the light of stars is ancient history when it gets here
Expanding upon what I posted to tumblr last night, I watched the 2003 Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars series (well, it was stitched together like a movie on youtube - it's only 2 hours long in total) and I didn’t like it? I mean, I can see why people would? Because some of the battle scenes (and it's like, 97.8% battle scenes) are pretty cool. But aside from a bunch of other things I didn't like*, the voices were all wrong! Especially Anakin. The actor seemed to find the perfect grating intersection between whiny and prissy, and obviously Anakin is the former but the latter seemed distinctly out of place. Even Obi-Wan, who is voiced by James Arnold Taylor, the same guy who voices him in the CGI Clone Wars, sounded off to me.
But the weirdest part is that Padme is voiced by GREY DELISLE. PADME SHOULDN’T SOUND LIKE AZULA. (I did like her backing up Yoda on Ilum, though.)
(otoh, now I am very curious as to how Azula and Anakin would rule the galaxy together and how long it would take for them to turn on each other. Also, now that I think about it, there would have to be an Iroh-Obi-Wan team up. I'm just saying. You should totally write that.)
*Other things I didn't like: Cody being the only Clone Trooper with a name - I found it especially jarring when Anakin and Obi-Wan just called them all "Trooper." I didn't like how overpowered the Jedi were, and yet three of them couldn't defeat a few magnaguards? Especially since at the end Shaak Ti destroyed them all on her own with one of their staffs and her lightsaber? Also how they couldn't handle Grievous? I realize that he's a big Jedi killer and the first time out he was completely new to them, but at the end, I found it a little ridiculous. I mean, I could certainly be wrong, since there's a lot of canon details I don't know, but I'm pretty sure he's not Force sensitive, so surely a few Jedi should be able to defeat him, despite his proficiency with lightsabers. There are other ways to use the Force in combat.
I also questioned Dooku's assertion that Sith don't feel fear. I guess you can argue that while it was basically fear that caused Anakin to fall, after he does all that terrible shit he can't come back from, he's fueled by anger and hate (both directed inward for all his failures, and outward at the galaxy and his loved ones for leaving him/not conforming to his will etc. and eventually at Palpatine for lying to him about everything.) rather than the fear that led him to the anger and hate previously. I dunno. It seems like hair-splitting to me, because don't Sith lords spend all their time worrying they're going to be killed by their apprentices? I can't endorse a system that has your own successful teaching end in your death.
Also, I was very disappointed that we didn't see Ventress carve that scar onto Anakin’s face. That was the main reason I watched tbh. (Well, that and to see Anakin's knighting. Obi-Wan is excited about being "brothers"! I can't even.) But Uncle Google tells me that happened in a comic that is no longer canon. Sigh.
Ventress was pretty terrible here, too, I thought. Otoh, Shaak Ti was the most awesome, as she should be.
I was, however, amused at how often Anakin ended up in torn clothing/with his shirt off in approximately 2 hours of story. Too bad they didn’t give him a pretty face, though. I did like his vision quest/rescue thingy at the end, though I had to laugh at him having to ride through the arctic planet without a shirt on.
I think the fact that he still comes off as whiny/murderous here is why adding Ahsoka in is so key to maturing his characterization in the CGI Clone Wars. Because it allows him to settle into being a mentor and an older brother type, which he hasn't really had an opportunity for previously - he's the junior partner in all his other close relationships (Obi-Wan, Padme, Palpatine, his mother), but with Ahsoka, in addition to getting the responsibility, for once he also gets to be the voice of authority, which is important. Because having responsibility for a thing while not having the authority to enforce your decisions is a shitty position to be in. And he's pretty good at mentoring her (he's good with Rex and the clones too, but that's a little different).
All of this made me think about my own feelings about actually being in this fandom (and how the way I participate in a fandom has changed over the years). NGL, I was pretty anxious about posting Star Wars fic both back in August when I did it for the first time and then again in the wake of TFA (well, unless you count a couple of Han/Leia ficlets and the Obi-Wan/Mary Sue fic that I hope is lost to the internet), because like Star Trek, there is A LOT OF CANON (though less than there used to be, since Disney ditched the EU) and everything has a weird name! there are posts on tumblr that list all the swear words and names of animals etc. and that's a great resource, but it's also scary to think that people are going to jump on you if you call it coffee instead of caf or whatever. And this is a pretty irrational fear. I mean, I don't know if that's happened to other people, but it hasn't happened to me. But I was definitely anxious about it (I still am, which is why I end up spending two hours on the damned Wookieepedia looking at the names of fruits and planets and whatnot).
The last time I felt this anxious was about comics fandom - specifically about the DCU, since I started writing Batfamily stuff before I started writing MCU fic - and that was partly because yes, 70+ years of canon that cannot all be known! but also the first fandom I posted fic in was X-Men Movieverse, way back in 2000, when fandom was very different, and there was a lot of "That's not how it is in the comics! Don't you know canon!?" nonsense from comics fans towards movie-only fans. Which is why I have very strong feelings about how people who are in comic book movie fandoms shouldn't be required to read comics if they are writing in what is demonstrably an entirely different universe!
And being in DCU fandom right when the reboot happened made me a lot more nonchalant about canon. So I don't like what happened in this run of the book but I really liked what happened in that one so I'm basing my fic in that timeframe etc. Or I'm doing what comics writers do and picking and choosing the stuff I consider canon for my characterization etc.
And the thing is, once you remove all the EU stuff, Star Wars doesn't have nearly as much actual canon as superhero comics (though it does have a lot of details people happily keep track of; thank god for obsessive fans) and I have consumed almost all of it! Well, I haven't actually seen the not fully produced season 7 episodes of TCW, but I've seen all 7 movies and I've seen the canon TV shows. I haven't read all the books or the comics, but I've read a number of them. I should feel pretty confident, and yet people still bring stuff from the EU into fic all the time, some of which I'm familiar with (e.g., Mara Jade, about whom I could not care less; no for real tho, my interest level drops at least 12% whenever her name pops up, even in fic written when the EU was still canon) and some of which I am not (e.g., the aliens who killed Chewie(?); all of the original trio's EU kids). And sometimes that makes me feel completely inadequate. Here's {THING} I never even heard of! How can I possibly write fic in this fandom!?
I don't know what my point was, but sometimes when I'm writing, I'm like, "I wish I knew the answer to this or even how to find it on Wookieepedia, but I don't, so I'm just going to make some shit up" but then I get the cold sweats thinking about some random fan commenting to tell me how wrong I am about it, and I'm not sure that feeling ever goes away, even though I've been doing this for over 15 years now. (I repeat, this has not happened to me! It is, for me, still a mostly irrational fear! But that doesn't mean I don't feel it!)
In Star Wars stuff of the "we make our own fun" variety, yesterday, as also posted to tumblr,
girlinthetrilby and I were discussing my favorite not actually going to happen in canon theory about Rey's parentage, which is that she's Luke’s daughter (I personally believe Luke and sex to be unmixy things but I'll allow it for this), and her mother is the daughter of Obi-Wan and Satine's sekrit baby, whom Satine gave away when she was 16 and never mentioned again (obviously they don’t know she's a Kenobi). Because then you get hilarious Force ghost grandads, and what could be better than Anakin and Obi-Wan in the afterlife, being smug about how awesome Rey is, as if they had anything to do with it? Because a Kenobi-Skywalker baby would kind of be the apotheosis of Star Wars, wouldn't it? You should also totally write that.
In other news, today's poem:
Pavlova's Physics
Everything in my body
has been processed
through at least one star
(except for the hydrogen).
I want to speak to you about it;
I want you to know how much
I understand - and more and more
reveals itself in waves
I'm really a wise kid,
the kind that gets on and doesn't
need to go to college to do it,
secretly learning to peel back
the potent leaves of mathematics
while boning up on Greek at night.
For all that, the consciousness
is an outdated barn of a thing,
a slow phenomenon compared
to the speed of the senses.
Today even I'm entranced
by the marine symmetry of my body
but, believe me, this world
is a place of bizarre consequences
where matter can appear
out of nothing and where
the light of stars is ancient
history when it gets here:
we can never understand
what we're living through at the time.
You can show me your piece of warm
thigh the length of Florida
and I'm telling you, I'm affected
by the way you look at me but I need
more dimensions than geography allows.
I'm falling forward, tumbling
into increasing disorder; yes, disorder
is increasing in the universe
and will keep increasing until
the whole shebang becomes a place
where it is remembered
only the alert rodents swam.
~Jo Shapcott
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/836735.html.
people have commented there.
But the weirdest part is that Padme is voiced by GREY DELISLE. PADME SHOULDN’T SOUND LIKE AZULA. (I did like her backing up Yoda on Ilum, though.)
(otoh, now I am very curious as to how Azula and Anakin would rule the galaxy together and how long it would take for them to turn on each other. Also, now that I think about it, there would have to be an Iroh-Obi-Wan team up. I'm just saying. You should totally write that.)
*Other things I didn't like: Cody being the only Clone Trooper with a name - I found it especially jarring when Anakin and Obi-Wan just called them all "Trooper." I didn't like how overpowered the Jedi were, and yet three of them couldn't defeat a few magnaguards? Especially since at the end Shaak Ti destroyed them all on her own with one of their staffs and her lightsaber? Also how they couldn't handle Grievous? I realize that he's a big Jedi killer and the first time out he was completely new to them, but at the end, I found it a little ridiculous. I mean, I could certainly be wrong, since there's a lot of canon details I don't know, but I'm pretty sure he's not Force sensitive, so surely a few Jedi should be able to defeat him, despite his proficiency with lightsabers. There are other ways to use the Force in combat.
I also questioned Dooku's assertion that Sith don't feel fear. I guess you can argue that while it was basically fear that caused Anakin to fall, after he does all that terrible shit he can't come back from, he's fueled by anger and hate (both directed inward for all his failures, and outward at the galaxy and his loved ones for leaving him/not conforming to his will etc. and eventually at Palpatine for lying to him about everything.) rather than the fear that led him to the anger and hate previously. I dunno. It seems like hair-splitting to me, because don't Sith lords spend all their time worrying they're going to be killed by their apprentices? I can't endorse a system that has your own successful teaching end in your death.
Also, I was very disappointed that we didn't see Ventress carve that scar onto Anakin’s face. That was the main reason I watched tbh. (Well, that and to see Anakin's knighting. Obi-Wan is excited about being "brothers"! I can't even.) But Uncle Google tells me that happened in a comic that is no longer canon. Sigh.
Ventress was pretty terrible here, too, I thought. Otoh, Shaak Ti was the most awesome, as she should be.
I was, however, amused at how often Anakin ended up in torn clothing/with his shirt off in approximately 2 hours of story. Too bad they didn’t give him a pretty face, though. I did like his vision quest/rescue thingy at the end, though I had to laugh at him having to ride through the arctic planet without a shirt on.
I think the fact that he still comes off as whiny/murderous here is why adding Ahsoka in is so key to maturing his characterization in the CGI Clone Wars. Because it allows him to settle into being a mentor and an older brother type, which he hasn't really had an opportunity for previously - he's the junior partner in all his other close relationships (Obi-Wan, Padme, Palpatine, his mother), but with Ahsoka, in addition to getting the responsibility, for once he also gets to be the voice of authority, which is important. Because having responsibility for a thing while not having the authority to enforce your decisions is a shitty position to be in. And he's pretty good at mentoring her (he's good with Rex and the clones too, but that's a little different).
All of this made me think about my own feelings about actually being in this fandom (and how the way I participate in a fandom has changed over the years). NGL, I was pretty anxious about posting Star Wars fic both back in August when I did it for the first time and then again in the wake of TFA (well, unless you count a couple of Han/Leia ficlets and the Obi-Wan/Mary Sue fic that I hope is lost to the internet), because like Star Trek, there is A LOT OF CANON (though less than there used to be, since Disney ditched the EU) and everything has a weird name! there are posts on tumblr that list all the swear words and names of animals etc. and that's a great resource, but it's also scary to think that people are going to jump on you if you call it coffee instead of caf or whatever. And this is a pretty irrational fear. I mean, I don't know if that's happened to other people, but it hasn't happened to me. But I was definitely anxious about it (I still am, which is why I end up spending two hours on the damned Wookieepedia looking at the names of fruits and planets and whatnot).
The last time I felt this anxious was about comics fandom - specifically about the DCU, since I started writing Batfamily stuff before I started writing MCU fic - and that was partly because yes, 70+ years of canon that cannot all be known! but also the first fandom I posted fic in was X-Men Movieverse, way back in 2000, when fandom was very different, and there was a lot of "That's not how it is in the comics! Don't you know canon!?" nonsense from comics fans towards movie-only fans. Which is why I have very strong feelings about how people who are in comic book movie fandoms shouldn't be required to read comics if they are writing in what is demonstrably an entirely different universe!
And being in DCU fandom right when the reboot happened made me a lot more nonchalant about canon. So I don't like what happened in this run of the book but I really liked what happened in that one so I'm basing my fic in that timeframe etc. Or I'm doing what comics writers do and picking and choosing the stuff I consider canon for my characterization etc.
And the thing is, once you remove all the EU stuff, Star Wars doesn't have nearly as much actual canon as superhero comics (though it does have a lot of details people happily keep track of; thank god for obsessive fans) and I have consumed almost all of it! Well, I haven't actually seen the not fully produced season 7 episodes of TCW, but I've seen all 7 movies and I've seen the canon TV shows. I haven't read all the books or the comics, but I've read a number of them. I should feel pretty confident, and yet people still bring stuff from the EU into fic all the time, some of which I'm familiar with (e.g., Mara Jade, about whom I could not care less; no for real tho, my interest level drops at least 12% whenever her name pops up, even in fic written when the EU was still canon) and some of which I am not (e.g., the aliens who killed Chewie(?); all of the original trio's EU kids). And sometimes that makes me feel completely inadequate. Here's {THING} I never even heard of! How can I possibly write fic in this fandom!?
I don't know what my point was, but sometimes when I'm writing, I'm like, "I wish I knew the answer to this or even how to find it on Wookieepedia, but I don't, so I'm just going to make some shit up" but then I get the cold sweats thinking about some random fan commenting to tell me how wrong I am about it, and I'm not sure that feeling ever goes away, even though I've been doing this for over 15 years now. (I repeat, this has not happened to me! It is, for me, still a mostly irrational fear! But that doesn't mean I don't feel it!)
In Star Wars stuff of the "we make our own fun" variety, yesterday, as also posted to tumblr,
girlinthetrilby and I were discussing my favorite not actually going to happen in canon theory about Rey's parentage, which is that she's Luke’s daughter (I personally believe Luke and sex to be unmixy things but I'll allow it for this), and her mother is the daughter of Obi-Wan and Satine's sekrit baby, whom Satine gave away when she was 16 and never mentioned again (obviously they don’t know she's a Kenobi). Because then you get hilarious Force ghost grandads, and what could be better than Anakin and Obi-Wan in the afterlife, being smug about how awesome Rey is, as if they had anything to do with it? Because a Kenobi-Skywalker baby would kind of be the apotheosis of Star Wars, wouldn't it? You should also totally write that.
In other news, today's poem:
Pavlova's Physics
Everything in my body
has been processed
through at least one star
(except for the hydrogen).
I want to speak to you about it;
I want you to know how much
I understand - and more and more
reveals itself in waves
I'm really a wise kid,
the kind that gets on and doesn't
need to go to college to do it,
secretly learning to peel back
the potent leaves of mathematics
while boning up on Greek at night.
For all that, the consciousness
is an outdated barn of a thing,
a slow phenomenon compared
to the speed of the senses.
Today even I'm entranced
by the marine symmetry of my body
but, believe me, this world
is a place of bizarre consequences
where matter can appear
out of nothing and where
the light of stars is ancient
history when it gets here:
we can never understand
what we're living through at the time.
You can show me your piece of warm
thigh the length of Florida
and I'm telling you, I'm affected
by the way you look at me but I need
more dimensions than geography allows.
I'm falling forward, tumbling
into increasing disorder; yes, disorder
is increasing in the universe
and will keep increasing until
the whole shebang becomes a place
where it is remembered
only the alert rodents swam.
~Jo Shapcott
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/836735.html.
people have commented there.