Coding, newest Star Wars trailer, work, and more!

[ljwrites]

I've been writing code to auto-post my local files DW, and while I've been adding stuff and debugging it's running more or less reliably these days. If all goes well this post should come from a queue, too. You may have noticed that my posts have increased in frequency, and that's due largely to having an actual draft folder and queue. Being able to work on some posts little by little while others go out to queue just suits my workflow a lot better when it comes to blogging, and it's a big plus to be able to work locally with posts on apps of my choosing and to have local copies on hand.

We have a title and trailer for Star Wars Episode IX! On the one hand I'm thrilled at the visuals and to see the characters I came to love, not to mention tearing up at the sight of Carrie as Leia. On the other I'm terrified that Palpatine is going to be the True Evil and Kylo's going to get some bullshit redemption where his crimes are swept under the rug because multiple mass murders are nbd uwu uwu. Kylostans are already popping out of the woodwork saying he was never a villain and I'm like... stay away from me, scary people. I wish I could just let go and enjoy SW, or alternately not care about it at all.

I've getting some new work thrown my way, if all goes well it looks like I'll be writing/editing a book for much of the year. Going from 0 to 100 on a field I don't know a whole lot about seems to be turning into my scholarly imprimatur, I mean I wrote my thesis in a field I hadn't heard of a year beforehand and wrote a book chapter last year on another field I'm no expert in.

Comments

[ljwrites]

I heartily hope you're right. I will be Done with the franchise if they throw away the development from the past two movies and discount Kylo as a villain.

Didn't Darth Plagueis discover immortality in the EU/Legends continuity, though, and didn't Sidious learn everything from him? Also it's being mentioned that Palpatine resurrected himself through cloning in the old continuity. With Luke being very much a part of TRoS in the Light Side way, maybe Palpatine could present a monstrous alternative in the form of a twisted physical immortality. I'm with you on not trusting JJ and he's screwed up plenty, but Sidious's return by itself doesn't seem to be against Lucas's intent if Legends are any indication.

[loopy777]

Well, Palpatine didn't actually return from death in Legends. The 'Dark Empire' comics depict him transferring his spirit at the moment before his death into a clone body, but it's an imperfect method that causes each subsequent clone body to deteriorate more and more rapidly. He stages a whole return and reconquers the galaxy, but his focus becomes stealing a Skywalker body to solve the problem with his health, with the vague hope that someday he would conquer death. It actually fits very well with the prequels, and we know that Lucas at least read and enjoyed this comic (the various anecdotes seem to indicate that he had some interest in the comics and video games, but not the prose works), so there's speculation that it inspired some of the content in the prequels.

Darth Maul returns in the Clone Wars cartoon on Lucas's order, but that's another case of being powerful enough in the dark side to not have actually died.

The matter of Lucas's involvement in the Darth Plagueis novel is much more ambiguous, with some claims that he contributed "notes" in response to ideas, but the author never actually had any direct communication with him. I made a tumblr post going into a lot of detail on the subject of that immortality, but what we actually see Plagueis do in his novel is more about enhancing the physical body through the dark side. Even the cases where he brings someone back to life is pretty much a medical resuscitation. So, like with Palpatine in the comics, we see a fight against death, but not the ability to come back once death has won. That's the difference between the Jedi and the Sith. One accepts death, and in that way finds the way back from it. The other fights against it, and in doing so creates a situation where it will eventually win.

Now, Legends did have dark side Force-ghosts, and they were usually depicted as being anchored to some specific point and being actual haunting-style ghosts. That does create a difference from the Jedi way of ghosting, but as long as we've trashed the Legends material, I'd rather go with a depiction that adheres to the thematic message of the movies and doesn't try to skate by on a technicality.