is well. Let me know what you’ve been up to, and what Star Wars things are making you happy right now in the comments!
* Here’s some great non-Star Wars books I’ve read lately:
The Immortalists, Chloe Benjamin. How would you live your life if you knew the day you were going to die? The four Gold siblings have to deal with this scenario, as they visit a fortune-teller when they are quite young (7-13) on a whim. Though they claim not to take it too seriously, the knowledge follows them throughout their lives and affects them in ways they cannot fathom as kids.
The book is divided into four parts, one section for each of the Gold siblings: from Simon, the youngest (and the first to die at twenty of AIDS in 1982 San Francisco); to Klara, a magician who feels responsible for encouraging Simon to run away to that city; to Daniel whose idea it was to go to the fortune-teller in the first place; to Varya, the oldest and most skeptical, but who ends up living the longest and with the most serious consequences of all her losses.
The book engrossed me, and brought up questions of fate versus free will, of self-fulfilling prophecies, and how we deal with grief and loss. I, for one, would NOT want to know the date of my death if given the opportunity (this book goes a long way in convincing me of that, lol), but the siblings were kids when they found out and didn’t understand how profound such a revelation could be.
It’s an intriguing premise and I recommend it if you like literary books and family dynamic stories. Just be prepared for a lot of tragedy.
Binti Trilogy, Nnedi Okorafor. I was introduced to Nnedi Okorafor with her novel Who Fears Death? a few years ago, and I loved it. It was different than any fantasy I’d ever read, and that was when I discovered Afro-Futurism (science fiction/fantasy that is rooted in Black history and culture). Here’s a brief Amazon summary of the trilogy:
In her Hugo- and Nebula-winning novella, Nnedi Okorafor introduced us to Binti, a young Himba girl with the chance of a lifetime: to attend the prestigious Oomza University. Despite her family’s concerns, Binti’s talent for mathematics and her aptitude with astrolabes make her a prime candidate to undertake this interstellar journey.
But everything changes when the jellyfish-like Medusae attack Binti’s spaceship, leaving her the only survivor. Now, Binti must fend for herself, alone on a ship full of the beings who murdered her crew, with five days until she reaches her destination.
There is more to the history of the Medusae—and their war with the Khoush—than first meets the eye. If Binti is to survive this voyage and save the inhabitants of the unsuspecting planet that houses Oomza Uni, it will take all of her knowledge and talents to broker the peace.
But even if Binti achieves this remarkable feat, it’s not the end of her story. For this lone Himba woman, now bonded with a Medusa and forever changed by this bond, still must find a way to survive and thrive at Oomza University amid swirling interspecies biases. And eventually, she must return home to test the strength of the fragile peace she worked so hard to win.
The trilogy includes Binti, Binti: Home, and Binti: The Night Masquerade; the first two books are rather short novellas, and the third is closer to novel-length. The story drew me in right away with Binti’s unique cultural characteristics: Binti is good at “treeing”, which involves meditating through mental mathematics (!); she can also, through treeing, create energy currents through her fingers; she and her father are specialists in making “astrolabes,” which are like fancy futuristic cell phones that everyone carries around with them. The women of her tribe cover their flesh with a native red clay called otjize, and feel utterly naked without it. Binti journeys into space in a living spaceship called “First Fish.” There’s just some very cool world-building in these books.
Binti’s journey is ultimately a coming-of-age story, and an exploration of the adage that “you can never go home again.” All wrapped up in a science-fiction story that explores cultural prejudices and the futility of war. I loved it.
Beware the Nameless, by Zoraida Cordova. This is the second middle-grade book in Phase 3 of the High Republic and came out August 27th. I’ve only just begun reading it, but here’s a summary of the book from Amazon:
The fearsome Nihil continue to spread chaos inside the Occlusion Zone, aided by the mysterious creatures called the Nameless that feed on the Force itself. When the people of an embattled world plead for help with the Nihil threat, a team of both Republic Defense Coalition members and Jedi—including Ram Jomaram—is sent to their aid.
The team soon discovers that their ship contains four stowaways—Jedi younglings Kildo, TepTep, and Jamil, and Zenny Greylark, a senator’s daughter determined to find her sister. When a distress call comes in from a nearby planet, Jedi Master Adi-Li Carro agrees to take the stowaways to investigate. There, they will encounter a young Hutt on a mission, a stranger with mysterious motives, and the creatures they fear the most. . . .
I’ve always enjoyed the middle-grade books of the High Republic, but what I’m really waiting for is the second YA book, Tears of the Nameless, which features one of my favorite HR characters, Reath Silas. That one comes out on September 24th, and I’m looking forward to it.
D23: Skeleton Crew, Andor & Mandalorian & Grogu trailers. D23 gave us a few teaser trailers for some upcoming Star Wars content, the first of which will be Skeleton Crew, coming out on December 3rd. I think it will be fun, but probably not something I’ll rewatch on a regular basis. I do love Jude Law and am looking forward to seeing what he brings to the Star Wars universe.
It seems like we’ve been waiting forever for Andor Season Two, and it appears we’re finally getting it in 2025. I’ve been saving my Andor rewatch for just before Season 2 comes out, lol.
The Mandalorian and Grogu movie will apparently come out in 2026. I’ll be there with my popcorn.
Rings of Power Season Two trailer. I watched Season One of this series and really enjoyed it. I’m a fan of the books, as well as Peter Jackson’s movies, and the artistic choices of the show didn’t bother me a bit. I’m hoping to watch Season Two soon, but I’ve been having an issue with Amazon and need to get on the phone with them pronto, lol. I also need to rewatch Season One, as it’s been a while and I need a refresher.
Olympics obsession. This site is called Star Wars And Other Obsessions, and the Olympics this year turned out to be one of my surprising obsessions. I’ve never paid so much attention to the event as I have this time around; I think it’s because there were so many fascinating personalities coming out of it on social media.
My absolute favorite was Stephen Nedoroscik, or “Pommel Horse Guy.” A “specialist” on the USA men’s gymnastics team, his only event was pommel horse, and his routine won the team the bronze medal; he also won an individual bronze. Impressive enough, but it’s his humility and sweet nerd-boy personality that makes people love him. He’s become a social media star and will be on Dancing With The Stars next month (luckily it will be on Disney+ so I can check out his dance moves, lol.)
A couple of my Bad Batch Facebook groups likened him to Tech, and I can see that. Stephen is a mechanical engineering major who can solve a Rubik’s cube in 10 seconds and has those trademark goggles. But he smiles and laughs a lot more than our very serious clone, which is quite endearing.
Oh, and they likened Crosshair to this guy:
So many great performances, so many heart-warming stories. I just loved it. Bring on 2028!
What’s been entertaining you? Let me know in the comments and we’ll talk about it!
Hello friends! I hope everyone is having a great summer (if it’s summer where you live!). I’m not a big fan of the heat, so I prefer being in air conditioning reading a good book, lol. And I’ve got a few to tell you about, but first:
(The Acolyte Spoiler Warning!!!)
The Acolyte, finale. I enjoyed every minute of this show, and while the finale left enough open for a possible Season 2 (which I very much would enjoy), it brings the series to a satisfying close. I won’t recount every scene here, but just give my thoughts on the finale as well as the show as a whole.
Everyone ends up back on Brendock, where all the trouble began. Osha has seen a vision of Mae killing Sol without a weapon. The fact that it turns out to be Osha herself is heartbreaking. I never thought about the Force choke as a possibility to the riddle of killing a Jedi without a weapon, but it seems obvious now. And the way Sol forgives her as he’s dying, with a tear rolling down his cheek and almost getting out “I love you,” is gut-wrenching.
And I love Sol, but let’s face it–he made a lot of mistakes in this show, lol. All the Jedi on Brendock did, except perhaps Kelnacca (yes, he used his claws on Torbin, but he wasn’t of his own mind and I consider him blameless). But the fact that at the end, despite everything, Sol doubles down on claiming he was “doing what he thought was right,” makes me wince. Oh, Sol. Maybe, but you didn’t do what a Jedi should do.
There’s been some complaints that this show paints the Jedi as “evil,” and that’s just not true. It simply shows that they’re fallible and make mistakes. Too many at this time, which leads to their downfall many years later. That was the whole point of the Prequels–the Jedi were blind to the evil right in front of them. That didn’t just happen overnight. This show goes a long way in showing how they got there.
Qimir was a fantastic villain, by the way (and puts the seductive back into the dark side, lol). Whether or not he knows about Plagueis lurking around the island is up in the air, but I think he does and is under his direct tutelage. And I think Plagueis will be very much interested in this Force-born individual for his immortality studies.
I thought the series was great, and like I said, hope there’s a Season 2 to answer our lingering questions: Whatever happened to Mother Koril (Nightsisters?)? Will Vernestra find her former Padawan Qimir (with the help of amnesiac Mae?) What ultimately happens to Osha and Qimir? With the recent announcement of two Acolyte-centric books coming out next year, I’m guessing we will eventually get a Season 2. So take that, haters!
Honor Among Thieves, by James S. A. Corey. This was a fun Legends book focusing on Han Solo and a mission he gets involved in not long after the Battle of Yavin. He’s sent to find a Rebel spy (for which he will be paid, thank you very much) and bring her back to the Rebel fleet. Said spy, Scarlet Hark, has other plans: she’s got intel on a new Imperial weapon based on an ancient alien technology and needs to get to the guy who’s going to sell the location of it to the highest bidder. The technology is a way to stop ships from going into hyperspace, essentially grounding them in their own star systems; whoever controls that technology can control what happens in the galaxy. Eventually, Han, Scarlet and Leia get to the location to either take control of it or destroy it if they must.
This was a fun adventure, and I liked that it was all from Han’s point of view. And of course, we get a little more insight into Han and Leia’s burgeoning relationship at this early stage. Luke was a peripheral character here, helping where he was needed and offering his sunny optimism at this point, but not much else. Chewie, too, was sidelined as he was always left behind in the Falcon to provide the last-minute rescue from sticky situations several times. But I loved that it was Han-centric, and how he seriously comes to question exactly why he’s hanging around these crazy Rebels.
The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire, by Dr. Chris Kempshall. While awaiting the next Star Wars book to come out, I figured I’d check this one out chronicling how the Empire came to be and its eventual fall. The author is an actual historian in real life, and here he writes in the voice of Beaumont Kin, a character played by Dominic Monahan in the sequels. Kin, a historian who had been studying Sith relics, joined the Resistance after The First Order destroyed Hosnian Prime. After the defeat of the First Order, he worked on this historical treatise, finding it extremely important to understand how totalitarian states arise and how to possibly prevent it from ever happening again. He focuses, of course, on Palpatine, but also on the nature of the Empire, its bureacracy and protocols. There’s even footnotes linking his subject to various sources, from surviving Imperial archives (many of which were destroyed) to speeches by Leia Organa, as well as personal conversations he had with her.
It’s interesting to read, because we the reader know so much more than the writer himself about events in this galaxy (we’ve seen all the movies and read all the books, you see, lol). He can only surmise certain things based on the evidence he has at hand, and it’s kind of fun to know what he can only guess at.
I’m only a few chapters in (and it’s a big book–500 pages), and I’ll probably read it here and there between other Star Wars books, so I probably won’t finish it any time soon. But I’ll let you know when I do and what I think about it.
Writing on Empty, by Natalie Goldberg. I’ve read most of Natalie Goldberg’s memoirs and writing books, even though I don’t write according to her method much anymore, but she was a huge influence on me back in the day. And I just like to keep up with what’s going on in her life. Here, she recounts how, during the Covid pandemic, she went through some writer’s block, though she doesn’t like to use that term. Nevertheless, she lost the will to write and had to find her way back somehow. Through friends, books, and a retreat in Oregon, she came to the conclusion that, despite the isolation, the emptiness and despair, the only thing you can do is to write through it and get to the other side.
Swift River, by Essie Chambers. I’m going to come right out and say that I read this book because I went to school with the author. I didn’t know her very well, but she was in one of my English classes, and at the time I thought, This girl is going places. And she did; she went on to get an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University and worked as a film and television executive. She was recently on the Today Show with Jenna Bush, who chose this, her debut novel, as a Read With Jenna pick.
Here’s the Amazon summary of the book:
It’s the summer of 1987 in Swift River, and Diamond Newberry is learning how to drive. Ever since her Pop disappeared seven years ago, she and her mother hitchhike everywhere they go. But that’s not the only reason Diamond stands out: she’s teased relentlessly about her weight, and since Pop’s been gone, she is the only Black person in all of Swift River. This summer, Ma is determined to declare Pop legally dead so that they can collect his life insurance money, get their house back from the bank, and finally move on.
But when Diamond receives a letter from a relative she’s never met, key elements of Pop’s life are uncovered, and she is introduced to two generations of African American Newberry women, whose lives span the 20th century and reveal a much larger picture of prejudice and abandonment, of love and devotion. As pieces of their shared past become clearer, Diamond gains a sense of her place in the world and in her family. But how will what she’s learned of the past change her future?
A story of first friendships, family secrets, and finding the courage to let go, Swift River is a sensational debut about how history shapes us and heralds the arrival of a major new literary talent.
I recognized part of my childhood in this book–the Western Massachusetts setting, the 80’s references, even the name drop of a common teacher we both had. But it’s more than a nostalgic trip to childhood; it’s about the black experience in the North (I learned about “sundown towns” in this book, which I had never heard of, where entire black communities left a town overnight because of prejudice and racism in the early part of the twentieth century). But mostly, it’s a coming-of-age story about a young woman who’s trying to find her place in the world. It’s a wonderful book that I won’t soon forget.
What’s been entertaining you lately? Let me know in the comments and we’ll talk about it!
Hello friends! A few new Star Wars things to talk about and a movie, so let’s get to it!
(SPOILERS AHEAD!!!)
The Acolyte, Episodes 1-5. I’ve been really enjoying this latest Star Wars offering, despite the haters and all their ridiculous criticisms. Let them complain; they’re missing out on some cool Star Wars. Is it perfect? Nope. Is it a new flavor of Star Wars that is intriguing, fun, and tragic all at the same time? Heck yes!
The only real problem I’ve had with it is the pacing, but it’s a minor grumble. As a reader of the High Republic books, I’m a bit sad that Vernestra has become so entrenched in politics and keeping things from the Council, but maybe that’s part of her character arc and that might change (people tend to change after a hundred years, I guess, lol). We’ll see.
I’m assuming if you’re reading this, you’ve been watching, so I’m not going to recap anything; let’s just talk about that awesome Episode 5. Holy lightsaber fights! This episode was full of not only the kind of Jedi action that we love, but some plot twists, shocking deaths, and on-point dialogue that had me glued to the screen.
I assumed that all the unnamed Jedi were goners, but Jecki’s death really hurt, and #YordHorde is mourning deeply. I’m a little shocked that Sol just left them there in the jungle, but I guess he couldn’t very well carry them both out, or any of the many Jedi that died that night; besides, they were in a hurry to get back to the ship and didn’t have time to bury them.
I was kind of surprised/not surprised that “The Stranger” turned out to be Qimir. I mean, it was obvious, but I figured it was a little too obvious. I’m still glad it was him, because Qimir–or whatever his name is– whether he’s the bumbling smuggler or the badass darksider, is very entertaining. Whether or not he’s an actual Sith has been up for debate in the fandom (some people think he might be an early Knight of Ren), but I’m going with yes, he is a Sith. The fact that he quotes part of the Sith code in an earlier episode (“Peace is a lie”) and he mentions the very word “Sith” makes it clear, at least to me. At any rate, he believes he’s a Sith. The whole Ki Adi Mundi outrage seems silly to me. I really don’t care when Legends said he was born; and clearly, his words about the Sith in the prequels shows he either a) doesn’t know about this guy because it was covered up, b) is lying, or c) is in deep denial over the whole thing, which is quite indicative of prequel Jedi in general.
Mae’s twin-swap, and the swapping of Masters, is something I was not expecting. I don’t like to predict anything about this show, precisely because it’s unpredictable and surprising, but I’m thinking Osha may become the Acolyte this guy’s looking for. I hope not, but I wouldn’t be surprised. I’m not sure about Mae’s fate, but I can’t wait to find out, as well as what actually happened on Brendock. Sol is the only one left who knows the truth and he’s going to have to confront that painful truth, whatever it is.
This show is keeping me on my toes, and I’m loving every minute of it!
Temptation of the Force, by Tessa Gratton. This is the second adult novel for Phase 3 of the High Republic (The Eye of Darkness by George Mann being the first, along with the YA offering Defy the Storm by Justina Ireland and middle grade book Escape from Valo by Daniel Jose Older and Alyssa Wong). This one came out the first week of June, so I’m only halfway through it, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it.
This one focuses on the Republic and the Jedi crossing the Nihil’s Stormwall for rescue and relief missions, trying to help those still stuck in the Occlusion Zone. With the help of Xylan Graf and Avon Starros, they find a way to bring down the Stormwall and launch an attack against the vicious General Viess, who has taken over the planet Naboo.
Meanwhile, Marchion Ro is investigating an intriguing but terrifying blight that is spreading across some worlds, hoping to use it to his advantage.
The book centers on a few personal relationships, the most obvious being the one between Jedi Masters Avar Kriss and Elzar Mann, as the cover would suggest. Close since their time as Padawans together, Elzar has always struggled with his feelings for Avar throughout the series, while Avar had maintained a boundary that she refused to cross. After many brushes with mistakes and the dark side, Elzar had been finally coming to terms with who he needed to be as a Jedi. Now, however, after escaping the Occlusion Zone in The Eye of Darkness and being away from Elzar for a year, Avar realizes she’s in love with him and has been slowly introducing the idea to him that they can be together and that their love is a good thing, without being possessive or selfish in that love. Hmm, I don’t know Avar, I don’t think you understand romantic love, or at least, the tendency of romantic love to go that way, lol. I’m totally shipping them, but I also am convinced that this relationship does not bode well for them, the Jedi, or the future of this story.
Another relationship it explores is that between Jedi Master Porter Engle and his nemesis General Viess. Their long history began many decades ago and was explored in a comic that I didn’t read, but I do know it resulted in Porter’s sister taking a vow that was ultimately named after her: the Barash Vow, in which a Jedi abstains from taking action from the Order and isolates oneself to listen only to the Force, as a kind of penance for some wrong-doing (this is seen in The Acolyte with Master Torbin, who had taken the Barash Vow sometime after the events on Brendock). At any rate, the two hate each other, but also respect each other; Viess has shown considerable skill in holding her own against a Jedi and the Force (having a beskar sword helps). Viess nearly killed Porter in the last book; now, he is determined to end her life and pursues her throughout this book relentlessly. Porter is clearly on a revenge mission, operating outside the Order, but he’s accepted that. Maybe he feels that if he survives, he’ll take the Barash Vow himself, but I don’t think he expects to live. It’s interesting because Porter has not fallen to the dark side at all. He just decided that he’s going to kill this woman or die trying, and that’s that, lol.
It’s these personal relationships and thorny Jedi choices that make these High Republic books so great to read, at least for me. We’re seeing the beginning of the end of the High Republic, events that lead to The Acolyte a hundred years on (which clearly shows the Jedi have become more political), which of course leads to the Prequel Jedi and their downfall. Good stuff! I’ll write more about this book next month after I’ve finished it.
Medstar I: Battle Surgeons and Medstar II: Jedi Healer (Legends), by Michael Reeves and Steve Perry. These two books are basically Parts 1 & 2 of one long novel, focusing on Jedi Padawan Barriss Offee, who has been sent to the planet Dongar to help the medical personnel stationed there. She suspects that her master, Luminara Unduli, has sent her there for her Jedi Trials. The planet is being contested by the Republic and the Separatists for a particular fungus that acts like bacta, but works even better. It focuses not only on Barriss, but on human chief surgeon Jos who has seen his share of clone injuries and deaths, a Sullastan reporter looking for his next big story, and an unnamed spy in their ranks, who works for both the Separatists and the Black Sun crime syndicate.
I picked these novels out mostly because of a renewed interest in Barriss considering her shorts in Tales of the Empire, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I really enjoyed these books on their own. Jos’ struggle with coming to terms with seeing clones as actual, individual human beings (and seeing droids as possibly sentient beings) while also struggling with his feelings for a woman who is not permissible according to his people’s traditions, really captured my full attention; Den Duhr, the Sullastan reporter, finds that he’s actually less cynical than he thinks and might even be a hero, though he’s loathe to admit it; and Barriss learns an important lesson about the dark side–that it can be deceptive and cloak itself in the illusion of doing the right thing. Or at least, what feels like the right thing. In fact, it doesn’t feel evil at all; it feels good. All the while, the question of who the spy is continually intrigues and makes the reader consider and eliminate various characters as the books go on.
I don’t read a lot of Legends books, but I personally loved these Medstar books.
Honor Among Thieves (Legends), by James S.A. Corey. I just started this book on my Kindle and haven’t gotten very far, but so far, it’s pretty good. It takes place between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. Leia asks Han to extract one of the Rebellion’s spies, Scarlet Hark, from the planet Cioran, deep in the heart of the Imperial-run Core. I’ll write more about it next month when I’ve gotten further or finished it, but I will say I like that it’s all Han’s point of view, which I don’t see too often.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. I’ve always loved the Mad Max movies, though The Road Warrior is by far the best of the lot. When Fury Road came out a few years ago, I thought, a Mad Max movie without Mel Gibson? Pshaw! But Tom Hardy did an impressive job of filling those shoes, and anyway, Max wasn’t really the focus of that movie, Furiosa was, and I absolutely loved her! When I heard that another Furiosa movie was in the works, I got excited because I knew I’d love another go-round with Charlize Theron as the titular character. But wait–it’s not that. The filmakers go back in time and tell Furiosa’s story of how she came to the Citadel, beginning when she was taken as a child from The Green Place. And Anya Taylor-Joy would be playing young adult Furiosa. Disappointing to me, but I thought I’d give it a chance.
And by and large, I enjoyed the movie. It was interesting to know Furiosa’s backstory. How she was taken by marauders from her lush, green home in the middle of the Australian desert; how her mother pursued them across the wasteland like a demon and nearly succeeded in getting her child back; and how, ultimately, she was caught, tormented, and killed. The leader of the marauders, Dementus, is played by Chris Hemsworth, who’s been given a prosthetic nose to…I don’t know, dial down the handsome? I guess, but it works, because he looks strange to me, lol. But he does a great job portraying this weird, vicious, driven, but ultimately broken man, a man that Furiosa vows to take her revenge upon.
She ends up at the Citadel, run by the horrendous-looking Immortan Joe, while Dementus takes control of Gastown, one of the three communities in the wasteland (the other being Bullet Town). She’s brought to Joe’s harem, witnesses one of his women give birth to a baby with too many limbs and resists the gross advances of one of Joe’s sons. She decides she’d rather take her chances masquerading as a boy than stay in that harem, cushy though it may be (besides, you know, having to have sex with ugly Joe and giving birth to his mutant children).
She grows up learning what she can to survive, until one day she stows aboard a big rig that regularly makes a run to one or the other communities, to trade food for gas or weapons. The rig is attacked by marauders, though, and she and the driver, Praetorian Jack, are the only ones who survive. Jack, impressed with her, offers to teach her how to be a Praetorian (basically, a driver of the big rigs).
During the course of their time together, they fall in love. Yep, I said it: there’s an actual love story in a Mad Max movie (besides the first one all those years ago). It’s not overly done or thrown in your face, but it’s sweet and actually kind of nice to see such tenderness in this awful, vicious world. But of course, it can’t survive said viciousness. Inevitably, they get attacked by Dementus and his goons on one of their runs, and it doesn’t end well: Jack is killed (and not quickly) and Furiosa loses part of her arm, explaining that prosthetic arm she sports in Fury Road.
Eventually, war breaks out between the Citadel and Dementus, and Furiosa uses this opportunity to go after the man who kidnapped her and killed her mother, as well as her lover. She pursues him relentlessly and eventually gets her revenge. But here, it gets a bit ambiguous: did she simply shoot him in the head? Make him suffer like Jack? Or…plant a tree in his guts (the seed her mother gave her) and watch him suffer as it grew out of him? The fruit of which she brings to the women in Joe’s harem, beginning a relationship of trust with them? Which leads, of course, to her helping them escape in Fury Road.
I really enjoyed this movie, though I felt it was a bit too long. Taylor-Joy does a good job of portraying younger Furiosa, but Hemsworth as Dementus was pretty entertaining. A truly horrible man, but he must have had a family at some point, as he wears his (presumably dead) child’s teddy bear on his belt. This world had chewed him up and spit him out, and he survived by becoming as violent as the world that broke him. It’s a contrast to someone like Jack, who shows kindness and love despite his losses, and later, Max, who, while distant, still has a heart in there somewhere.
Speaking of Max, I blinked and nearly missed his “cameo” in this film: a distant shot of him leaning against his instantly recognizable vehicle atop a cliff, watching a chase from afar while eating his dogfood from a can. He’s in the title of the movie, so I guess he had to be in there somewhere, lol.
For some reason, this movie didn’t do well at the box office, but I thought it was a winner.
What’s been entertaining you lately? Let me know in the comments and we’ll talk about it!
Hello friends! May was a busy Star Wars month, so let’s get right to it. 🙂
The Bad Batch series finale. Although this is the first thing listed, it’s the last thing I wrote because I don’t even know where to begin with this, lol, and summing it up in a few paragraphs is impossible. I’ve been very emotionally involved in this series since it began, and having it come to an end has been bittersweet. I’m not going to go into details of the show here (I’m assuming you’ve watched), just feel all my feelings, lol.
First off, I feel that Season 3 has been pretty solid, particularly Crosshair’s character arc and redemption. There are lots of characters I would have liked to see return or at least know what happened to them (Cody? Cid? Wolfe? More Rex and the clones? I definitely would have liked more Phee, too) but the season focuses on the Batch and their mission, as it should.
The whole “Is Tech still alive?” thing was really up in the air for me; at the beginning of the season I thought there might be a possibility, and there seemed to be some clues planted here and there. But by the last few episodes I concluded he was truly gone and subsequently had to grieve for him all over again, but also feel relieved that he didn’t come back as some awful brainwashed assassin like the CX’s, Winter Soldier-style, which is the only way I feel he could have come back. But now I can at least move on and know that his sacrifice allowed the happy ending for his family that we got. (There’s always my alternate-universe fan-fiction, where he does survive, and I can live there simultaneously with the canon version, lol).
Anyway, there were so many doom-sayers that were convinced that everybody was going to die at the end in Rogue One style and I just wanted to say to them: um, shutup? I suppose it was one possibility, but I really didn’t think the series would go that route. At most, I thought we’d lose maybe one more member, but I think Tech was enough to make the point that not everyone gets out alive and that there are stakes. The fact that they all survived and got to live out their lives on Pabu pretty much made me over-the-moon happy (At least this part of my fan-fiction was validated! As well as Omega eventually going off to fight in the Rebellion). Even Emerie survived, who I thought for sure would sacrifice herself to help the children escape. I’m glad she lived, too.
Like I said, there’s so much I could touch on here but I’ll just say that I loved every minute of this last season and the finale was everything I hoped for. The tears didn’t start until the credits rolled, because it was then I knew it was over, and that made me sad; but the Batch were allowed to get old on beautiful Pabu and be whatever they wanted to be, and that made me happy. I like to think that they not only helped Rex find the kids’ parents, but also helped out with the Hidden Path in some way, helping Force sensitives evade the Empire. Not fighting anymore, just doing their little part, helping where they could. A good life with purpose.
I’m hoping to see Rex, Echo, Emerie and the other clones in some future project, as well as Omega during her Rebellion adventures. I dream of her and Hera reuniting and giving the Empire hell! And maybe a cameo by the Batch in any of these stories. A girl can dream, lol.
Tales of the Empire. So this show was part of the May 4th festivities, and I couldn’t wait to watch it. I really liked it, for the most part. I think I like Tales of the Jedi better, but this one gave us some insight into Morgan Elsbeth and the long-awaited return of Barriss Offee. Out of the two characters, I preferred the Barriss episodes. The theme of the shorts was how these two different characters reacted to the rising dark, and how they dealt with the idea of revenge.
Morgan was a young Nightsister on Dathomir when her people were slaughtered by the Separatists, led by General Grievous. She survived, but instead of joining the Mountain clan (which seems to be guided by the Light side of the Force, while the Nightsisters draw from the Dark side), she decides to strike out on her own and seek revenge. At first, I wasn’t sure who she was going to wreak vengeance upon, since the Separatists are no more. But I see now that she’s playing the long game, using the Empire (and Thrawn) to consolidate her own power for Dathomir (as she says in Ahsoka, “For Dathomir” under her breath in response to Thrawn’s “For the Empire.”) Unfortunately, that means hurting others in her quest for power.
Barriss, after Order 66, is offered the opportunity to become an Inquisitor, which is what a lot of us theorized. Even though I did like her shorts better, there’s always been something about Barriss that just didn’t make sense to me. She’d been disillusioned with the Jedi and thought they were becoming more war-like, losing their way, so she…rigged an explosion in the Jedi temple? And framed her “best friend” Ahsoka for it? It didn’t quite make sense, especially since she seemed to be an excellent Padawan in every other way. But okay.
Now, after Order 66, she’s given the opportunity to become an Inquisitor, considering her aforementioned crimes. But every step of the way, she resists the darkness. She kills the other Padawan to survive, not because of any inner ambition. She repeatedly questions their orders and missions and seems naive about their true aims. She doesn’t seem brutal enough to have passed their tests in the first place (having read Rise of the Red Blade, yes, they are terribly brutal, culling any sign of weakness whatsoever.)
Anyway, Barriss decides the Inquisitorious is not for her and saves a Jedi she and the Fourth Sister are supposed to kill (I do like that we get more of her, since she didn’t have much to do in the Obi-Wan series). She goes off and becomes a “Wise Mother,” using her Force healing skills to help others. There’s some evidence she’s a link in the Hidden Path, helping Force-sensitives get away from the Empire. I like this destiny for her; she may have believed the Jedi Order didn’t work, but neither did she think going to the dark side would help anything, either. She just uses her gifts to help others.
I do feel like the Fourth Sister came back to the Light much too quickly, but maybe she was already halfway there after years and years of anger and hate. Honestly, I don’t know how anyone can sustain themselves on those exhausting emotions for so long. She accidentally impales Barriss in the cavern in trying to get out; but we don’t know if she actually died or not. So now we’ll continue to get more questions of “What happened to Barriss?” LOL.
The Acolyte excitement and trailers. I just want to point out that in two weeks, The Acolyte premieres and I’m sooo ready for it! The trailers have been awesome and I can’t wait to sink into this Jedi murder-mystery thriller at the end of the High Republic. Naturally I’ll be talking about it more next month.
The Phantom Menace in the theater. For May the 4th weekend, I caught The Phantom Menace in my local theater. It’s celebrating 25 years since its premiere, which is a little crazy to me, lol. When it first came out, I brought my 8-year-old stepson, who loved Qui Gon Jinn, and Maul’s double-lightsaber. At the time, I wasn’t quite so open-minded as I am now and just didn’t get it. It wasn’t “my” Star Wars. It was so different from the OT that I couldn’t really embrace it at the time. But I did it for the boy, lol. And subsequently brought him to see Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, when they came out.
Now that boy is thirty-three and brings his own young son to see all the Star Wars (and Marvel) movies. And me? I love them, of course. I’ve since relaxed A LOT and just enjoy them for what they are–fun Star Wars movies. Back then, Jar Jar grated on my nerves, and I thought he was a stupid character; now I just want to give the big goof a hug. Obi-Wan Kenobi as played by Ewan McGregor has become one of my all-time favorite Star Wars characters. Qui Gon is also a favorite Jedi character; they’re all quite interesting, but I think they’ve been improved upon in subsequent material like The Clone Wars, and many other projects like the Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka series, never mind countless books.
So it was a fun ride watching the film on the big screen again, this time with a lot more appreciation.
In books, I was kind of all over the place this past month. While waiting for the next High Republic book to come out (Temptation of the Force on June 11th), I went back and forth with a few different things, not really sure what I was in the mood for. Here’s a few books I started but haven’t finished yet (and may or may not finish):
Stone Blind, by Natalie Haynes. I’m often drawn to retellings of ancient mythical stories, especially since modern retellings will often turn them on their heads with different perspectives and interpretations. The Medusa myth has always fascinated me: the story of a goddess who was turned into a monster, and whose gaze turned men to stone. Naturally, when I found out some time ago about the details of the story–that Medusa had been raped by Poseidon, was blamed for the incident and turned into the monster–I felt outrage. Typical “blame the victim” patriarchy, misogyny at its worst; good for her, turning arrogant men who would hunt her into stone, they deserve it, and what have you. Yet I wanted to see what this version would bring to the story.
But I wasn’t too far in when I realized why I haven’t read Greek myth retellings for a while now: the rapes kept adding up, and so did my rage. They weren’t particularly graphic scenes; just the fact that they happened on the regular, by Zeus in particular (what a vile creature he is), just made me sick. In fact, all of the Olympian gods are vile and arrogant and petulant and just plain odious. I suppose that’s the point. But I just couldn’t get through it.
I suspect I’ve been spoiled, in a way, by Star Wars books (and movies and shows). Gender oppression isn’t a thing in these stories, not by a long shot. It doesn’t exist. Rape is never, ever mentioned (this is a PG-rated world, after all), but more than that, in the world itself, women (or transgender persons, for that matter) are simply taken for what they are without question. Good, bad, meek, strong, beautiful, ugly, rulers, peasants, soldiers, parents; gender doesn’t play into the role at all (neither does ethnicity nor sexual orientation). Certainly, there are those in our world who have something to say about this and Star Wars “wokeness;” but I have no patience for any of their nonsense and ridiculous labels.
Anyway, what I’m saying is, I’ve read so much Star Wars and immersed myself in this world so much, that when I encounter misogyny and other bigotry in other books, it’s jarring and upsetting to me. As it should be, but…mental health, lol. So Stone Blind has been set aside for now.
Canto Bight, by various authors. So I retreated into another Star Wars book, one that I haven’t had much interest in but thought I’d finally check out since there didn’t seem to be much else I wanted to read. But…it’s boring, lol. The first story was a bit amusing, but I don’t know or care about these characters at all. And Canto Bight isn’t a setting I’m particularly fascinated by. Set aside for another time, perhaps.
Medstar 1: Battle Surgeons, by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry. So now that I’ve watched Tales of the Empire, I’ve got Barriss Offee on my mind, lol, and want to know more about her besides what we see in the Clone Wars. She’s in a couple of Legends books called Medstar: Book One: Battle Surgeons and Book Two: Jedi Healer. They’re like a Star Wars M*A*S*H, following a group of doctors and nurses on the planet Drongar that sew up and treat clones that are injured in battle. The battle is being waged here for a special substance called bota that’s kind of like bacta, and both sides want it. There’s an arrogant Tera Kasi warrior, an ambitious Republic Admiral, and an unidentified spy in their midst. I like how Barriss is portrayed as a Force healer in these books, as we see in the last short of Tales of the Empire. We don’t see too much of that in canon until Rey in the Sequel Trilogy. I just started the first book, and already I like it better than the other books I’ve tried to read lately. I’ll write more about them next month.
That’s it for this month (that’s plenty!). How did you celebrate May the Fourth? What’s been entertaining you? Let me know in the comments and we’ll talk about it!
Hello friends, and Happy May the Fourth! I’m planning on watching Tales of the Empire tonight, as well as catching The Phantom Menace in the local theater some time this weekend to celebrate.
I also have a special post today: a collaboration post with Jessica Bingham of Storytime Truth. We wrote about the nature of the Force; Jessica described the Light Side and the Jedi, while I explored the Dark Side and the Sith. Enjoy!
The Light Side of the Force, by Jessica Bingham
I have always thought of the Jedi Council as the representation of wisdom. The Jedi temple is a place where stillness, peace, and inner consultation resides. Even the structure of the council is one of invitation, that no one Jedi is above another. They sit in circle fashion, conversing. Contrast this to a speaker at a podium, or even Emperor Palpatine addressing the congress during the special session in Episode III. Palpatine speaks at people, the Jedi speak with each other. They each bring their inner stillness and knowledge of the force to bear on a situation. As Yoda says in Episode V, “a Jedi uses the force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.” In the times of the Republic, these sessions were primarily knowledge seeking, with some focus on defense against the dark side.
Something you will see Jedi Master Yoda do often is meditate. This is a great way to become inwardly still. Sometimes his meditations are seconds long, other times we are led to believe they are dedicated sessions as part of his routine to remain in a state of enlightenment. He also becomes still before engaging in an action of importance such as lifting Luke’s ship out of the water in Episode V.
Qui-Gon Jinn also does this in Episode I during his fight with Darth Maul. Ultimately he loses the battle, but he gave himself a chance to reconnect with the force through purposeful stillness.
When I say feeling I do not mean giving into impulsive emotions. This is more Sith-like and a sign of the dark side emerging. I mean prioritizing feeling over thinking by letting the heart guide the mind. The heart being the word for wisdom and stillness and the mind being the word for action. Qui-Gon Jinn tells this to young Anakin before his pod race in Episode I and Obi-Wan Kenobi tells this to Luke at the beginning of his training in Episode IV and again at the end of the same episode when Luke successfully destroys the Death Star. Kenobi cautions Luke about the dangers of impulsive feelings in Episode VI. He warns Luke that his fear for his loved ones could be used against him as it was for his father. This does not mean that the Jedi are hostile towards emotions, they just make it a point to distinguish between feeling states that serve them versus those that serve the Emperor (or ego).
The Jedi do the least amount of response necessary to combat a threat. This is a crucial guideline because it prevents enjoyment when faced with the temptation of ego. We see Anakin succumb to this multiple times in Episode II and Episode III before fully becoming Darth Vader. He takes pleasure in slaughtering the entire community where he mother was held, for example. He attempts to exact revenge on Dooku after the death of his mother and gets electrocuted. He gives into the desire to behead Count Dooku the next time they meet.
We also see Obi-Wan Kenobi flirt with crossing the line in Episode I when he watches his master fall to Darth Maul at the end.
Luke Skywalker has a brief moment in Episode VI where he enters into the domain of attack. He viciously strikes his father’s saber and severs his hand before pulling himself back, sheathing his sword and casting it away. A Jedi must remain in a state of peace, passivity, and calm in order to refrain from the dark side.
We see a great deal of Jedi using the force for knowledge in Episode V. Much of this episode is dedicated to Luke’s training with Yoda. In this episode Luke learns that the greatest challenge is to overcome his own mind. He discovers this in the cave when he confronts himself as Darth Vader, reminding all of us that absent knowledge and the accompaniment of wisdom, we are all susceptible to our dark side selves.
Later on in Episode V, Luke loses his connection to the force, to his centeredness and fails to balance the stones in his practice session. He is ambivalent about his ship sinking further into the water and makes the mistake of believing that moving stones is radically different from moving a large-scale object like a ship. This is a crucial lesson of the force for Jedi to learn: its application is the same in all situations. Yoda proves this in the series by being the most enlightened and most powerful Jedi. One of the smallest but the most fierce and powerful. He has the highest midichlorian count of all Jedi, aside from Anakin Skywalker. This is why Anakin’s departure from Jedi to Sith was so catastrophic to the galaxy. He had the deepest, most promising connection to the living force and he fell into darkness. It is also why his one action through knowledge of himself as one with the force and defense of his son at the end of Episode VI was enough to tip the force back into balance.
The Dark Side, by Tina Williams
The dark side of the Force deals in raw, powerful emotions: anger, fear, passion, hatred, jealousy, greed, bitterness, selfishness. You get the idea. These are emotions that are seductive and easy to access, as Yoda warns Luke in Episode V. Powerful, yes, but also a trap: fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. One can tap into great power through the dark side, but it’s never enough, and it will never be enough. In the end, it consumes you.
Consider the fate of these prominent dark-side users in the Star Wars universe:
Darth Vader: Ultimate Suffering
Darth Vader is the most iconic dark side figure in Star Wars, and perhaps the most tragic. Once Anakin Skywalker, he was one of the most powerful force-wielders in the Jedi Order. Through the light, he could have done amazing things for the galaxy. Instead, that power became focused through the lens of the dark side.
Anakin falls to the dark through his intense fear of loss: he loses his mother in Episode 2, and in Episode 3 fears he will lose his wife, Padme. Sidious makes sure Anakin believes the only way to save her is through him and the dark side. Because of his emotional attachments, Anakin doesn’t trust in the Force—and literally burns in “hell” on Mustafar as a result of his duel with Obi-Wan.
The suit that encompasses him for the next few decades keeps him alive but in constant pain. His injuries, both physical and emotional, will never fully heal. Vader draws strength in the Force through this pain—anger, grief, hate, as well as self-hatred—but that power will never ease his suffering.
It is only through love for his son, Luke Skywalker, that his pain ends. When Sidious tries to kill Luke with Force-lightning (after Luke had shown Vader compassion, after everything he’d done), it’s Anakin who picks him up and throws him down that shaft. It ends his life, but not before saving his son, and his soul as well.
Darth Sidious: The Emptiness of Hate
Darth Sidious, aka Chancellor, and then Emperor, Palpatine, is the paradigm of the dark side in Star Wars. A Sith Lord who rose to power during the prequel era, he is a master manipulator who orchestrates the Clone Wars to destroy the Jedi Order and becomes Emperor.
Sidious is pure evil, defined by hate and anger. There is no in-between with him, no struggling with who or what he is. He cackles with glee at the suffering of others, taking pleasure in their pain. Clearly, he draws great strength in the Force from all this hatred, Force lightning being one of his favorite weapons. But there’s one thing he does fear: death.
The Sith have a great fear of death, believing it to be the annihilation of the soul; they do not want to give up their physical attachments. Unlike the Jedi, they are denied the opportunity to become force ghosts after death, since its requirements are to face the darkness in themselves and defeat it, give up preconceived notions, and let go of what they fear to lose.
Sidious’ obsession with prolonging his own life is evident in the lengths he goes for supposed immortality. We see it in his Project Necromancer in the Bad Batch, as he tries to use cloning technology (and, presumably, Sith magic) to attain that goal. He only partially succeeds in this, as, thirty years later in the Sequel trilogy, he returns, but in a rapidly degrading clone body. Only in his granddaughter Rey does he truly have the opportunity to successfully live on and continue to spread his evil.
Luckily, the galaxy didn’t have to endure that, as, once again, Light defeats the Dark.
Count Dooku: Righteous Anger
Count Dooku (Darth Tyrannus), the Separatist leader during the Clone Wars, and secret apprentice to Darth Sidious, came to the dark side through disillusionment and righteous anger. As a Jedi, he became disappointed with how the Order had become beholden to the Senate and the Republic, moving away from their role as guardians of peace and justice. He eventually leaves the Order, believing they’d become puppets to a corrupt system. Darth Sidious uses this to his advantage, turning him to the dark side and making him the leader of the Separatist forces.
Dooku, like Sidious, can use Force lightning, and uses it against both Anakin and Yoda in Episode 2. His arrogance causes him to believe that he is indispensable to Sidious, when in fact Sidious orders Anakin to kill him, thus replacing him with a new apprentice. The Sith are governed by the Rule of Two: there is ever only two Sith, a Master and an Apprentice. By the very nature of the dark side, the apprentice will always seek to usurp their master, coveting all the power for themselves. Dooku replaced Maul as Sidious’ apprentice and was then replaced himself by Anakin.
Darth Maul: The Futility of Revenge
Darth Maul, former Sith apprentice to Darth Sidious, is fueled mostly by rage and the need for revenge against Obi-Wan Kenobi. Since Obi-Wan “killed” him in The Phantom Menace, he has relentlessly pursued the Jedi throughout the animated series Clone Wars. His burning need for vengeance consumes him for years, coming to a head in the animated series Rebels, when Ezra Bridger unwittingly leads him to Obi-Wan on Tatooine as he watches over Luke Skywalker.
While Obi-Wan’s trials and his solitude on Tatooine leads to his character’s growth, Darth Maul’s consuming focus on revenge leads him to stagnate; he experiences no growth at all, as he’s been stuck in an endless loop of rage and bitterness. Even as he dies in Obi-Wan’s arms, his mind is still on vengeance, though not against Obi-Wan anymore, but ostensibly against Darth Sidious.
“Is he the Chosen One?” he asks Obi-Wan, referring to who he was protecting on Tatooine.
“He is,” Obi-Wan answers, at this point convinced the Chosen One was not Anakin.
“He will avenge us,” Maul says, referring to the suffering they’d both endured at the hands of Darth Sidious (Order 66 for Obi-Wan, and the death of his brother Savage Opress for Maul).
Even with his dying breath, Maul cannot let go of the idea of vengeance.
Kylo Ren: The Dichotomy of Dark and Light
Born Ben Solo, Kylo Ren is the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa. From birth he is strong in the Force, but Sidious, evil being that he is, influences and manipulates the young boy. He turns Ben to the dark side in retribution for the role his parents played in the fall of the Empire. He does this through a voice in his dreams, as well as through Snoke, who takes young Ben under his wing while his parents are busy rebuilding the Republic. Snoke plants distrust and turns him against his parents and his uncle, Luke Skywalker. After Luke seriously breaks Ben’s trust in him, he leaves Luke’s Jedi training academy and eventually joins the First Order.
After changing his name to Kylo Ren, he becomes obsessed with his grandfather, Darth Vader and wishes to emulate him and his power. But as Rey accuses him in Episode VII, he’s afraid he’ll “never be as powerful as Darth Vader.” This fear goads him to ever more heinous acts, culminating in killing his own father, Han Solo. But afterword, instead of feeling more powerful, he only feels more conflicted.
The interesting thing about Kylo Ren is that he is constantly tempted by the Light, rather than the other way around. It’s as if his natural state is the Light side of the Force and he actively has to work against it to ground himself in the dark side.
After he kills his father, he’s so emotionally compromised (and also injured by Chewbacca’s bowcaster) that he’s defeated by Rey in the lightsaber battle in the forest on Starkiller Base. To make himself stronger, he punches the wound in his side to feel its pain even more. He wants to feel the pain and rage of the wound in order to draw upon the dark side for strength, similar to how Darth Vader is in constant pain from his suit and draws power from his rage.
It’s also interesting how, when Kylo turns back to the Light and fights beside Rey against Sidious as Ben Solo in Episode IX, he looks like a completely different person, and holds himself differently, using the Force through the Light side rather than the Dark. He looks and acts lighter, as if a great burden has been lifted from him. As Kylo he seems weighed down, stomping around and slashing his lightsaber with heavy, massive strokes. But as Ben he’s like a dancer, jumping and flipping around with ease. It’s amazing to see.
While not technically a Sith Lord (in fact, he advocates that the Jedi AND the Sith end), he’s an interesting dark side user that I didn’t want to ignore. There are many dark side cults in canon Star Wars, but Kylo Ren is kind of his own thing.
Darkness is a part of life; there must always be balance. But from what I can see, embracing the Light frees you; embracing the Dark enslaves you.
I hope you enjoyed this collaborative post on the Force! How are you celebrating May the Fourth? Let me know in the comments and we’ll talk about it!
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