a thing that i have realized lately is that, like, kylo ren just doesn’t work on me. i just don’t get it. i see all these people being fascinated with his character, and saying adam driver is doing such phenomenal work, and that he eludes this complex air of sexy fascinating anguished darkness or what have you, and i just don’t get it. i don’t see it. i feel like it’s an episode of arrested development and i’m michael bluth saying “her?” on an endless loop. it’s not that i just hate kylo and all he does and stands for! (though i do, i really do!) even beyond that, he’s just so … meh. so underwhelming. so bland. so utterly nothing to me. what is the rest of the world seeing that i just do not see??? what is it??????????
Personally, I don’t really see anything wrong with giving Luke to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. What else was Obi-Wan gonna do? (He pretty much raised Anakin and look how that turned out, he’s not gonna risk Round 2.) (He could have given both kiddos to Bail and Breha Organa, actually. Luke and Leia Organa is a cool as heck AU.)
I like Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. As much as people like to say Luke really is Padme’s son, he didn’t get those morals from her. (Keeping in mind I have read no comics or novelizations, and not seen the Clone Wars TV show) It’s pretty clear that Luke’s iron spine and goodness and refusal to abandon his friends come from his upbringing. Owen and Beru Lars are kinda the Ma and Pa Kent of the Star Wars universe.
And they are Luke’s family. Owen is Shmi’s stepson. Owen and Beru probably knew Anakin’s mother for years. It’s a neat circle, and in some ways it has the feelings of an apology, for Obi-Wan to bring Luke back to his family on Tatooine in the same way that Qui-Gon took Anakin. Obi-Wan can’t undo what’s been done, and he can’t start over, but he can give Luke what the Jedi denied Anakin: a loving family and normal upbringing.
Tatooine is Darth Vader’s home planet? Yeah, sure, but did Anakin ever go back to Tatooine? (Probably once or twice, I’m guessing, in the comics at least.) Darth Vader hates that place. Bad memories. Damn sand would fuck up his suit. He’d burn it all down and then the Hutts are gonna be pissed. And how many people actually know that Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker? Like, about five? (Bail, Obi-Wan, Yoda, R2-D2, and Ahsoka?) Dude is not exactly getting invites to school reunions and the weddings of childhood friends, is all I’m saying.
Even if Darth Vader ever went back to Tatooine, Tatooine is a big place. The Lars Farm is in the middle of nowhere and Obi-Wan is hanging out left of the funky rock five miles past nowhere. Anakin met his stepbrother once in the entire film trilogy and idk if they even exchanged words, much less space e-mail addresses. I kind of doubt that Uncle Owen and Darth Vader are sending each other Life Day e-cards. (That’s really funny, actually.)
Anyway, the point of this rant is that I want you to imagine new parents Owen and Beru Lars caring for toddler Luke, it’s just after Life Day, and someone rings the doorbell. Owen Lars opens up to Darth Vader holding a fruit basket, because he didn’t know what else to do for Life Day and spontaneously decided to visit distant family rather than mope in his Evil Castle again.
(Everything Obi-Wan hoped would never happen, just… happening.)
Owen, after introductions, panicking, “Uh… the suit is… new.”
He has to invite Vader in, because it’s Life Day and how exactly do you tell Darth Vader to fuck off? Then Owen and Beru have a hushed argument in the kitchen while Darth Vader is sitting awkwardly in their living room with a drink that he can’t actually drink but took to be polite. When they come out, they introduce Luke as Luke Whitesun, Beru’s late brother’s kid, which they guess makes Luke… Darth Vader’s… nephew. (They can’t hide him, Vader’s already seen this 2-3 yr old Luke and the house is COVERED in baby and kid stuff.)
And Darth Vader just… fucking falls for it.
And the Lars family has to spend the holidays with Uncle Darth Vader who is super keen to have a step-nephew-in-law. Beru is showing off her cross-stitching to Darth fucking Vader as Luke plays at their feet. Owen is in the kitchen sending a desperate space text to Obi-Wan, who basically has a heart attack on the spot when Owen sends a shitty stealth-pic of Darth Vader on their couch.
Bonus points if the Lars’ don’t even move after this, because Vader left without issue and Uncle Owen afterwards was like, “It turned out fine. I don’t want to move, that’s too much hassle.” So, every major holiday, Luke gets a visit from his Uncle Darth Vader, which works out fine so long as they instigate a “Don’t Talk About Politics” rule when Luke starts getting excited about Rebellions and starts bad-mouthing the Empire (Vader making small talk at a Star Destroyer water cooler to his terrified staff: “Ugh, I’m going to have to debate my liberal 13-yr-old nephew at the dinner table again.”), and Vader even helps with the dishes and stuff, and every time Obi-Wan ages an extra year from stress.
Guys, please, the way this continues is that the general events of the Star Wars universe continue as normal (Leia, having literally just left a space battle: “Darth Vader, the AUDACITY of attacking an innocent diplomatic vessel!”) UNTIL the stormtroopers show up at the Lars Farm. (Luke is desperately chasing down the droids he lost and properly meeting Obi-Wan Kenobi.)
At first, it’s business as usual, y’know? Stormtroopers break down the door and interrogate the occupants and start prepping to burn the place down, and the leader is in the middle of shouting, “TELL US WHERE THE DROIDS A-” when he pauses and just… stares… at the mantlepiece.
Because on the Lars family mantlepiece and walls are, like, a hundred family photos and roughly half of them have Darth Vader in them. There’s Darth Vader wearing a Life Day party hat at a dinner table. There’s Darth Vader holding a toddler and playing with model ships. There’s Darth Vader and a pimply thirteen year old in the stands at the Boonta Eve Classic. There is a cross-stitched pillow on the couch that says OUR FAMILY on it, consisting of a man, a woman, a boy, and Darth fucking Vader.
Stormtrooper Grunt #1: “What… what… what the fuck.”
Aunt Beru, who has HAD it with these guys wrecking her house, already angrily jabbing at their space phone: “I am calling Mr. Vader RIGHT NOW about this.”
Darth Vader, excusing himself from the bridge of his Star Destroyer to take a call from his stepsister-in-law: “Beru. This isn’t a good time-”
Beru: “Well, MAKE TIME, because your stormtroopers broke down our door and tracked SAND all over my nice clean floors and they won’t stop yelling about the droids we just bought! You better have a good explanation for this!”
Darth Vader does not, actually, have a good explanation for this. The stormtroopers can feel his wrath from across the galaxy. It’s a work thing and he’s very sorry and he’ll make the stormtroopers fix their door, but he does really need those droids and could they hand them over, please? He’ll have the Empire compensate them. Yes, he’ll pay them back and send new droids. Yes, kicking doors down is very rude, Beru, you’re absolutely right.
So Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru promise to pick up Luke and the droids, and hop in the spare Landspeeder to go looking for them. Owen is Not Happy to find that Obi-Wan’s given Luke a lightsaber, and Aunt Beru is Not Happy to find out that the Empire’s made some superweapon. Of course they have to get these plans to the Rebellion! Yes, she promised Vader, but he should have told her it was for such a terrible thing! Yes, Owen, they’re all going to Alderaan.
So the Lars family runs away to Mos Eisley and get on the Millennium Falcon to Alderaan, while the stormtroopers are standing around like, “Are they… coming… back???” And Han Solo does not know what the hell is going on or what to do about the Weird Old Wizard talking about “universe-penetrating magic”, or the Grumpy Farmer who keeps trying to fix his “piece of junk” ship that excuse you does not need fixing, or the Sunny Farm Boy waving a light sword around, or the kindly old woman who is currently cross-stitching in his back seat and gossiping with Chewie like he’s not even there.
Later, after the Death Star’s been destroyed, Owen and Beru Lars are now a part of the Rebellion with Luke. Beru sends Darth Vader a piece of fabric in the Space Mail, and it’s the little cross-stitched Vader from her OUR FAMILY pillow who’s been cut out because she’s mad at him. (Except her note says DISAPPOINTED and that’s worse.) Darth Vader is more upset about this than the Emperor being mad at him for the destruction of the Death Star.
This is such a wild ride and I want more.
Please, kind writer, may I have some more?
See, the thing about Uncle Darth Vader is that the Lars family lives in the middle of nowhere Tatooine. Luke has to get his news off his friends, who have to get their news from shitty Space Radio, and the Empire’s suppressing a good three-quarters of the terrible things it does. The Lars family, largely, has no idea who this Darth Vader guy is except that he’s Anakin, who did a bunch of shit in the Clone Wars and he’s evil now? (Obi-Wan is dying, guys. He’s dying.)
Oh, yeah, quick summary: the events on the Death Star proceeded more or less as they did in canon. Except Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru don’t make convincing stormtroopers, so they tagged along with the droids and found the Death Star Laundry Service and dressed up as an Empire officer and his wife on their way to a vacation on Beach Resort Planet. Luke and Han sneaking Leia out is a lot easier with Admiral Lars and his wife loudly complaining to every stormtrooper they come across that their ship isn’t being fixed fast enough and sending stormtroopers marching off in every direction.
(The Empire… does not… have high standards… for officers. It is corrupt as hell. The stormtroopers look at this middle-aged, slightly chubby guy complaining obnoxiously about his ship not being fixed fast enough, and his overbearing wife complaining shrilly about not being able to get their deposit back, and are like, “This is legit. Also, sir, I’m part of sanitation, I don’t fix ships. I don’t know where customer service is… this is a Death Star. We don’t have customer service. Uh, I guess my ‘manager’ would be Admiral Bob??? Oh, well, you’re right, I should go clean up that mess you saw on the other floor. I will agree to literally anything you say to get away from you.”)
So, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru get to the Rebellion, right? (And they have already adopted the heck out of Leia, who has been given ALL the Aunt Beru hugs.) And someone starts listing off ALL of the awful stuff that Darth Vader has done, like, the dude is SUPER EVIL. And the Lars family is just… what. (And it’s a good thing that Obi-Wan is already dead by this point, or Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru would bring him back just to kill him again.)
Luke goes to destroy the Death Star and Vader is just like, “Luke???? What are you doing???” And Luke is ignoring all of Vader’s attempts to comm him and blows up the Death Star while giving his uncle the cold shoulder.
And later, at the Rebellion, people are like “Darth Vader is your uncle???” And Luke’s just like, “YEAH, AND A LIAR!!!” (Later, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru will have a long talk with Luke about the truth and the lies they told. And Luke will forgive them because he loves them and they love him, but this doesn’t really change much, especially about how mad he is at his dad.)
Later, when they finally meet again. The rebels are just… completely stunned… because Darth Vader is desperately trying to get through to Luke, like, “Luke, nephew, please, let’s just talk about this. Beru won’t answer my voice mails. Owen unfriended me on Space Chat. We can talk about this.”
And Luke is angrily shooting at Darth Vader and shouting, “What’s there to talk about?! It’s not like you LIED TO US ABOUT EVERYTHING YOU DID BY TELLING US YOU WORKED IN I.T.?!??”
One thing I kinda take issue with in the whole Fanboy Takes on the Prequels Discourse is this:
What often seems to come up in discussing Anidala is: “Of COUSE Anakin loved Padme. She’s HOT. But why oh why did Padme love Anakin? He’s immature and whiny and cries a lot and has emotional breakdowns”.
Does anyone else notice the weird disparity here?
In this discourse, Anakin is permitted to be (at least initially, if not only) interested in Padme because of her looks. Padme, however, could only conceivably be (again, at least initially) interested in Anakin for his *personality*.
Tbh Hayden and Natalie are both ridiculously beautiful people, and I think AOTC did its job of articulating why the characters would care about each other beyond the fact that they’re both so pretty, but it seems like (apart from the fanboy aversion to the melodrama and plethora of romance tropes in the love story–Right down to a damn balcony scene with Anakin in a romance-novel-style open shirt) there’s this cultural undercurrent that Padme’s physical attraction to Anakin doesn’t matter. Because women, am I right? Men are the visual ones *sarcasm*.
Honestly, it just annoys me every time I see it pop up. Yeah, dive in and try to discuss why certain things in AOTC weren’t deal breakers or red flags for her, or if you felt they should have been, or whatever the case may be–that’s actually an interesting conversation imo that often gives a lot of insight into Padme’s character–but don’t imply that her attraction doesn’t matter or is irrelevant to their relationship. It’s not.
Padmé’s “oh no, he’s hot” moment in AotC is, like, LEGENDARY, tbh. And they’re both so bad at Talking to People (Outside of Work) that she says THE WORST THING IMAGINABLE. It’s glorious. I love it.
(Once more, this opinion piece is held only by Hopper, and not the TLJ-loving Condor, both of the Franchise Wars podcast. As a Hopper piece, it’s going to be critical of The Last Jedi. If you want to hear more positive things about TLJ, listen to our podcasts on iTunes: first our review of TLJ –https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/franchisewars/id1286433288?mt=2&i=397716636, then our debate between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi – https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/franchisewars/id1286433288?mt=2&i=408109126. Provided you can accept some more negative opinions still coming from the Hopper, you should find them entertaining!)
Recently, one of the Star Wars message boards I frequent got into a brief debate about the believability of the duet character arc between Kylo Ren and Rey. The argument was made that Rey’s sympathy and faith towards Kylo was exactly equateable to Luke’s sympathy and hope for his father Darth Vader.
That’s not a good comparison.
Vader *did* give Luke reason to believe that Luke had a shot at reaching out to him: Vader’s entire “Join me, and together we can rule the Galaxy as father and son!” spiel showed an emotional vulnerability towards his progeny, as well as a willingness to admit to the horrors of his actions. Kirshener’s direction of their telepathic communication before the end of the film also shows this vulnerability, and shows that effected Luke as well, but in a tragic and believable way.
Luke also has two whole films of previous hero-worship of his father before he learned the truth, which Obi-Wan explains isn’t entirely without merit for Anakin Skywalker, if not Vader. Kasdan’s writing for Luke surrendering to Vader also has a great deal more subtlety and intelligence to it; Luke is going to Vader to cover for his team and friends, since he knows Vader can track him, and their dialogue is filled with a wary and reserved approach to each other. Luke has hope for his father, but isn’t totally relying on faith in the man, even accepting the quite realistic possibility that Vader and the Emperor will kill him as the most likely outcome. And Kasdan’s writing gives Vader some lines and reactions that show what gives Luke some hope for breaking through to Anakin: “It’s too late for me, my son,” is a line that admits the speaker’s mistakes and regrets with a sincerity that feels genuine and open.
Luke in ROTJ: – Hopes his father turns to the light-side based his demonstrable conflict in regards to Luke himself, but Luke doesn’t have unshakable faith in that outcome. – Has multiple films to build up a positive view of his father before he became Vader, and a past history that shows Vader will make exceptions to his ruthlessness in regard to Luke. – Recieves yet more signs of Anakin lingering under Vader’s mask when they meet again, and the audience witnesses the conflict that Luke identifies in Vader’s dialogue and body language. – Most importantly, the surrender to Anakin is based off the sheer pragmatic principle that Luke knows he will compromise the missions as long as Vader looks for him, and Luke is ready and expecting to accept his death as an end to that threat to the team.
Johnson’s writing for Rey’s approach to Kylo Ren has no such foundation, and perhaps worst, never attempts to address the totality of Kylo Ren’s very fresh actions against Rey, thus downplaying the events of TFA and her connections to Finn and Han, all while also downplaying what pragmatic reasoning Rey *does* have to ally with Kylo in favor of an underdeveloped emotional bond. Part of the reason you’ll find some TFA fans who despise TLJ is because TFA really, really sold the connection between Finn and Rey and Han and Rey, and then TLJ side-steps that connection after one *single* scene because Kylo agrees he’s a monster. And saying that Rey would be open to Kylo because she’s lonely feels like a crock when we consider that only two or three days ago, Finn just proved himself her worthiest friend… And Kylo’s the one who tortured and maimed him while trying to kill him for protecting her. The freshness of the assaults upon herself and her friends on Starkiller Base also kills any believability in her being open to his BS.
In TLJ, Rey: – Expresses emotionally illogical faith in “Ben Solo” being inside Kylo Ren, especially since Kylo *never* shows her any real conflict about his Allignment, and even states his killing of Han was cold-blooded murder, not an act of passion. – Only *once* addresses the crimes against her friends and herself committed by Kylo Ren, which ignores the emotional core of The Force Awakens, and how her anger at this should be still be an open wound; honestly, the more emotionally logical flaw for her in the film would be darkside wrath and anger at Kylo for what he did. – Seems to skip over the important fact that while Kylo and Luke disagree over the circumstances in the hut, they *do not* disagree over what Ben did next; slaughter every student who wouldn’t join him. Either Rey still hasn’t learned anything about the “Ben Solo” she hopes to rescue, or she’s been told point blank that Ben Solo was also something of a monster. – Only barely establishes any real pragmatic reason for teaming with Kylo (that he can help them fight the First Order), and the film then downplays that reason as much as possibles and tries to define her alliance on an emotional level; Rey still has no reason to act so certain that Ben will spare the Resisatnce fleet, and yet we’re supposed to think she has an honest emotional reason to feel that way. – Has numerous scenes that seem explicitly designed to hint at a romantic tension between the two of them… When, again, the last film began its climax by having Kylo Ren strap Rey down to a chair, leer at her while saying “You know I can take what I want,” then violate her mind in a way the film has established as torture earlier on, in spite of her pleas to not do so and her tears when he ignores her. You *can* remove the possible sexual subtext of that scene of you want, but it’s still a violation. So you need to recontextualize him in some way to make him more sympathetic, and the film doesn’t really do that (again, see how Luke and Kylo agree that Ben was the equivalent of a burgeoning school shooter)
TLJ’s portrayal of Rey and Kylo has Rey be all give and Kylo all take, without ever adequately addressing why Rey should be giving in the first place, and never addresses the undercurrent of assault upon her person from TFA, all while ignoring the emotional consequences of TFA whenever it would inconveniently require more character development and subtle writing.
Random Headcanon: Lando Calrissian made the rank of General about three weeks after officially joining the Rebel Alliance. The on-paper justification for his extraordinarily rapid ascent is a tale of stirring heroism; the real reason involved the Rebel leadership taking one look at him and going “holy shit, this guy has actual administrative experience – put him in charge immediately”.
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