ST Who's The Baddie?

Star Wars is like opera.

 

sounds like a curse to me

 

I can see why you might read it like that, but it's just a consequence of the form. The idea is that galactic conflict is so large it's only representable in a dramatic way via a smaller structure like family. Maybe you'd object less if the family is someone other than the Skywalkers?

I was wondering if the villain might come from Han Solo's family? Perhaps they forced him to join the Imperial academy because they were true believers and his rebellion began by becoming a smuggler? He might have some brother carrying on in the totalitarian footsteps of his father.

 

I can imagine a third trilogy focusing on Skywalkers/Solos, especially if not all of them are simply (and lazily) made into some sort of Jedi, but not a fourth trilogy. At some point the well will run dry and the time for a new type of hero will come, maybe not even a force user.

 

Remember Anakin said that Obi-Wan was the closest thing to a father he ever had. Obi-Wan states that Anakin was like a brother. Those intimate connections were made in the story starting with the father and the son. The tension has always been proximate and we should have little doubt that that will continue. I agree with Dra--- this is not a 'curse' but an aspect of form. It's the way a space/soap opera is told. Damn good stuff.

 

In addition to the curse-like aspect being a side effect of the family drama/opera form of SW, it's actually appropriate for its mythological aspect. Many gods and goddesses suffer tragedies despite their miraculous powers because that suffering represents the continuing cycle of life and death we find in the natural world. Demeter and Dionysus, for example, are "cursed" because they represent the tragedy and mystery of life, death, and rebirth (Summer, Fall, Spring).

So I think when we find it odd or improbable or sad that the Skywalkers keep having problems, we're making the mistake of reading SW as realist drama, when it's more on the archetypal side of narrative.

I'm starting to hope we see a family struggle between the Solos and Skywalkers. I'm more open to a Kenobi character because of this.

 

Right. That's another fair question. Perhaps Anakin was cursed, but I don't see why we should view Luke or Leia that way. Are they destined to defend the galaxy from evil? Yes, but that's responsibility, not necessarily curse.

 

I see it as fate wrapped up in destiny and shrouded by karma.

 

Indeed I would object less if I'd object at all.

By the way, ANH did just fine without a divided family. Vader's connection to Luke was that he killed Luke's father.

 

ANH did do VERY well, indeed. Although there were hints of a family division between Luke and his Uncle Owen and Uncle Owen and Father Anakin and again between "good friends" Obi-Wan and Darth Vader. This is a saga about familiars having problems. It is an essential part of the story IMO. I'm pretty certain we'll see it again, if we're speculating about Episode VII and the baddie.

 

I think Vader supposedly killing Luke's father fits with the whole family drama aspect, since a murdered father is obviously family related, but also because Vader was supposed to be this pupil of Obi-Wan, the best friend of Anakin. Lots of familiarity here that amounts to family division. So much so that when Ben, the surrogate father, faces Vader and dies, it's as though Vader has killed two of Luke's fathers. Three, in fact, if you count Owen.

 

What I should have said is that ANH did just fine without a light side user and a dark side user within the same family.

 

But Vader was supposedly a Jedi and close to Kenobi, Luke's surrogate father. So it's family related indirectly because Vader was a traitor to the Jedi family and killed two of its members, Luke's real father and Ben.

But I understand you're not for a direct light and dark split in one family. I think I am now.

 

A house divided cannot stand.

 

which eu did you read? Too often Luke was handicapped to make that tension; especially in the bantam years. In FOTJ it was talked about that he was all-mighty but it was rarely shown. Luke is much more powerful than Mace so yeah he should be a force God. Just need to up the villian anti to match, ala Abeloth i guess. Or if you have to handicap him once in awhile.

no way is he more powerful. Maybe at that time when palpatine was his apprentice.

 

I guess you didn't see the Yoda arc.

 

The dark side of The Force has clouded the Priestesses' vision.

 

If he weren't given these over the top powers, there would be no need to handicap him all the time. It is a bad solution to a self-created problem.

Why should he be a force god? Why should anyone be a force god in the saga? Weren't Luke's accomplishments in the OT enough for some people? I want him to be a badass in the ST, maybe the strongest Jedi there currently is, but there is no need to show him slaughtering entire armies and such.

Less dragonball Z disguised as "mythology", more adventure please.

Epic drama doesn't require the combatants to destroy entire landscapes and/or cities. These kind of powers are very abstract too. It is hard to be scared of them. When Chigurh coldly shoots someone or Darth Vader chokes a guy up close, that is much more realistic and scary.

 

Thank you! Superpowers != threatening.

 

One of those is more realistic than the other.

 

Pfft Vader could have easily fit in the narrative of No Country for Old Men.

 

The baddie is the severed foot of an AT-AT which rolls around the galaxy crushing thing in it's wake while looking for its "mother."



Yancy

 

This is exactly the whole point of localizing the galactic conflict in the form of a family struggle. It creates drama since the audience is able to connect with individual characters. I think you're correct when you say largescale battles can be "abstract" simply because we don't know who's being killed. Sometimes we don't even see who's being killed.

One of the reasons we likely care about the mass destruction of Alderaan is because we like Leia and know her father is about to be killed on the planet. That personalizes the genocide for the audience. One of the reasons we care less about the Jedi in the arena battle is because we don't know most of them very well -- we see Jedi we don't recognize being killed.

So Star Wars always has this problem of making the Epic personal. It's one of the built-in challenges to a galactic story.

Bringing this back to the Baddie, it follows that the best villain will have some personal relationship with the heroes. This could mean a connection to the past or a connection in the present. The key is that we feel things are personal.