A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Cover art by Drew Struzan. © 2015 Del Rey Books & Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Well, I finally did it.  After four years, a cross-state move, and a multitude of ups and downs, including adjusting to life in a new hometown, getting used to living with what amounts to a new family, and now a state of COVID-19 quarantine, I finished reading Alan Dean Foster’s novelization of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I usually don’t consider the act of finishing a book a huge achievement. I usually finish most of the books I start reading, unless I run into one that I really hate and can’t even get to the halfway mark because, ugh, it’s so awful that I’d rather have my eyes plucked out by crows rather than have to read…one…more…page.   I’ve had that unpleasant experience quite a few times in six decades’ worth of reading, and I’m sure I’ll have it a few more times before I die. The last time I felt that completing a book without skimming through “the slow parts” was worth writin...

On October 7, 2018, cable television's Disney Channel aired The Recruit, the two-part premiere of Dave Filoni's Star Wars Resistance, a Lucasfilm Animation series set between Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Produced by Justin Ridge, Athena Yvette Portillo, and Brandon Auman, the series chronicles the adventures of New Republic pilot Kazuda "Kaz" Xiono (voice of Christopher Sean), who is recruited by Resistance fighter ace Poe Dameron (voice of Oscar Isaac) to gather intelligence on the growing menace of the First Order. Although Star Wars Resistance is a CGI-animated production, the style of the new series differs from Lucasfilm Animation's Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. It is inspired by Japanese anime, which is fitting, considering that quite a bit of the animation is done by Polygon Pictures, a Japanese production company based in Tokyo. (Polygon is a long-time partner of Lucasfilm...

J.J. Abrams did not, as you put it,  give way  to anyone as far as directing  Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. Per the original plan that Abrams and the people in charge of Lucasfilm Ltd., each of the  Star Wars  Sequel Trilogy films was to be directed by a different director. Thus, by the time Abrams began pre-production on  The Force Awakens,  the lineup looked like this: The Force Awakens -  Directed by Abrams, with a December 2015 release date Episode VIII -  Directed by Rian Johnson, originally scheduled for a May 25, 2017 release Episode IX -  Directed by Colin Trevorrow, scheduled for a May 2019 release. And in between each of the Saga films, a  Star Wars Story  anthology movie would be released as well. For  Star Wars: The Force Awakens,  J.J. Abrams would direct from a screenplay he co-wrote with Lawrence Kasdan. Originally, the writer for  The Force Awakens  was Michael ...

Some questions, apparently, keep coming back, like kudzu...or a boomerang.  On Quora, Raivo Berkins asks: Will Han Solo come back in the final installment of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy? My reply:  No, Han Solo, the iconic character played by Harrison Ford in the Original Trilogy and in  Star Wars: The Force Awakens,  will not come back in  Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.  His character was killed off in that 2015 film in such a way that only the dimmest and least observant person could possibly believe that he survived. Consider. In his last onscreen appearance in  The Force Awakens,  Han is: Stabbed through the heart with a highly unstable but deadly lightsaber blade wielded by his own son, Ben Solo, aka Kylo Ren Right after being stabbed through the heart, Han falls deep into a chasm under the bowels of Starkiller Base, a planet-turned-into-a-superweapon even more powerful than either Death Star used by the Empire Shortly t...

On Quora, member Al Hartley asks: Does the fact that the Empire is still basically around in the new Star Wars trilogy diminish the events of the original trilogy? As Luke Skywalker says in  Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi,  “Every single word you just said is wrong.” First off, the Galactic Empire is  not  “basically around” 30-some odd years after the destruction of the Death Star II and the downfall of Emperor Palpatine and his evil regime. The main antagonist of the heroes in the Sequel Trilogy is not the old Empire. As the title crawl of  Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Force Awakens  states: Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed. The villains - Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader Snoke, Armitage Hux, Captain Phasma,  et. al.  are not Imperials. They are, in essence, neo-Imperials, fanat...

© 2015 Lucasfilm Ltd. and Buena Vista Home Entertainment What happened to the Galactic Empire in the Sequel trilogy? In   Lucasfilm’s Sequel Trilogy ( The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi,  and  The Rise of Skywalker,  the Galactic Empire created by Supreme Chancellor/Emperor Sheev Palpatine 19 years before the events of  Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope  is no more. With the destruction of the second Death Star, the death (presumed, anyway) of Emperor Palpatine, the death (confirmed) of his fearsome agent Darth Vader, and thousands of Imperial senior commanders and field-grade officers at the Battle of Endor and elsewhere, the old Empire shattered and was defeated after several years by the New Republic. The Galactic Civil War ended when the remnants of Palpatine’s government led by Grand Vizier Mas Ameddas signed the Galactic Concordance five years after the Battle of Endor. However, a core of Imperial fanatics, including Brendol Hux, his young...

On Quora, many Star Wars fan can't stop themselves from asking "Is Han Solo really dead?" and variations thereof. As a matter of fact, this is my second (and hopefully final) answer on this issue: Is there any possibility Han Solo is still alive? In Act III of  Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens,  the following events take place in the First Order’s  Starkiller Base,  a weaponized planet: Kylo Ren, aka Ben Solo, stabs Han in the heart with a very unstable lightsaber - fatally Han then falls from the catwalk into a deep chasm after suffering a fatal lightsaber stab to the heart A short time after  this,  the sabotage to the Starkiller Base’s shields allows Resistance X-wings to deliver a fatal attack on the base’s equivalent of a thermal exhaust port. The resulting explosion not only destroys the First Order’s facilities on the weaponized planet but the planet itself So, considering all these events, and taking into account that Han i...

Quora, a popular Q&A site that is a direct competitor to Yahoo! Answers, has hundreds of thousands of daily users that ask and answer questions about everything under the sun; topics range from archaeology to zoology, including world history, aviation, U.S. and world politics, pop culture (including subcategories such as Star Wars, Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter ). and sex.  The quality of the questions varies greatly as well, depending on various factors, such as age, education level, cultural awareness, and writing abilities. As such, one is bound to see queries that run all the way across the quality spectrum, from the Very Interesting to the Very Weird. This one, by Quora member Mina Simard, is one that falls into the Weird end of the spectrum:  What are the chances that we'll get Star Wars Episodes VII, VIII and IX with the original cast coming back to reprise their roles? My reply: Well, considering that Lucasfilm (and, in the cas...

Why was the character Snoke such a letdown in Star Wars: The Last Jedi after his build-up in The Force Awakens? There wasn’t any build-up. As Yoda might tell you, “Only build-up, in your mind it was.” Supreme Leader Snoke did not have much of a role in  Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens.  He appears only in a few brief scenes as an imposing-looking hologram, utters a few Palpatine-lite lines to General Hux and Kylo Ren, and gives a few plot-necessary orders to his minions. The heroes of the Resistance only refer to him once, and that’s when Leia reminds Han that it was Snoke who turned their son Ben into his Vader-wannabe Dark Side apprentice. He never wields a lightsaber like Kylo Ren’s idol, the aforementioned Darth Vader, and he’s not present on Starkiller Base when the First Order uses its superweapon to decimate the New Republic. That’s it. I don’t see any evidence of a huge character build-up. Look, the problem with Sequel Trilogy dislikers is tha...

Someone on Quora asks:  What do you think of the Star Wars Episode IX trailer? As someone who has seen every  Star Wars  trailer for the live action Episodes since 1976, I can honestly say it’s par for the course for a Lucasfilm  Star Wars  trailer. In essence, it follows the conventions of the  Star Wars  teaser trailers that have come before. It gives the audience glimpses of what the filmmakers have to offer without giving the narrative away. Obviously, there are stylistic differences between the teaser for the first  Star Wars  Skywalker Saga film and the one for the last. For instance, there’s no “voice of God” narrator in the teaser for  The Rise of Skywalker ; instead, we have Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, reciting some dialogue that gives viewers a hint about the thematic content of the film  without  spoilers. I also like the fact that the  Episode IX  trailer is itself a callback...

© 2017, 2018 Del Rey Books/Lucasfilm Ltd. Which elements of 'The Last Jedi' do you think J.J. Abrams will retcon in the upcoming 'Star Wars: Episode IX'? Oh, Sithspawn. Will  The Last Jedi  bashing ever stop? All right. Listen. Apparently, you never took Basic Screenwriting 101 or understand how moviemaking at that level works  really  works. First, even though J.J. Abrams did not write or direct  Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi,  he is one of the film’s executive producers, which is the same job title George Lucas had when Lucasfilm Ltd. made  The Empire Strikes Back  and  Return of the Jedi. That means that even though he was not on-set every day or oversaw production in a hands-on way, he read Johnson’s script way before principal photography began. As executive producer, along with Kathleen Kennedy and others on his decision-making level, he had  veto power  over Johnson’s script. Thus, if Abrams believed, l...

Concept art from The Empire Strikes Back by Ralph McQuarrie. © 1980 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) No. Going strictly by what we see in  Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi,  it is obvious that Yoda is  not  referring to Rey from  Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Yoda’s last words to Luke before crossing over to the other side of the Force are: “There is…another…Sky…walk…er.” In the  very next scene,  which is what writers sometimes call an “exposition dump,” we find out who  the other  is: LUKE I can't kill my own father. BEN Then the Emperor has already won. You were our only hope. LUKE Yoda spoke of another. BEN The other he spoke of is your twin sister. LUKE But I have no sister. BEN Hmm. To protect you both from the Emperor, you were hidden from your father when you were born. The Emperor knew, as I did, if Anakin were to have any offspring, they would be a threat to him. That is the re...

Photo credit and © 2017 Hasbro, Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Well, Dear Reader , it's Tuesday, March 26, 2018, and I'm back with another Star Wars Black Series action figure review. This time around I'll be talking about another figure I received for my recent birthday: Hasbro's Star Wars Black Series: Maz Kanata from director J.J. Abrams' 2015 film, Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens.  Hasbro released its 49th Star Wars Black Series on September 1, 2017 in the same "wave" or shipment that included the following figures:  #50: Elite Praetorian Guard #51: Finn (First Order Disguise) #52: General Leia Organa #53: Captain Poe Dameron #31: AT-AT Driver #35: Snowtrooper #45: Kylo Ren Of the eight figures in this consignment, five (49-53) were new releases, while the other three were re-releases, as you can see from their ordinal number identifiers.  The destruction of her castle has forced Maz to become more mobile and take a ...