Lit Subversion in Star Wars

So this thread sparked off two things ironically Movie Bob related

This Tweet-which yeah i know is about some twitter drama (Sorry)



and this video



and so it got me thinking-is subversion really apart of Star Wars DNA....I mean i tend to think of Star Wars as mostly sticking with the cliches-the hero's journey -the classic good vs evil mentality. Etc. etc....I mean yes Vader being Luke's father was a subversion in Empire- I guess you could say Luke defeated the villain through the power of love (Not literally but thematically) and not just a duel to the death (Although a duel was apart of the final battle until Luke stopped himself from killing Vader)

And now with the new Star Wars and especially the ST we see a lot of subversion....This time more intentionally.

In TFA we have a Neo Vader character who turns out to be just a dude in cosplay

TLJ is all about subversion (Like it or hate it) about what happened to Luke Skywalker the relationship between the good guys and the bad guys and even questioning our heros.

Rogue One and Solo for the most part play it straight although i think you can find some subversion if you look at it.

But anyway-the point of the thread is-is Subverting the tropes and cliches of genre sci-fi or just genre fiction in general part of Star Wars or do you think it's a bit of a misreading on the part of this tweet.

 

Everything about the original film was subversive. It bucked the trend of downbeat, cynical '70s cinema so thoroughly that it ended that trend altogether; it upended the traditionally passive role of the "damsel in distress" so thoroughly that Princess Leia became a feminist icon; and it completely altered more mundane assumptions about what either science fiction or fantasy were "supposed to be." People today sometimes forget, I think, how culture-altering it really was. I say subversion, in one form or another, is part of the DNA of Star Wars - though I also think, once it became a vast multimedia "saga" and a genre unto itself, it lost much of its ability to be subversive in the same way ANH was. The ST, particularly TLJ, is subversive in many ways - but subversive within the context of Star Wars, if that makes sense.

 

Onimi as the final villain in the NJO series. Who expected the court jester to be the mastermind?

 

You know-that makes a lot of sense.

 

Jacen is very much a subversion of the swashbuckling Jedi with a lightsaber who uses martial means to win the day.

Anakin is the traditional hero and Jacen isn't.

The NJO subverts that by having the philosopher be the hero, not the warrior. The NJO really subverts who the hero is-by traditional standards it would be Anakin, Jacen however is the hero in spite of not having traditional heroic qualities.

 

Zayne Carrick is not as nearly skilled as an average Jedi despite being trained as one since he was a kid. At the same time, his morals are of an ideal Jedi if not better.

The grim ending of Dark Times - The Path to Nowhere.

The Revan reveal in KOTOR.

 

Yeah. I think that one of the defining characteristics of the ST is how it's like 'Star Wars within Star Wars.' Where the original films repurposed and referenced a lot of other things in mythology, pop culture and history, and subverted some storytelling tropes that existed in those things, the new films are most obviously an exercise in repurposing Star Wars itself--imagery, plot devices, etc--and in subverting the ideas that people have about how Star Wars works.

I'm not sure exactly what he's saying in that tweet; that the EU was full of played-straight cliches that the films weren't? If so...I guess that I was too busy enjoying the stories to think about whether they were appropriately subversive? What I enjoyed about the films in the first place wasn't that they upended genre tropes, but that they were full of endearing characters and powerful themes, either way. Leia may be against-type for a damsel in distress, but ultimately she appeals to me for what she is, not what she isn't. I think that what's there is more important than what isn't.

One big question that we can ask is, should Star Wars stick to a certain tone? That tone may have been subversive in the beginning, but it was also a nostalgic callback to adventures from the past. Was the important thing that it cut against the grain for its time, or that it was what it was, heroic/optimistic/etc?

Also, reading threads of tweets in which people trade negative generalizations about the EU is always fun. And what is Callista supposed to mean in the context of this discussion? Maybe bad books, but I'd love to see the films try to tell a story that interesting in concept. But that's another topic... *sigh*

 

Isn't it inspired in what happens in Foundation with the mule?
Anyway, that is not a trope by any means

 

Probably. But I wouldn't have read the Foundation series for another 6 years or so.

 

I really don't like to wade into Twitter drama. Is the tweet saying the EU is full of cliches? Or what?

As for anti EU generalizations-they are part and parcel of the criticism of the EU.

In all honesty I find the notion that art has to be "subversive" to be good, exciting, interesting, or engaging is both ridiculous and pernicious.

Okay I just read through some of the tweets-it's standard EU bashing, the same criticisms that are stated over and over again.

 

The only way The Last Jedi was in any way subversive was in that it subverted the presumptions of those expecting to see a good movie.

 

Another plot-twist or subversion, whatever you wanna call it, that caught me off guard back when I was 12 - Jan Ors being alive by the end of Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. I was sure that Tavion actually killed her when I first played the game.

 

Exactly. The OT redefined and repurposed pop culture for its own ends; with the OT now firmly a part of pop culture itself, the ST is redefining and repurposing the OT for its own ends.

The amazing thing about the original trilogy is they did both simultaneously. Nostalgia for the past, heroism, optimism, clear-cut good and clear-cut evil - in the 70s those things were subversive, at least as far as cinema fare went. That did run "against the grain" for its time.

 

@Havoc123-I completely agree. They also subverted my expectations of an important Star Wars tradition-having at least one lightsaber duel per movie. No lightsabers made contact and thus it broke with what I consider to be something essential for a Star Wars movie.