Tag Archives: Star Wars
“It’s laughable to suggest that any reveal of a Darth Jar Jar twist could have been met with applause rather than derision”
” Lumpawarroo thereby leaves us with Schrödinger’s Lucas, a creature suspended in creative superposition, simultaneously brilliant and foolish”
“…whenever a “Force Awakens” tidbit has been divulged, the reaction has been like food sprinkled over a piranha tank”
“People don’t give George [Lucas] the credit that he deserves”
“Projects once thought impossible became possible—and, for Lucas, that meant his long-imagined but never-realized Star Wars prequels”
“…in the Clone Wars, even the soldiers on both sides were manufactured goods. The Republic and the Confederacy had been partners in the same corrupt game.”
“The Jedi…had unwittingly trained their students to be the perfect fugitives, able to cut and run at any moment”
From a military perspective, Hoth should have been a total debacle for the Rebel Alliance
From a military perspective, Hoth should have been a total debacle for the Rebel Alliance. Overconfident that they can evade Imperial surveillance, they hole up on unforgiving frigid terrain at the far end of the cosmos. Huddled into the lone Echo Base are all their major players: politically crucial Princess Leia; ace pilot Han Solo; and their game-changer, Luke Skywalker, who isn’t even a Jedi yet.
The defenses the Alliance constructed on Hoth could not be more favorable to Vader if the villain constructed them himself. The single Rebel base (!) is defended by a few artillery pieces on its north slope, protecting its main power generator. An ion cannon is its main anti-aircraft/spacecraft defense. Its outermost perimeter defense is an energy shield that can deflect Imperial laser bombardment. But the shield has two huge flaws: It can’t stop an Imperial landing force from entering the atmosphere, and it can only open in a discrete place for a limited time so the Rebels’ Ion Cannon can protect an evacuation. In essence, the Rebels built a shield that can’t keep an invader out and complicates their own escape.
When Vader enters the Hoth System with the Imperial Fleet, he’s holding a winning hand. What follows next is a reminder of two military truths that apply in our own time and in our own galaxy: Don’t place unaccountable religious fanatics in wartime command, and never underestimate a hegemonic power’s ability to miscalculate against an insurgency.
Spencer Ackerman, “Inside the Battle of Hoth“, Wired (February 2013)
“The conundrum is how to explain to your kids that Jar Jar and Watto are stereotypes without first introducing the stereotypes that you are hoping to negate…”
I managed to avoid the recent rerelease of “Episode I: The Phantom Menace” in 3-D, but only barely. Every father who loves the original “Star Wars” trilogy eventually runs into the fiasco that is Jar Jar Binks — a character capable of destroying a generation’s worth of affection with a single rustle of his oversize ears. While many have noted Jar Jar as a racist stereotype, it’s unclear exactly which stereotype he is. Is Jar Jar a Rastafarian stoner or a Stepin Fetchit or a Zuluesque savage? Or is he just a Gungan? And what about Watto, also from “The Phantom Menace”? A dark-skinned, hooknosed, greedy slaveholder, he’s an all-purpose anti-Semitic caricature. Or possibly he’s just a hovering bad guy in a fantasy world. The conundrum is how to explain to your kids that Jar Jar and Watto are stereotypes without first introducing the stereotypes that you are hoping to negate.
Stephen Marche, “Loompaland is a Complicated Place”, New York Times Magazine (17 June 2012), 61.