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A Friday Morning Theory; featuring Ezra Bridger and WS going "Full Yoda"

Discussion in 'Star Wars TV- Completed Shows' started by Wilhuff's Slippers, Feb 22, 2019.

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  1. Wilhuff's Slippers

    Wilhuff's Slippers Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Feb 12, 2019
    It's Friday morning, I'm not working today and I've spent the best part of the morning falling down Star Wars rabbit holes and allowing my brain to draw the kind of correlations that once led people to believe that Supreme Leader Snoke was infact Jar Jar Binks while chomping on bacon and slurping coffee.

    I've recently re-read Thrawn and went back over his arc throughout Rebels.
    Rebels in my opinion was really underrated, yes there were goofy episodes which felt like filler but some of the story telling within Star Wars Rebels is in my opinion the best within the franchise.
    So purposeful, character driven and complex for what is essentially a children's TV show.

    In order to believe my mad ramblings make sense you must view the current Star Wars Universe through the eyes of someone who doesn't believe the franchise is in crisis and suffering a 'lack of direction' - you must hold the wide eyed naive optimism of a Tatooine farm boy dreaming of bigger things and better days.

    It's my opinion that it's regularly claimed by the media, pundits and fans alike that Disney and the LucasFilm story group are "making it up as they're going along" or similar criticism that insinuates that there is a lack of direction with the sequel trilogy.
    Usually to back this up people ask open ended rhetorical questions about what it is that the story group actually do, or they cite JJ Abrams or more often Rian Johnson as stating that they had absolute free reign over what happens in their movie, which of course they do. It's no secret that cannon trickles down from the movies, they are first and foremost.

    I do however find it interesting that rarely do people cite when a directors creativity is touched by and expanded on by the story group, nor do they cite when key contextual information is expanded upon by work directed by the story group.
    I'm a fan of Star Wars News Net's videos, to me they are balanced and fair in both criticism and praise of our favourite space saga, yesterday they posted a podcast which expressed bafflement, misunderstanding and confusion about the purpose of LucasFilm's story group, why individuals on the story group have their roles and it's importance. In my opinion if a knowledgable, decent and fair source like SWNN are struggling to get to grips with these fundamentals then it's probably fair to assume that most fans do too.

    Let's not beat around the bush here, while the confusingly named 'story group' do not drive narrative it is clear that they are essential in maintaining the 'one story' and world building.
    I'm sure people will cite flimsy differences between characterisation in novels and reiterate the unsubstantiated claims that they "don't have a shared vision" or something similar as I stated earlier, love her or loathe her Kathleen Kennedy's first move when she become the big cheese at LucasFilm was to start the story group. Whilst she cannot claim to be a diehard Star Wars fan she understands the franchise, it's importance to people and the need for continuity within the cannon.

    Key to all of this is of course Dave Filoni, the man, the myth, the legend, the hat and most importantly the heir apparent to George Lucas himself. Dave is one of us, a great big sweatie with a love for all the mythos, lore and action of the Star Wars Universe, but he's also a man who has consistently produced content with beautiful overarching narrative control that always pays. This man understands storytelling just as much as he understands Star Wars.

    With all of this in mind this is where I allowed myself to think outside of the box and get a bit giddy and silly, in the exact same way I would as when I was a small boy, back in 1997/1998 before the prequels existed.
    Flicking through my 'essential guide to characters' imagining how X may relate to Y and wondering if Z would ever follow a similar trajectory to our first loves from the original trilogy.
    Picking up my action figures and acting out my own Episode 7, 8 and 9, carefully weaving through my own head cannon in which an Ewok Jedi who broke wind at inopportune moments would be the only man standing at the end of an epic battle which due to budgetary constraints (weak sauce pocket money) would involve just as many plastic dinosaurs as it would Star Wars figures...

    Ezra Bridger - What's in a name? I like to think that there's a chance Ezra's last name was born of the way his story will Bridge together various aspects of the saga and universe. Introducing elements and plot devices that for various reasons original trilogy and prequel characters cannot directly touch without it appear crowbarred in.
    To reinforce my view on the importance of names in Star Wars I'm just going to link this article here...
    https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-rebels-whats-in-a-name

    Ezra interacts with a vast array of legacy characters to ensure that at opportune moments context is shifted, applied, removed, acknowledged or ignored depending on what the story requires at the time.
    He is almost a proxy for the story group within the galaxy, a useful and entertaining tool that the audience not only project onto and sees the story through but that explores areas that need expansion and pulls on threads that will ultimately result in sweet, tender, delicious and succulent fan service to enrich our Star Wars experience across not only the movies but other media.

    At the time of writing the latest in Ezra's Star Wars timeline is that he has jumped into hyperspace with Thrawn under the duress of the purgills.
    Conveniently this removes both Ezra and Thrawn from the Original Trilogy sandbox. There will be no awkward questions about their role in the battle of endor, nor will be people be jumping to retcon any young many with dark hair in the background of a scene as 'OBVIOUSLY EZRA!' etc.

    The original trilogy itself does not require recontextualising nor retconning. It is the foundations of all that we love, there is no use for our Bridger, nor for Thrawn who appears to play a similar role from an Imperial perspective to that of Ezra.

    We know that neither Thrawn nor Ezra are dead. Filloni was quick to inform fans of this, he didn't leave us hanging or make pithy ambiguous T-Shirts ala Ahsoka Lives (!)(?), he just came out and told us straight. Why? Because when the time is right and when the story requires it both will re-enter the fray, seamlessly stitching together both new and old, offering familiar feels and themes while also opening entire new areas of the galaxy up for exploration. "It's so much bigger"

    When you fall down one of these rabbit holes there does come a moment (usually after my third cup of coffee) where you tend to go full Yoda. Now it's up to you to decide what that really means, in my opinion going "Full Yoda" could just as easily be represented as being the kooky crazy green goblin rummaging through Luke's supplies cracking non sensical quips and asking rhetorical questions as it could being the wise, powerful, masterful sage and pillar of the Jedi faith. It's a fine line between enlightenment and being a green Alex Jones.

    So here it is, I'm going "Full Yoda" - the tinfoil hat is going on and I'm ready to look back in a few months and cringe in the same way I did after I decided that there was no way that Jar Jar Binks wasn't somehow in on overthrowing the Republic.
    The building of Ezra's character is extremely interesting to me.
    He was born the same year as Luke Skywalker and has faced similar experiences, trials and tribulations as well as mixing in the same circles and locations at points as our lead protagonist from the original trilogy.

    It has been repeatedly stated that there has been a 'greying' of the morales within Star Wars, a broadening out from just 'good guy' 'bad guy' - stories told from multiple points of view across various media including the films that makes us question if there even is such a thing as good and evil or if we are all victims of circumstance, environment, nurture and other influences beyond our control.

    Despite this both the story of Luke Skywalker and that of Ezra Bridger also place importance on how the path we take, the choices we make and the way we cope with challenges and adversity shapes who and what we become. There is a beautiful philosophical balance in there somewhere that I'm not knowledgable enough to define, but it sits between accepting the things that we cannot change and taking control and being responsible for the things that we can...

    With the synergy between Luke & Ezra's story it makes sense to me that as well as entering the world at the same time they will leave the world at the same time, If this was to be the case it would be a subtle piece of stitching orchestrated by the story group that did not constrain or restrict creativity within the sequel trilogy and that could only enrich the lore, story, universe.

    This morning I have been convincing myself that Supreme Leader Snoke is infact Ezra Bridger.
    I feel crazy typing that, it's inevitably going to come back to bite me on the arse but here I am, so deep down the rabbit hole and so full of correlations and synergetic themes that I feel I must. tell. someone.

    I could sit here and list them all for you to pick apart but that would be counter productive for us all. Right now I'm sparking with thought, bubbling with possibility, I have reverted to 11 year old me, playing with my action figures, drawing crazy causational links by tenuous correlations and I bloody love it.

    God bless you Star Wars, Disney, Dave Filoni, LucasFilm and all those involved, you've made a very average 30 year old man's dull and uneventful morning off work feel exciting.

    Star Wars is cool.
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2019
  2. Vialco

    Vialco Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 6, 2007
    I must disagree. Dave Filoni is no George Lucas. The man has some talent but he cannot be compared to the Creator. I could go into a long list of Filoni's flaws as a storyteller but I feel I've already done that many times. Plus my doctor wants me to keep an eye on my blood pressure.

    Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk
     
    Wilhuff's Slippers likes this.
  3. Wilhuff's Slippers

    Wilhuff's Slippers Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Feb 12, 2019
    That's cool mate, we all like different things.

    My thread was more trying to capture the excitement that Star Wars makes me feel in the most mundane situations than anything. I love that despite being a grown ass man something can transport me back to being a kid time and time again.
     
  4. Wilhuff's Slippers

    Wilhuff's Slippers Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Feb 12, 2019
    In retrospect anyone who can't be bothered to read the whole post I think this gif sums it up nicely...

    [​IMG]
     
    MrDarth0 likes this.
  5. Todd the Jedi

    Todd the Jedi Mod and Loving Tyrant of SWTV, Lit, & Collecting star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Oct 16, 2008
    Star Wars is indeed cool, but creating threads for fan theories is not. :)
     
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