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!