Writing process babblings

[auronlu]

I haven't ever joined NaNoMo, because I've never had the time and immediately explode when I have deadlines. However, I've been pecking at writing again in November. It's as difficult as ever- how I miss being a young, naive writer who never saw my flaws, who just wrote for writing's sake- but at least it's happening. Unfortunately, the mundane

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[auronlu]

Yes, the competent decoy had to die. Of course. (And she WOULD be played by one of my favorite actors, although come to think of it, I may first have taken a shine to her in that role. I love her opening scene.... she gets a few speeches as the queen, and delivers them with a gravitas that is painfully lacking later.)
*sigh*

Lucas provided the mythology of my youth, but it is painful to look back.

This is why I'm looking back at FF5, where the party for much of the game consists of 3 gals, one lad:

1) Swashbuckling FEMALE pirate
2) Princess who is kind, but not toilet paper (she'll do wildly stupid and courageous things to save dragons)
3) Rikku-like spunky girl
4) Fool / knave / wandering jack-of-all-trades archetype.

Four "Warriors of Light." And not one of the lasses needs to be a Chick with a Stick, thanks to the Jobs system, unless you wish it so.

Admittedly, #4 is nominally the "lead," only not by much. I spent the whole game with Cap'n Faris as the sprite wandering around on game maps and such, so in my own mind I played through the whole game as a female Han Solo / Balthier with a touch of Fang's bite.

Not a character that Lucas could've imagined, yet she would've fit his universe well.

And good gods, I'd never put two and two together that Wedge was Captain Antilles' son! I'd forgotten Wedge's last name, since it's only in source material, not within the film.

I was a fan of Star Wars so young I didn't get into the trivia/lore aspect as I have with other fandoms. For me, it was unexamined mythology, not fandom/literature to explore and analyze deeply.

I knew vaguely that Lucas' divorce was happening during filming, and I suspected some of the over-bitchiness of Leia in the second film was due to his feelings about his wife. But in retrospect that may be my own sexism; why did she need be nice or feminine? Lucas did great work, but he was much diminished without his wife's input --Han shot first! -- or Joseph Campbell to help bring out the archetypes he was playing with and strengthen / encourage them.

[melchar]

Actually there is 1 mention of Wedge's last name in either 'Star Wars' or 'Empire'. If it was the 1st movie, it would've been around where Luke meets back up with Biggs. For 'Empire' it would've been on Hoth [he destroys the first AT-AT]. My weird little brain noticed it - and that 'Empire' specifically has Wedge surviving the Hoth invasion. He's also in 'Jedi' - and helps Lando destroy the 2nd Death Star. Because he keeps surviving and is a pilot who successfully destroys a lot of the enemy ships, there was a lot of speculation before 'Jedi' came out that he would turn out to be the other possible Jedi candidate. [Ack! The things I remember from 30 years ago!]

Amusingly, Biggs and Wedge show up as ancillary characters in a lot of the 'Final Fantasy' games. I know they were in FF7, FFX & FFXII

[auronlu]

Oho, you're more observant than I am! Or not; I just haven't hooked into Star Wars lore as deeply, despite having an entire Death Star's worth of original SW figures and toys from the late 70s and early 80s are probably worth something -- less, since I played with them often.

I noticed that poor Wedge got (a) a name, which is an honor for an NPC, and (b) was in all three films. Also, my first introduction to questions of canon was an illustrated version of Star Wars which included Biggs' cut scene and a still shot of him talking to Luke on Tatooine, all very interesting for an 8-year-old!

Yep, Biggs and Wedge are ubiquitous FF characters. I've also noted them at the start of FF6 with Terra, in VIII they're the recurring Galbadia soldiers who get minor boss battles with the party, and I'm quite sure they're in IX somewhere (possibly Knights of Pluto?)

*looks it up* Well, I'll be. They're NOT in IX. How odd!

As I suspected, their first appearance is VI; I've just finished V and didn't notice them anywhere.

[melchar]

Great icon!

I never got any of the toys [sighing BIG time now] - except for a ultra-cheap jawa that someone thru on my dashboard and tho then rattled around there for the next 5 years. If I'd known -then- = everything, new and in-box! I -did- get the press kit Lucas sent out to newspapers because I was [frosh year, on the jr college paper] - and the editor it was sent to thought it looked like trash and fobbed it to me. [He couldn't wait for 'Close Encounters'.]

One of my few 'brushes with' episodes was at Eastercon, with the elevators being pranked - and being stuck in one for about 10 minutes with Mark Hammil - a month before 'Star Wars' came out. He told me about this cool movie - and that there was a 2 minutes film clip that night in the main ballroom - and I told him about Dungeons & Dragons. The clip was great, thus my asking for the press kit - and I bought the novel Lucas wrote ['Star Wars' - back when Jabba was human & Biggs was in a lot more scenes].

... huh, maybe Wedge's dad was mentioned in the book?

Sorry for the rambling, just finished doing 27 hours straight of 'Skyrim', then out for dinner and 2 hours of catch up with the internet. I may well be babbling.