Issues in Story Telling: Marked by a Lack of Tragedy

Those of you who keep up with this sort of thing probably already know that Solo has been under performing as a Star Wars movie and is looking to come in as the lowest grossing Star Wars film ever. Considering the subject matter, everyone's favorite smuggler, this is rather surprising. And alarming. It's caused some pondering on my part.

I thought it was a fine movie. Enjoyable. But I didn't love it. "Fine" is not a great recommendation for a Star Wars film, not from me, at any rate. Of course, the problem is that it's not getting a lot of love from... anywhere. The big question, then, is why.

I think I know the answer. Which is not the answer that everyone else is giving; all of those answers have to do with the problems on set, the firing of the original directing duo, and the fact that something like 70% of the movie had to be re-shot. The actual answer is much simpler: The movie is marked by a lack of tragedy.

It's not that every movie needs to have some kind of tragedy, but, I think, Star Wars movies do. They, at least, need to have that feel that there's something that could be lost, and that's true for most all stories. The risk of loss is what provides the tension in a story. Even when you know everything's going to turn out all right in the end, there needs to be that feeling of risk involved. That just doesn't exist in Solo.

Really, the whole movie can be summed up by that first game of sabaac. Han enters the game with nothing. He can't even get into it without someone else fronting him the money to get a seat at the table, which she does because... I don't know. As a business venture, it wasn't wise, because the only thing she has to go on is Han's word, "I can take him." (Or something to that effect.) So Han's in the game with absolutely nothing to lose. It doesn't matter that he wins enough to have a stack of money in front of him; if he loses, he's no worse off than he started.

And he does lose. But, you know, big deal. And Lando doesn't seem to care, either, that he doesn't have the ship he claimed to have which he'd put up against the Falcon in their final hand. It just doesn't come up again.

At any rate, you can't feel bad for Han's loss because he had nothing to lose, nor can you be upset at Lando for cheating, because Han was cheating, too, even if not so directly as having a card up his sleeve.

And you can't feel too badly for the loss of Han's "friends," either, since those relationships were about as real as the ship Han lost to Lando during their game of sabaacc. They're not friends just because you declare them so, no matter how much the writers wanted us to believe it. Tobias just doesn't become a Qui-Gon and there's no sense of loss when he dies; it doesn't matter that Han pulled the trigger. In fact, it's probably because Han pulls the trigger that, as the audience, we're so easily able to shrug it off.

I just wish it didn't make the movie so easy to shrug off, which I think it is. That's disappointing to me from a Star Wars movie. The franchise seems to have lost its way without Lucas at its head to give it an overall vision. Which isn't to say that it has to be Lucas doing that, but someone needs to do it. This "let each director do what he wants" shit isn't working out. Someone needs to bring balance back to the Force before its the loss of Star Wars itself that is the tragedy.

Rebels: "A Princess on Lothal" (Ep. 2.12)

-- In our position, you take what you can get, Kid.

Fuuuuuccck! When the Empire deploys AT-ATs, they just drop them! They DROP them! That explains the legs on them, I suppose.

My son couldn't buy it, though. Me, I was willing to give them that one. It was when Kanan -- see picture above, which is really cool -- went running at the AT-AT with a lightsaber THEN cut right through its legs (yes, two of them!) as if they were butter that they lost me. I mean, they had just dropped the AT-AT from a spaceship and the legs had supported the drop! But Kanan can just slice through them as he runs by? I don't think so. Go back to Phantom Menace and how long it took Qui-Gon to cut through one of those doors on the Trade Federation ship. Oh, wait! He wasn't able to do it in time. AT-AT legs have to be at least that tough.

Anyway...

This episode features a certain princess, and it's a pretty decent episode. You know, except for the bit mentioned above and that Leia seems to be unable to connect with people. Hmm... Actually, I suppose that's just Leia, so it makes sense when Kanan tells her that she should talk to Ezra because she understands what it's like to be young and have a lot of responsibility that she kind of just fails at that.

This is Leia before she's a senator. At least, that's what I'm assuming because her father is the senator from Alderaan. It's interesting to see her from this perspective, but it's more interesting to see the Empire's view of Alderaan. It gives a little insight on why Tarkin becomes so willing to blow it up.

"Wait, why does she get to give orders? I don't get to give orders."

Rebels: "The Future of the Force" (Ep. 2.10)

"We're away from trouble now."

If there's one thing I can say it's that Ahsoka knows how to make an entrance. I wonder if that's a force skill?

During Ahsoka's investigation into whom the Sith Lord is -- that would be Vader, who she doesn't know is Anakin -- she uncovers the inquisitors' interest into... something. She doesn't know what it is; she just knows they're after something. Or somethings. She also knows that if the inquisitors want something, they probably shouldn't get to have it. At the least, the rebels ought to know what it is they're after.

She recruits Kanan and Ezra to help her find out what's going on.

There's a certain amount of tension that exists in this show that didn't exist in Clone Wars. We know what happens to Anakin and Obi-Wan and many of the other characters, but we don't know what happens to Ahsoka and she's not the star of this series. It's plausible that she could go at any time, though, at this point, there's a lot of audience investment in the character, so it makes for situations like The Phantom Menace. I mean, no one expected Qui-Gon to die.

For that matter, we don't have any confirmed future inclusion for any of the characters past Rogue One, so it can leave you guessing during an episode like this.

"You would question me, Seventh Sister?"

"Only when you're wrong."

Clone Wars -- "A Death on Utapau" (Ep. ?.1)

-- One crime has to be concealed by another.

A couple of notes before I get into the episode:

• All of the voice acting for season six had already been completed when they found out that the license for Clone Wars had not been renewed on Cartoon Network, which means the stories and scripts were complete.
• Only about half of the season, "The Lost Missions" episodes, had had the animation completed, and not even those episodes had all of the animation completed. But the guys in charge -- at Disney, I presume -- decided those 13 episodes were close enough for them to be completed for release on disc.
• These episodes, the "Unknown" episodes, have been presented on the Star Wars website with the voice acting set to the storyboards. The animated storyboards which are actually kind of cool.
• These unfinished episodes, despite not being finished, are still considered canon material.

"A Death on Utapau" finds Anakin and Obi-Wan on Utapau investigating a death, not surprising considering the title. heh But it's the death of a Jedi, Jedi Master Tu-Anh. Obi-Wan describes her as being unconventional, like Qui-Gon, and, as such, she frequently was off doing her own thing without the Council's knowledge. Such was the case on Utapau; no one even knew she was there until she was found dead... with no obvious signs as to the cause of that death.

This episode is a bit like a detective story, and they do a pretty good job with it for a 22-minute show. The banter between Obi-Wan and Anakin is at its best. I found myself chuckling more than once. If this arc plays out to be as good as this episode, it may be one of the most enjoyable arcs of the Clone Wars run, which is sad since it didn't get completed.

The added wrinkle is that it's Utapau where Obi-Wan has his confrontation with Grievous in Revenge of the Sith. The war has not reached Utapau in this episode, so it will be interesting to see if this arc is what brings Utapau into it. Much of season six felt like it was happening just before the events of Revenge, and this episode is no different.

"Whatever it is, don't touch it."

"Uh, too late. I touched it."

Clone Wars -- "Destiny" (Ep. 6.12)

-- Death is just the beginning.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]

[Well, actually, considering that we're into season six, now, probably no one new is going to sign up, BUT! Hop over to The Armchair Squid for his take on the current episode.]

I have a question:
Why is Yoda's starfighter so much smaller than everyone else's? The lightsaber thing doesn't bother me, because lightsaber's need to fit the hand of the wielder, but the starfighter thing...? I mean, if starfighters can be smaller, they should be smaller. It makes them harder to hit. I guess the better question, then, is, "If they can make starfighters the size of Yoda's, why do the other Jedi have such large starfighters?" That seems to me to be a design flaw.

And, yes, that has nothing to do with the episode other than that Yoda's starfighter is in the episode, but it's a question that has bothered me for a while. Because the real reason is aesthetics, but I can't get behind that from a practical standpoint.

Anyway...

Yoda continues his journey, the quest he's been sent on by Qui-Gon Jinn. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to go back and watch the previous episode.

Significant things about this episode:
Yoda fights... well, let's just say it's a scene very reminiscent of that one with Gollum from LotR.
Yoda discovers some things about himself. (This is the good part.)
The priestesses are very Spirited Away.

The failing of this episode is that it's too short. Way too short. I think they could easily turn this one into an hour show and make it awesome and surreal.


"Disappoint us not, little green one."

Clone Wars -- "Kidnapped" (Ep. 4.11)

-- Where we are going always reflects where we came from.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]

A theme Star Wars returns to rather more frequently than you'd think -- or, at least, I'd think -- is slavery. Chewbacca was a slave, freed by Han. Anakin was a slave, freed by Qui-Gon. The Hutts run slaves. The Trandoshans trade in slaves. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Oh, and the Empire, because Chewbacca was a slave owned by the Empire.

"Kidnapped" introduces a new race that specializes in trading in slaves, the Zygerrians. At least, they used to specialize in it before the Jedi shut down their slave trading ways. The problem is that the Zygerrians have been holding a grudge and have joined forces with the Separatists in the hopes that they will be able to re-establish themselves and their slave market. Their opening gambit is to invade the planet Kiros, a colony of the Togruta, a peaceful people who have no weapons.

The wrinkle? Ahsoka is Togruta.

When the Jedi arrive to assist the Togruta population, they don't find them. Any of them. All of which leads to an interesting face off between Obi-Wan and Darts D'Nar, the Zygerrian leader of the Separatist forces.

That's about all I can say without spoilers. It's a good, solid episode, and a good start to this arc.

Clone Wars -- "Legacy of Terror" (Ep. 2.7)

-- Sometimes, accepting help is harder than offering it.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]

I'm not a big fan of zombies, especially more modern zombie stories with all of their supercharged zombies of utter destruction. I just don't find it interesting. That said, this is one of the more freaky and memorable of all of the Clone Wars series. When we got to the episodes with the return to Geonosis, my younger son immediately got excited about getting to this episode (several episodes into the Geonosis story arc); I can't blame him.

The zombies in this story are... well, they're gross and, yes, freaky. And they want to make the Jedi just like them. Now, doesn't that just sound like so much fun?

One of the things I find interesting in this episode is how unstructured the Jedi actually are, despite appearances to the contrary. There is almost no command structure at all. The Masters and Jedi Council are in control but, really, any Jedi may decide to do whatever he or she pleases without regard to what anyone else says. This is why in The Phantom Menace Qui-Gon and, later, Obi-Wan can decide to train Anakin despite the Council's disapproval. Direct orders other than from Knight to Padawan are rare. Each one feels and uses the Force differently, I suppose.

The other thing about this episode is that it might be the clearest picture yet that we've had about the dynamic between Obi-Wan and Anakin. Anakin is always ready to rush in and solve all of the problems with his lightsaber, rarely stopping to think first. Obi-Wan is more cautious. He's the negotiator and wants to see if there's a non-violent answer first. He also likes to have a plan. His role in the relationship is to hold Anakin back, to make him pause and look before leaping. Anakin is always there to jump in when things get hot if circumstances don't go Obi-Wan's way.


"When this doesn't go as planned, which it won't, I'll be ready."