The more time that passes as we get further and further away from the movie, the more I'm realizing that as it stands now, the answer for me at least is nothing. It was also apparent when I was at the movies last week and the trailer for Rogue One played. I had seen it online already of course, and honestly I'll probably see it anyway, but the total indifference I felt as I watched it was almost unsettling, especially for me, always having been such a big Star Wars fan.
It's also strange to me that I honestly feel like I would be more excited about new movies going forward if they had skipped ahead another 30 years until Han and Leia and Luke were gone anyway, and maybe we learned that they had some kids and lived relatively quiet lives and we just never saw or heard from them again. But to instead be given such a dark, horrible future for them, it just pretty much killed it for me.
I'm not trying to tell anyone that they shouldn't be looking forward to more Star Wars, and in fact would like to be convinced otherwise. So please tell me what if anything you guys are looking forward to seeing. For a time I was kind of intrigued by the new characters, but the more time that passes, the more I'm realizing how I'm not at all emotionally invested in them. I'm not in the slightest bit anxious about seeing what happens next. I was annoyed at first when they announced Episode 8 was being pushed out 6 months later, but now I don't really care. Release it in 2020 for all I care at this point. Or "cancel" it like a TV show, whatever. I'm more disappointed that Agent Carter got canceled than I would be if they told us they just weren't going to make another movie. That's pretty sad.
I know we technically still have Leia, but what is left for her? It is apparent that they are going to virtually ignore the fact that Ben is her son. All she does is sit back and watch other people do battle and endure more and more heartache and lost loved ones while barely showing any emotion whatsoever. There is really nothing "good" that can happen to her now, so what's the point? I mean I suppose theoretically she could get her son back, but there would still be that kind of major underlying tension there since he killed her husband. And presumably billions of other innocent people. So, I don't know, when you take away any hope I don't know what I'm watching for and supposed to want to see happen. Probably largely why I am not so emotionally invested in the new characters, the precedent now is that everyone is doomed to be miserable forever.
It really sucks to be a Skywalker.
The current rumor is that Leia will spend most of Episode VIII in a coma after being shot down by the First Order in the first scene and Laura Dern takes over the Resistance. As much as I'd love to see a Leia/Kylo scene together, I can't really blame the producers and director for not giving Carrie a scene she may not be able to handle. Carrie's been acting but she doesn't really do dramatic work any more, just comedy and I just don't know if she could pull of a mother/son confrontation.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like based on the current info out there they're setting up for Rey to eventually redeem Kylo possibly through a love story with Kylo falling in love with Rey and Rey leading him back to the light.
As much as this sucks for fans of the Big Theee, Star Wars (and every hero journey) has always been about the younger characters and the old characters are there to pass the torch, mentor them and then die so they can complete their heroes journey alone. In the OT, Luke was the one to bring Vader back to the Light, not Obi Wan or Yods. In the ST, Leia or Luke aren't going to be the ones to bring Kylo back - Rey is as part of her heroes journey. I actually doubt either of them will survive the ST.
Obi Wan and Yoda were not the heroes though. Luke, Han and Leia were. Obi Wan and Yoda were never victorious really, always worked in the mentor role. I don't really see why Han, Leia and Luke need to suffer immeasurably in order for the new heroes to have their journey. I get that they should no longer be the heroes or the focal point of the story, but what was the point of their victory if it was just to set up for new heroes?
DeleteRegardless of all of that, you didn't answer my question. Or maybe you did, agreeing that the answer is "nothing."
Oh sorry. Nothing would be the answer. Han is dead and Leia's going to be in a coma and probably die in either Episode VIII or IX.
DeleteObi wan and Yoda weren't heroes since they failed in the PT but they were the protagonists of the PT. Rey is clearly the heroine of the ST and every heroes journey involves the mentor dying so that they continue their heroes journey on their own (How many father figures did Harry Potter go through?) I don't think we should expect to see either Luke or Leia do anything significant in the next two movies. It's all about Rey's journey from now.
What we have to look forward to:
Delete1. The day when George Lucas really can't take it anymore and tells the whole world -- in no uncertain terms -- that he hates what Lucaslessfilm has done to the Big Three. He came pretty close a few months ago. As he gets older, and his filter gets even smaller, I gotta believe it's going to happen. I truly look forward tot he day when he REALLY rips LFL a new one.
2. The rest of the older fanbase joining us in being unhappy when Leia and Luke also get offed in the ST. Because Han Solo was many things, but he was not the old master who needs to die for the hero to come into his/her own in the monomyth. That's Luke. Which means, assuming Leia dies in VIII, Luke has to die in IX or it's failed myth writing. And if all of the Big Three die in the next three films, a lot of people are going to be angry and lose interest. Actually, it would be almost laughable to kill them off one after another in VII, VIII and IX, but it seriously looks like they're going that way.
3. LFL realizing too late that they've made a mistake and desperately trying to retcon this somehow. I think we've seen that start already. Maybe there will be more stories between ROTJ and TFA that try to make it all look not as horrifically miserable as they let it be in TFA. I feel like "Bloodline" starts their attempt to deal with this although, admission, will not read.
4. Really good fan fiction, because more adults who want something to love in the SW universe will go there.
5. I hold out a tiny sliver of hope that if they want to go for a redemption arc for Kylo -- which I have to agree they may try, but which I think is truly impossible to pull off after a character has committed patricide, and that pater he killed is one of the most popular characters in film history -- Kylo is going to have to put things right. I don't have any idea how that happens, but destroying - first emotionally, then physically - his parents was clearly one of them. And if he's going to be "redeemed," he's going to need to fix that, otherwise anyone with a shred of sense (which of course excludes a large percentage of modern humans) will not buy that redemption. I mean, even Anakin didn't kill his mother - he did everything humanly possible to save her. If Anakin killed Shmi in the prequels instead of killing all the sandpeople who killed her, I think the question of "was he redeemed in ROTJ" would have a different answer (Truth: I never bought him killing all those Sandpeople in the desert was a dark side thing. They'd just tortured a woman to death for weeks, ffs. They're like ISIS, and I was fine with them assuming room temperature). Anyway, what that form of Kylo putting things right is I do not know, but despite noisy ReyLo shippers on the web, I don't think that the character is as widely liked as noisy people on the internet would have you think. I'm not sure ReyLo plays with the general audience unless he does something huge to fix things. (Seriously, Vader merch still outsells Kylo merch (take a look at any CVS) and wait until Vader shows up in Rogue One. Ballgame over, Vader's back.)
Anyway, I guess I"m saying much of what we have to look forward to is schadenfreude. Which sucks. But I've found myself being very happy looking back and looking at FF and ignoring whatever Lucaslessfilm has to say.
OH, and:
Delete6. The day when Carrie Fisher is no longer under contract and can say what she really thinks about the ST.
The current Rey redeems Kylo with her love speculation I would find eye-rolling and offensive to women. I cannot stand the cliche "a villain can be redeemed with the love of a good woman" trope. After all the talk about how Rey is a role model for women, it would really demean her to fall in love with someone who is essentially her abuser for the first part of the movie. Not like Kathleen Kennedy cares much though, since she went with the extreme anti feminist vision of "Leia had a career so of course she was a terrible mother" *rolls eyes*. Also, the message sent to the audience is stupid. So his dad can't reach him, his mother can't reach him, his Uncle can't reach him but some random girl can because he falls in love with her? Ugh.
DeleteKels, I think the Luke fanbase was already pretty unhappy with him getting a 5 second cameo in TFA and they're even unhappier now that it looks more and more like Rey is a random and not his daughter. Poor guy at least had a family with a wife and son in Legends EU and a successful Jedi order.
I don't even WANT Kylo to be redeemed. For all of Vader's awful things he did, as you said yourself, he didn't kill his mother, he didn't kill his wife. He didn't kill his son or daughter. The only people we saw him kill in the movies were his own subordinates that annoyed him. No matter what they do going forward, he's still going to be that guy who murdered his dad when he was only trying to help him and bring him home. Between the movie, the novelization, and Bloodline, it is still insanely unclear to me what kind of relationship Han had with Ben.
DeleteI think if you want to set up a story for a redemption arc, you need to make their offenses at least a tad more forgivable.
And really, please just kill Leia. As soon as possible. Just put the poor woman out of her misery. My request has nothing to do with Carrie and everything to do with Leia as a character, just don't make her continue to exist just to suffer more.
Well Vader did slaughter a whole room full of children which is about one of the most unforgivable things you can do. But it's not like if he got redeemed and lived he'd be able to go back to the Rebellion and live as a family with Luke and Leia. He'd have to go into exile or be put on trial for his crimes. It seems like all the Reylo fans seem to think Episode IX is going to end with Rey and Kylo skipping off into the sunset together and getting married and rebuilding the Jedi Order together and I can't see how that could be pulled off in a plausible way.
DeleteIt seems super obvious that they're going down a redemption plot line for him with JJ and AD's comments about "Aw, poor Ben it's not his fault he turned to the Dark Side with his deadbeat dad/workaholic career mom with their awful marriage." Which is again a rehash of ROTJ (with Rey as Luke) but since TFA was a complete rehash of ANH we shouldn't be surprised.
I also think JJ and AD's remarks about how Han was a deadbeat dad kind of cheapen the confrontation between Kylo and Han. So should we be rooting for Kylo to kill Han because he was such a lousy dad anyway? That seems to be what a lot of people got out of that scene.
That bothers me about those comments concerning that scene too. If Han was really such a terrible father, and he really is why Kylo is the way he is, then he deserved to die, and all of the tension from that scene goes away. It just doesn't make any sense.
DeleteYep.
DeleteI still stand by the idea that JJ and AD made those remarks immediately after the filming so that they could release the DVD set (the DVD release was insanely quick, IMO). In other words, really have/had no clue as to what the story book group was intending and HAD to make the comments based on a movie script.
DeleteAny way, their comments don't really match up at all to what little was implied by Claudia in Bloodline. Emphasis on little. I know Han and Ben's relationship is still vague and left to the imagination but I didn't get the sense that it was volatile at all from that book.
Kels, Zyra, and Ewokkey:
ReplyDeletePerfect posts above, and I agree with all of you. That's exactly how I feel. I love the new characters, but because of the disrespectful they gave to the original ones and the OT fans, I'm not much invested in them. I'm still not seeing VIII and IX. I still hoping for some type of retcon...
And yes, I'd love to see what Carrie Fisher would say when she's no longer under a gag order.
Sorry, I mean disrespect. I type too fast...
ReplyDeleteGood solid fic. That's really the only answer to that question. H/L fandom has survived on peanuts before. It always seems like when there's a vacuum, fanfic steps up to the plate. When we were given Bantam EU, what we REALLY got was Cindy Olsen, SueZahn and Marie. When we were given the NJO, we got Ivy and Limelight. Unfortunatly we are an unrecognized fanbase, but the fic always made it worth it to me. So. Write! And review!
ReplyDeleteAmen to that!
DeleteWhat can we look forward to...
ReplyDeleteThe end of Episode 9 when Leia wakes up in Han's arms and says "I had the most horrible dream. I dreamt we had this really sucky son named Ben and he turned evil and we separated because we couldn't cope. Then he ended up killing you...." Han comforts her and tells her it was just a dream and crap like that would never happen as he looks fondly at a picture of Jacen, Jaina and Anakin on the bedside table :)
Dallas, here we come again...
Deletehaha - Best.
DeleteAlthough I could write an essay about the Han and H/L character shifts and why I think they are happening, I will stick with Zyra's q. I think it is pretty bleak for H/L and H/L/L fans. However they tinker with the story now, it is one of bitterness and despair for our couple regardless. Hard to fix that at this point. That being said, I hate what they did to Han and to H/L in TFA, but its all we got. so.
ReplyDeleteThis is where I think things are going:
Han's sacrifice and ultimate gesture of unconditional love at his moment of death will be what ultimately saves Kylo's soul in some way.
Kylo will be shown to be the person who left or arranged for the napkin to warn Leia.
Snoke is something bigger than recapturing imperial control and this will somehow help suss out Kylo's path/seduction.
Leia will have to play a role in some way in helping Kylo, it may also be death. not sure how Carrie will play it. agree that she is coma'd out for alot of VIII. Entirely possible they will try to happy spin it in the end with some sort of H/L together in the force world or something.
Fan fiction is what we have left, which can be pretty good, but still bittersweet at best.
I didn't intend to imply that you can't talk about other things, just that in your reply which was the firs one, so tends to sort of set the tone for where the conversation goes, you didn't address my question. You can comment on whatever else you want.
DeleteIt's funny that before, basically all we really had was fan fiction. We did have the EU, which had its awful moments but at least at its core Han and Leia were 95% of the time rock solid. Now we again are left with only fan fiction but it just seems harder to take this time since we have been given such a horrible post-ROTJ life for them with what looks like very few happy moments, and ultimately nothing but sadness, loneliness, and tragedy.
That's right.
DeleteAnd I think that they might as well kill Leia off now, too. Sigh...
dont worry - I am not the first poster - that is Mac Kay not Mckak. slightly different name. I am sure she is lovely
DeleteOh, no, do I have to make a rule now on how different people's user names need to be? ;)
DeleteKidding, of course. Sorry for the mix-up!
Well, keep in mind it's not like they had a happy ending in the EU either. Their youngest son died a horrible death by the Vong, Chewie got killed by a moon, then their oldest son went Dark, killed Han and Leia's sister in law and then was killed by his sister. Not to mention like 40 years of never ending war and never getting any peace. I think the difference is that we didn't know all that was going to happen when we were reading the time period of Bantam.
DeleteNow that readers know what Han and Leia's future is, I think the reading of the books/comics is marred by trying to "predict" how it all goes horribly wrong. Like in Bloodline even though it portrayed Han and Leia as a loving couple, plenty of the Han/Leia haters were saying how it proved they had a dysfunctional marriage with them living apart most of the time, and that Han was a deadbeat dad who was never around during Ben's childhood, Leia was obviously "way too into her work" to be a good mother, yadda, yadda. Poor Ben was obviously scarred by his dad never being around and his parent's dysfunctional marriage, etc. No matter how they portray the Solo family fans will see it through a filtered lens now. I mean, if we knew that Jacen was going to grow up to be a Sith Lord when we were reading the Bantam books, you could argue there's a ton of foreshadowing about that in the Bantam books. He and Jaina spent the first two years of their lives apart from Han and Leia, they were mostly raised by Winter and 3PO isntead of their parents, Leia's fear of her children turning Dark in Tatooine Ghost may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy and she was afraid of them...see how everything can be viewed subjectively when you know the eventual outcome?
While they of course suffered some heartbreaking things in the old EU, at the end of it all we still had Han and Leia totally in love with one another, and at least with their daughter who was relatively happy and well adjusted. They even had a granddaughter. Crucible is as far in the timeline there as we get, and while you still have to remember about the sons they lost and the other difficult things, that book still makes me happy to read.
DeleteThere was no foreshadowing with Jacen, because they didn't know that was what they were going to do. There's no indication when they were younger that that was going to happen, and in fact it was clear that his turning was largely because of brainwashing and manipulation that had nothing to do with his childhood or anything else. In fact if you go back and read the old books as we recently had done, the foreshadowing is showing how strong Anakin Solo is, seemingly setting up something for how strong he was going to be. And then instead they killed him. You can't really compare the old EU, because to some extent that story was told chronologically, and largely without any long-term planning. In this case we're talking about something where we've already been told the "end" of the story, and now they are going back to tell us how we got there. That is an awful lot different.
And yeah I fully admit that when I read or write about Jaina, Jacen and Anakin Solo I conveniently ignore the death and turning Sith. Even the being taken away from their parents for 2 years and being raised by Winter. Yep, I totally ignore that. It's a hell of a lot easier to do though when you are talking about books rather than a movie where we actually SEE them.
I agree about the old EU. Despite a ton of crap being thrown in Han and Leia's direction, by the end of it they'd been happily married for over 40 years and were stronger than ever. And they had Jaina, who was an annoying kid but grew up to be a really great character. I really liked her in the later books. And they were grandparents, and that was adorable. Compare that to the where we find them in TFA. Although I think the new canon won't turn out as bad as we think in regards the backstory, I'd still take the old EU any day of the week.
DeleteAnd yeah, the old EU was not planned out, which is why a lot of it was a huge mess continuity wise. And at the start of the NJO they planned for Anakin to be the hero, which is why it seemed like he was "special" in some way, and Jacen would die at the end of the series. But Uncle George didn't want another character called Anakin, so their fates were swapped. Jacen was the hero and Anakin ended up biting it not even half way through the series.
That's what I meant - they're different because how the story is being told. I think you misunderstood my original post. The story being told now is we know the ending then they're going back and filling in the blanks. Since we know it all ends horribly now everyone is trying to find foreshadowing in the books like "Did Ben turn bad because Han was an absentee dad since he's away from home most of the time?" "Did Ben turn bad because Leia was a workaholic who was never around during his childhood?" With the Bantam books we didn't know Jacen was going to be a Sith so there wasn't any of that. If The story had been told that all along we knew Jacen would become a Sith, you could argue there's foreshadowing in the books like him being taken away from his parents during his crucial bonding years and being raised by Winter and droids more than his own parents.
DeleteThat's why every book from now about the Solo family is going to be somewhat tainted by the Han/Leia haters (boy are there a lot of them) looking for "clues" on why Ben went back with his dysfunctional home environment. There's already a lot of discussion that Ben was clearly scarred by his parents dysfunctional marriage and Han being a deadbeat dad based on what we know in Bloodline and TFA.
And I'm going to posit a theory here...
ReplyDeleteIf it happens, maybe Carrie Fisher had something to do with it.
I for one am looking forward to fanfic about the middle years between ROTJ and TFA-ish times. I happen to like Han as an independent business man and racing celebrity, far more than his turn as reluctant General and house-husband to Leia in the Legends EU.
ReplyDeleteSure, I hated where they ended up in TFA, but the retconning is making the situation less horrible to me, which is surprising because I really hated where they had Han and Leia so much when it first came out.
Anyway, the recent fanfic has been pretty awesome. That's been my latest kick. I personally loved Bloodline, and hope we get more hints about Han and Leia in Aftermath.
I'm actually glad to hear someone is looking forward to a new back story for the new movie. I actually feel kind of bad that I'm not interested because I know a lot of people have written probably some good stories. But I see anything with the words "Ben Solo" and just immediately stop even reading the description of the story. I just have no interest at all in reading anything about it.
DeleteHan's specific "job" within either universe has never meant much for me either way. It's not really about his job so much as what he is actually doing. And there is maybe 1 book/series where he is "house husband" so I've never really understood where that comes from. Most of the time he is doing other things.
Aw, that's too bad, but understandable. JJ really screwed everyone over with TFA. (Seriously how hard would have been to give at least Han and Leia a happily ever after, or even reconciliation? I still think JJ is a jerk.)
DeleteBut, I like some of the back story retconning going on out there. Claudia Gray wrote Han and Leia so beautifully. I totally fell in love with how they were portrayed in the book. And to me it does kind of matter what Han does for a living post ROTJ. I mean, I just never believed he'd be able to stand being in the military, nor would I think he'd be okay with just hanging around acting as Leia's pilot and bodyguard. Once they relegated the old EU to Legends I was ready to see how they would re-envision the post-war years. A couple of decades of peace with Han truly doing his own thing and freaking owning it (running a successful business? Being a bad-ass racing legend who tricks out his wife's senatorial shuttle with hidden armaments? YEAH!!!) was welcome to me. Leia also being herself, drawn to duty, and yet also being so obviously in love with Han was awesome!
Anyway, I total get the TFA downer. I was stuck there for a long while and even when I read fanfic I kind of mind-wipe everything TFA and after so that I can enjoy happy domestic one-shots and all the awesome AUs that have come out.
Rebel me wants an almost complete retcon.
DeleteI'm loving all of the posts! What do we have to look forward to?
ReplyDeleteWell, IMO, nothing from TPTB. And its really, really sad that that is how I feel, considering I am typically a very positive, "glass is half full" kind of person.
(Even before TFA came out and there were all of the negative rumors swirling around as to what was going to happen to Han and Leia, I just couldn't believe that Disney would completely destroy their relationship or malign their characters. boy, was I wrong.)
And i'm going to get flamed for this, but i'll say it anyway.
Even Claudia Gray's book - which sounds like it has some good moments (can't say for sure, because i'm not going to read it, or anything from Disney for that matter)- still has undermined their characters, this time subtly, imo, by having them never achieving a decent work/life balance.
To me, it seems like Disney(through Bloodline) is inferring that they spent very little time together as a couple and only had one child (not the 3 they had in the EU) - not because of fertility or health issues - but because they were too busy with their jobs; their careers were more important than each other and having a family. gag. (Sure,the EU wasn't perfect either, but at least they were together)
I think that with everything they went through during the OT, both Han and Leia would have recognized - very quickly in fact - that careers aren't everything and at the end of the day their love and devotion to each other and family (whatever the size) is much more important.
I'm off on a tangent again, sorry, lol.
I'm not saying that others shouldn't be excited about new stuff coming out, its just that for me, Disney took so much away from and out of George's Han and Leia, that they've irreparably damaged them, no matter what retcon they *might* try to do.(I actually don't think tptb care about the OTP/the 'older' fans anyway)
okay...on a happier note...fanfic is where shippers will have to find some satisfaction. And there's a ton of great writers out there, old and new, to enjoy! So lets support their efforts at creating a happily ever after that Han and Leia so greatly deserved, but for which Disney, unlike George, chose not to give them.
Well I sort of take issue with the idea there's something deficient about couples who only have 1 kid. I don't have kids yet but if I do we're just going to have one because I can't imagine handling more than one. My niece is an only child of two career parents and is the apple of her parents' eyes, as are many other children that grow up to be high functioning adults.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAlso, in Bantam Han and Leia spent very little time together because of their respective jobs. In the New Rebellion, Leia mentions that she only sleeps in the same bed as Han a few times a month which means they're only together like 10% of the time. In Bloodline it seems they're apart about 50% of the time (Leia says it's been a while since Han has been around more than half the year) so it actually seems like they spend more time together in the new canon during the years after ROTJ. It wasn't until Leia left politics after her kids had grown up that she and Han started spending a lot of time together
DeleteI don't think anyone is saying there is something wrong with a couple only having 1 kid and understanding their limits and what they want. Part of what JeanMarie is saying, and which I completely agree with, is that it seems like Han and Leia, having been through all of the things they had been through, might have a clearer idea of what is really important in life and rather than allowing career and other obligations to consume so much of their time and efforts, might step back a bit (not completely, and not to the point of doing nothing, just not letting their jobs be all consuming) and make sure that their family and loved ones were the top priority in their lives. Leia had been "duty-bound" her entire life when she met Han. Another interesting debate is whether that is central to who she is as a person, or if she did it out of obligation and meeting Han and falling in love and eventually having a family would change that and make her reassess what was most important to her.
DeleteI don't know, I just see both of them wanting more for themselves and having kids to be a family, not having a kid as an accessory because that's like, what you're supposed to do and what happens when you are having regular sex.
There is nothing wrong with people who want to have great careers and not be stay at home moms but still raise a kid or 2. I just don't necessarily see Leia as wanting to be that person after she has done so much already. Same with Han, if we're talking about a man who has never had a family or a true sense of belonging, I have always thought of him as someone who would just be absolutely thrilled to have a brood of his own.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAnd thanks, Zyra, for understanding the point I was trying to make; I'm not as eloquent as you, but my heart is in the right place:)
DeleteI don't think there's anything in the canon to show that Han and Leia view Ben as an accessory. In Bloodline Ben is always on Leia's mind and she constantly thinks about how much she loves him and misses him. Even in TFA after what he's become it's obvious how much she still loves him.
DeleteI guess there is a lot of room for debate on this because we never do see Han and Leia in a relationship during peace time and what their plans for their lives after the war would be like. We have no idea if they want children, if they want more than one, and whether they want a traditional or unconventional lifestyle. I may get flamed for this, but if Han and Leia had no kids, I wouldn't have a problem with that either or consider that out of character. Lots of couples don't have kids and that doesn't mean there's something deficient or wrong with them - and really, we see no indication in the OT that either of them want kids or don't want kids.
To me, I think while Leia learns to balance duty and love in ROTJ, duty is still a fundamental part of who she is - the idealism and need to fix what's wrong in the galaxy. To take that aspect away from her, IMO, would be to take away part of what makes Leia Leia. I don't think she'd be like this workaholic ice queen like she was often portrayed in the Bantam books, but I do see her wanting a fundamental role in the building of the Republic given her history as a Rebel leader and Senator. She was raised on those ideals and they're part of who she is. Even Lucas says that he envisioned her becoming a Senator after ROTJ.
Also, as someone who was raised by two career parents and who (if I have kids) will have kids raised by two career parents, I strongly dislike this whole "A woman must choose between career and a family, if she's a career woman she can't be a good mother" idea. It's why I despise the Reylos who are constantly saying Leia was a bad mother because she dared to have a career. I just can't see Leia happy sitting at home only being a wife and mother (not that there's anything wrong with stay at home moms).
So I don't see anything wrong with Han and Leia having high-profile busy careers that keep them fulfilled and happy. It's not what everyone wants, but I do see it in their personalities that Leia would want to be more than a wife and mother and Han would want more than to be a husband and father. And I don't think (other than JJ's warped view) we have anything to show that they put their careers about Ben or that they were bad parents because of their careers. We don't even know what their family life was like before Ben went off to train or how long Han has been racing for. The Visual Dictionary describes Han as a "family man". That doesn't sound like a guy so wrapped up in his career that he neglects his son.
Sorry for writing so long. I guess this kind of debate gets me going because I have a career I love that keeps me busy and happy and fulfilled even though I have to work long hours sometimes. I hope if/when I have a kid, no one thinks I'm a bad mother for not giving up my career when I have a kid, just like my mom didn't with me.
I don't think anyone here is arguing anything about career woman vs. stay at home mom or whatever. In fact if anything, I think mostly we are trying to say that is what annoys us about the scenario that we are seemingly being presented with. Which for now seems like yes, Leia was pretty wrapped up in her work and maybe wasn't a very "present" mom in her son's life. And that Han apparently wasn't an incredibly hands-on father, either. It is frustratingly unclear right now really what kind of parents they were. But as it all stands now it SEEMS like that is the direction they will be going with it. And, again, that is what annoys us, that Leia can't be an important public figure and have a real career unless she is sorely lacking in being a mother. Nobody is saying that there is anything wrong with Leia NOT giving up working or whatever to be a mom. We are annoyed with the idea that it seems like they are telling us that in her case she maybe made a bad choice as a parent by not maybe stepping back from work a bit more. I am not sure if I'm articulating this well or not. The main point of all of this is that we are talking specifically about mom vs. career in Leia's case, and the specific circumstances surrounding her. Nothing to do with anyone else's real world choices regarding working and having kids. I absolutely would not expect or even want to see Leia just becoming a stay at home mom because I don't think that fits her at all. I do, however, maybe see her taking on a lower profile role so her work is maybe a little less central to her identity.
DeleteAnd for whatever reason, I have just always thought they would want kids. Maybe that's weird because I actually don't even want them myself, but for them, it's like it's not even a question to me. I think mostly because I see them both as longing for having a family. (I've got plenty of family, I don't need to make more!) That could be another debate though. But my thoughts on that have nothing to do with it being deficient or wrong if they didn't have kids, just that in my own view of them, it seems more in character that they would want them.
Also the visual dictionary already seems like it contradicts other things. And what JJ says contradicts what at least some of Bloodline says. I don't get it, they are given the chance for a do-over and to try and piece things together more than the old EU that had a fair amount of contradictions, they have a whole team of people supposedly overseeing the continuity and story line, and they're still screwing it up.
Right now we really don't know enough about the new canon EU to make any assumptions about how Han and Leia were before Bloodline and in the years between ROTJ and Claudia Gray's book. We have some hints, like when Leia muses that she wished everyone lived together like a family, which would imply that at one point they had a more conventional home life than Han off on the racing circuit, touring, and her without him a lot of the time on Hosnian Prime. There is nothing in the book that suggests they put their careers before each other because they want to get ahead or because of professional ambition. When Leia gets into serious trouble in the book Han drops *everything* he is involved in to be at her side, and Leia constantly thinks about Han and Ben, and especially about running off with Han away from the Senate and living her life as freely as he does. But both Han and Leia are internally driven. Neither would be content existing solely for each other, and they won't ask that of the other person. They're totally awesome and wildly romantic! I swear, if you'd read the book you'd see what I mean!!!! (It's okay if you don't want to though, I get the TFA downer. Can I say it again? JJ SUCKS!!!)
DeleteAnyway, relationships go through a lot of change, and during the 23 plus years before Bloodline takes place I'm sure a lot did change for Han and Leia. But what's very clear from the new canon is that Han and Leia remain deeply in love, even when they've been separated as we see them in TFA. Despite what Jar Jar Abrahms says, the love is/was always there!
In my head canon there's a lovely peaceful interlude there with Baby/toddler/kid Ben, Leia being a senator, and Han building his business and loving the novelty of being a "family man" and having, for one of the first times in his life, an actual home. Then the dynamic changed (maybe because Ben went off to train with Luke?)
Either way, it's all good. Nobody has to like how the new canon is turning out. (JJ SUCKS!) But I don't hate it right now. It's possible I might hate it again in the future though. That remains to be seen. Until then there is some awesome fanfic. Right now I'm reading Madame Alexander's AU set after ROTJ, where Bail Organa and a ship full of Alderaanians manage to survive in some bizarre time warp and then come back 5 years after Alderaan was destroyed! It's AWESOME! No baby Ben in sight, and totally AU, so it's JJ-safe! (Not to mention Kels' awesome AU, which I still check on regular to see if there are updates!) Then a bunch of newish fanfic writers have taken on the ANH-ESB-ROTJ timeline with some pretty great writing and totally engrossing variations on the same tales! I also massively love all the happy Han and Leia post ROTJ, but new canon compliant stories which feed my head canon with instances of this happy interlude I'll insist happened (until proven otherwise! )
Much love to all the fanfic writers! It's what got me into this ship in the first place anyway, and what keeps me hooked! That I now at least don't 100% hate new canon so long as I mind-wipe TFA is icing on the cake.
What information in the Visual Dictionary was found to be inconsistent with the canon? I can't think of anything.
DeleteI agree with LoveThis, we have no information on what the family life was like while Ben was growing up. Leia thinking and missing about Han and Ben and thinking about how hard it is to be separated from them makes it seem like it has been relatively recent that they spend a lot of time apart and that Ben is off training with Luke.
And there is nothing in the book that indicates they put their careers above each other and their family. Han drops everything when he's in the middle of judging a galactic race (the equivalent of the Olympics) and runs to rescue Leia. Leia thinks "He would always come through in the end when she needed him". Han and Leia have the kind of relationship where they are two wholes, not two halves make a whole and that's what I like about them. Sappy romances like the Twilight/Nicholas Sparks "I can't live without you, I want to die when you're not around" make me roll my eyes. The most successful relationships I see in every day life are people who both have their own careers, hobbies and interests and aren't wrapped up in not being able to spend a minute apart from each other. Han and Leia have found a way to make their relationship work with their personalities and are still crazy in love after 23 books. Seriously, if you read the book you'll know what I mean.
LoveThis, great recommendations, also anything by Mandy Q is awesome as well. She's one of the fastest writers I know too!
As far as the contradictions go, we for sure have that and I'm still not sure who we are supposed to believe. JJ says one thing, this book says another. I mean, who are we supposed to believe? One person wrote the actual movie. Of course what he says and what we really see in the acting performances also contradict each other. This is what is so frustrating to me. And without a clear answer, I think a lot of people aren't entirely sure what to believe. This is why it is stupid to have people in this movie in entirely different places that require a LOT of explanation and back story rather than picking up in a more logical point. It would've made way more sense to just show a Han and Leia that had been married for 30 years and had a kid or 2 or 3, rather than this, which requires so much to fill in. It only makes sense when you look at the end of ROTJ that they wind up together.
DeleteI mean, I said the exact same thing when we were talking about this before. And why when going backwards to the prequels based on what we saw at the end of ANH, the end of ROTS leads us to the beginning of ANH. Nothing weird or strange happens there, the characters are where we left them, basically. It would've been really confusing if at the end of ROTS they had Obi Wan with a wife and a kid when all we know in ANH is that he is alone on Tatooine in hiding. It makes no sense to leave a big story there we don't know.
It all just frustrates me so much the more I think about it. And it just makes even less sense to me that Han up and left if they had such a great thing as apparently indicated in the book.
It is all just making me sad again.
Visual Dictionary contradicts canon of Artoo's height. He has grown from his old height of .96 meters.
DeleteWell, I would take what Pablo and the Visual Dictionary say over JJ. Pablo's the one in charge of continuity and the head of the Story group. For example JJ said TFA was 34 years after ROTJ and Pablo said 30 years (which it's fixed at now in the canon). JJ isn't involved in the Story committee and now that he's not directing Episode VIII, I don't think he has much to do with SW any more. Pablo also seems pretty openly disdainful of JJ blaming Han and Leia being bad parents on Ben going Dark. Within the canon so far I haven't seen anything in the Visual Dictionary that contradicts Bloodline or the comics out.
DeleteI think it would have made way more sense for Episode VII to open with Leia as a Senator, the New Republic functioning but showing signs of corruption, Luke with a new Jedi Order, and Ben training with Luke. TFA seemed more like what Episode VIII should be, not Episode VII. I think what happened was JJ got super scared of the prequel backlash of the "boring politics" and Jedi Order that he decided the only way to bring back SW was to reboot the galaxy. So we got Empire vs. Rebellion (the New Republic is seen for like 10 seconds, then gets vaped but no one cares), Jedi all wiped out, Leia as a Rebel leader, Han as a smuggler, Death Star 3.0, etc. I don't think there's a speck of imagination in JJ. Say what you want about Lucas being a terrible director or writer, but at least he tried something DIFFERENT with the prequels. JJ couldn't even be bothered to come up with a creative planet - all the planets are just copies of what we already saw in the OT.
It'll be interesting to see if Episode VIII is just a rehash of ESB, or if Rian Johnson has more imagination than JJ. Seriously, that guy is such a hack. I saw the trailer for the new Star Trek and I'm not even a Trek fan and I can see why ST fans hate him - he turned Star Trek into another generic cool action flick like Fast and the Furious or a Michael Bay movie, except in Space.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRVD32rnzOw Does anyone see anything resembling the original ST in this trailer? Yeesh.
Well Zyra, I agree they could have done things differently and better. I would have loved to just see Han and Leia together sending their kids off to save the galaxy, making their small cameo and then off with the new characters. That said, I'm rolling with what they're giving us for now. Don't worry though, I totally get why you're not happy. Sometimes I go there too, especially when I reflect on how epic Han and Leia's love was. Their ending was too tragic for such a great romance!
DeleteI'm not saying that all ( hence, the portion about work/ life balance in my first post), but I just see both of them as recognizing that that there's a lot more to life than JUST their careers or "getting ahead"
ReplyDeleteNo one ever said on their death bed, " gosh, I wish I would have worked more hours , had a bigger home, made more $$$...most really wise people - and I see Han and Leia falling in that category - realize that...
And ditto, Zyra, about your thoughts and reasoning as to Han wanting a "brood of his own.
ReplyDeleteI post a lot of my works on Wattpad in addition to FF. I made a friend over there and we started our own amateur "rebellion": EU completely, H/L fluff everywhere, and a discussion book solely dedicated to the bashing of Disney's "Star Wars" (and reviving the EU, but which is more important?).
ReplyDeleteThis is what we have to look forward to: the rebellion. I can't think of anything else. Maybe, Leia's death, but I'm only keeping an ear and eye in this AU universe for the rebellion because I can promise you I'll be in the front ranks, Jyp, Aniri, and H/L fanfiction everywhere, strongly-worded arguments, and maybe even some more of the pathetic excuse for fanart I tried drawing once.
Hope to see you all there wih me!
Whoops! This is JainaDurron7!
ReplyDeleteZyra, virtually everything you have written here could have been plucked whole from my own head. I couldn't agree with you more. I desperately wish TFA had been set another 30 years in the future, after H/L/L were dead and gone. That they'd been allowed to live out their lives as heroes who brought about lasting peace in the galaxy, and as a happy family. If that were the case, and Kylo Ren was unrelated to H/L, I'd love the hell out of TFA for bringing SW back to life for a new generation. The further we get from the movie, though, the more disconnected I feel from official canon. I just reject it. It's really too bad, but I can't tolerate the idea of that being the end for Han and Leia. So, in my head, it simply didn't happen that way. It's just a really awful fanfic that I read once and will never read again. You probably have one or two of those from years gone by, too? The ones that make you shudder! lol
ReplyDeleteNew fanfic is what I have to look forward to, although it's tricky to find well-written stuff that does NOT reference that awful future. Like you, I bolt when I see anything about "Ben Solo" now (my own post-TFA fics notwithstanding; I had to deal with the pain!!!) I don't want to read anything about H/L's post-RotJ romance that suggests (a) Leia got pregnant by accident. FFS!! No!!! or (b) Leia is pregnant with, delivering and/or raising Ben Solo. That kid just doesn't exist for me. I'm doing my best to erase him from my mind.
And because it's so difficult to find fic like that (and because I enjoy writing), I'm just writing my own post-RotJ stuff that will take a completely different route for H/L (and Luke!), and I'm hoping to encounter other fics that do the same.
Good call. I am hoping that at some point the writing bug bites me again. It has been non existent lately, and it is all just sort of... deflating. Especially for someone who has always written about Jacen, Jaina and Anakin (minus the bad stuff that happens to them later!) Like, do people even want to read about them anymore? I refuse to write about Ben Solo. And just inventing random different kids is more than I'm willing to take on. I don't know, the whole thing just seems to get worse the further we get away from it.
DeleteMaybe we should talk to the Luke/Mara fans about how they keep it going after their ship was declared non-canon. They must be feeling just as bad as us, eh?
DeleteI understand that sense of deflation. It hits me sometimes, too. But I've managed to get some of my old joy back through writing about H/L in much happier times, with a much happier future in mind. Actively avoiding TFA-era stuff (or gods forbid, re-watching the movie) is helping.
DeleteI don't WANT to let go of this little piece of happiness I've had since 1977! It's been my "happy place" for most of my life, and I want to preserve it! So I just keep reminding myself that ALL of it is fiction, and none of it is "true" or "the way things 'really' happened" --- never mind if it's Jar-Jar Abrams talking, or Pablo Whats-his-face, or whoever. It's just one person's interpretation, and mine is better than theirs. :P
That doesn't stop me raging at JJA & Co when I am confronted in the grocery store with lunch boxes covered in images of Kylo Ren (!) but reading good fanfic helps me go back to the happy place and forget about all of this TFA nonsense.
Oh Luke and Mara fans? Yeah, I feel terrible for them. Or even just Luke fans in general. He definitely got the shaft as well. Finishes the OT a hero but is then just relegated to suffer the same fate as Obi Wan, attempting to train some Jedi, failing catastrophically, then hiding away for years and years and then presumably being brought back briefly to guide a new promising young student before dying almost immediately after being found. (I don't know if that is for sure what is happening there, it just seems to make sense.) I don't really understand what your argument there is, that they have it worse? I wouldn't disagree with you there. Doesn't mean this doesn't also suck.
DeleteAnd yeah, Erin. Seriously, even the grocery store now has Star Wars balloons and tshirts and hats and Cheez-Its and bottled water with Kylo Ren's face on it. Ugh.
I meant, maybe we could ask them how they kept the fandom going when their ship was declared non canon so we could take notes on how to deal with our ship imploding? How did they deal with it? I don't know any Luke/Mara fans, so I wonder what happened to their fanbase.
DeleteYeah, Luke had it just as bad as Han and Leia looking like a coward and running away. And the new rumours about Episode VIII make it seem like he's gone pretty Dark in the time he's been in exile, which is a travesty to his character. I guess anything to make Rey and Kylo look good in comparison, even though if it makes the heroes of the OT look like crap. Plus, it seems like the poor guy never even got to have a family, since it doesn't look like Rey is his daughter any more.
Poor old Luke is going to die a 60-year-old virgin. Or however old he's going to be. Although as I typed that it made me realize that Obi Wan was probably also a virgin, which I never thought about before. Poor guy. I do find it exceptionally sad that Luke has a sad, lonely life after ROTJ. Although there is presumably a lot more of his story to tell between movies.
DeleteIs there still a Luke and Mara fanbase? I'm really curious now. After I typed that I searched Luke and Mara stories on ff.net and page 1, the last story on the page was updated beginning of March. For Han and Leia stories, the last story on the page was updated 2 days ago. I guess that's not terrible, and to be fair mere months ago there wasn't nearly that much action in terms of Han and Leia stories, but still.
I've never been a Luke and Mara 'shipper. I was certainly annoyed by their relationship at times when it seemed like it was a contest to show us that Luke and Mara were more bonded than any couple in the history of the universe. I did grow to like her character over the years though, and wasn't happy when she was killed off, for multiple reasons including the loss of a somewhat interesting female character, how sad and unfair it was that Luke lost his wife, and the fact that Han and Leia's son was responsible. It makes me curious too now though if a Luke and Mara shipper would be more upset if Luke had some random different love interest, or if they tell us he never had any romantic involvement?
Oh! I know a huge Luke/Mara shipper. She's the one I started that rebellion with. We started writing an EU continued sort of fanfic as therapy for ourselves. We cope by pretending Disney's SW never happened.
Delete-JainaDurron7
Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I’m actually more excited about the future of H/L than I have been in years. Probably since 80s when adolescent me I discovered them as my OTP, and then as teen me in the 90s when I discovered online fan fiction.
ReplyDeleteWhat’s been more tiring than anything in this fandom is the endless negativity. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and can shout it to high heavens, as far as I’m concerned. It’s one thing for the volume of negativity to drown out alternative opinions, but lately the negativity has been more forcefully participating in the drowning.
For me, TFA left much to be desired from the H/L relationship, to be sure, which has been covered in some length here already. Bloodline was wonderful though, and I have high hopes that H/L’s story post-ROTJ to pre-TFA will be filled in with time. I suppose TFA didn’t bother me too much because, aside from a new great legends books and (of course) the great H/L moments we have in the OT, the majority of the H/L relationship has mainly existed in my head cannon or fanon. And the fan fic since last December has been AMAZING. So cheers to those of you who are channeling your feelings, whatever they may be, into creative work.
Is fanon a term that has existed for a while or is that something you came up with? I've never heard it before and I like it.
DeleteZyra, I can't claim that term. I don't remember where, but I've seen it around the interwebs before. Multiple places, I think. It's great, no? Perfectly captures those foundational truths that we see over and over in fan fiction, like Leia not being able to cook.
DeleteYeah, I agree the negativity has gone way over the top at times. I understand being bummed about TFA, but sometimes it seems like any discussion to discuss the new canon gets shut down by negativity. Like I posted about how the new ANH novelization is really cute for Han/Leia bits, and the only response I got was people being mad there was a new ANH novelization in the new canon, even though it's 1000x better then ADF's creepy Luke/Leia vibes in the original novelization. Or people bashing books and comics in the new canon without even having read them.
DeleteI think the new canon has actually brought a lot of fans out of the woodwork who were in hiding before. We should celebrate the new fiction coming out, not be constantly negative all the time.
Fanon is an awesome term and so perfect for what it describes. I like it better than head canon. Is Leia not being able to cook also canon? I think it's just common sense ;)
DeleteLeia not being able to cook is canon now: http://jasonfry.tumblr.com/post/136578887346/folks-seem-to-like-star-wars-the-force-awakens
DeleteEwokkey that's fabulous. I hadn't seen that. Now I'm thinking about the next piece of fanon I'd like to see canonized...
DeleteBlerg, here's another cool place to discuss Bloodline and other Han/Leia stuff with other Han/Leia fans! http://boards.theforce.net/threads/han-and-leia-in-the-eu-a-discussion-thread-bloodline-spoilers-must-be-tagged.50038703/page-65
DeleteHello, all. I am not really sure if this is the right place to promote this but I am hoping that the admins of this page can do a little promotion to Susan Zahn's project- the Kiss 3 Fanzine:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156646965385247&set=gm.1133402776694377&type=3&theater
See the Facebook Page here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1006488966052426/
Speaking of finding good (new or old) fanfic to read, is there a repository online somewhere that you rely on for recommendations? Or do you just trust to your Google-fu?
ReplyDeleteI think we've talked about it here before, can't remember whether or not we have a whole post on it. I know on Nerfherder's Playground there is a post that discusses sort of all time favorites and recommendations. Some good stuff in there. The thread is kind of old and annoyingly I'm sure some of the sites aren't around anymore, but it's at least a start.
DeleteI think I've read just about every Han and Leia fic out there. Really. There is so much good stuff out there! And some of the old fanfic is professional quality. Heck, you can read Jen Heddle's fanfic, Claudia Gray's, and Martha Wilson's stuff still online if you go to Internet Archive. LOL!
DeleteWho was Claudia Gray? I have read more than once that she wrote fanfic but nothing pointing me to her stories or what name she used. I did know about Martha Wilson and Jen Heddle.
DeleteI was just about to ask the exact same thing, Zyra. What was Claudia Gray's pen name? Someone out there must know. Think we all agree that Jen Heddle wrote as Dianora and Martha Wilson wrote as Martha Wells. But who was Claudia?
DeleteI have no clue what Claudia Grey's pen name was in the H/L fic community, but Claudia Grey is also a pen name. Her real name is Amy Vincent (found in the copyright info page of one of her non-SW books).
DeleteAnd... I think I found her. http://www.reocities.com/organa-zation/members/imxfscully.html
DeleteRight first name, right location, seems about the right physical description based on google images. Now to start digging up old fics by that pen name. "Luke's Girl" rings a bell, but whre to find it?
Damn good eye! It's definitely her, Jen Heddle said her and Claudia have been friends in the fandom for ages and Dianora was very active on the Organa-zation.
DeleteLukes Girl was awesome. No wonder Claudia did such a great job with Han/Leia!
Thanks! I remember the story name, did not remember the pen name.
DeleteLuke's Girl here: http://web.archive.org/web/20030311151616/http://www.fanfix.com/stories/rebel/lukegirl.txt
That's definitely her. Claudia is also a Mulder and Scully shipper, so it fits with the name, as well as all the other things.
DeleteWhy don't I remember Luke's Girl? I know the title but can't recall the story. Thanks for the link, Zyra, I need to reread that one.
I remembered the title too, but not the story. A quick glance through the archives of the old fanfix site and that is the only one she wrote that I can find on there.
DeleteIMXFScully changed her screen handle to Yahtzee. You can find Luke's Girl at AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51152 (along with a ton of other fanfic from other fandoms) and at You Could Use Another Good Kiss: http://www.useakiss.com/web-content/yahtzee/lukesgirl1.html
DeleteThis page has another story by IMXFScully: http://web.archive.org/web/20091022105633/http://geocities.com/organa-zation/fanfic/members.html
Wow, look at all of those AOL email addresses!
DeleteWhoa, she's been busy! And still writing. She just posted a professor x/magneto slash fic today. She's really got a thing for tortured enemies who fall in love LOL.
DeleteWell, maybe that's where the ReyLo shipping comes from! LOL!
DeleteI must be thick, because I cannot work the Wayback Machine very effectively. The only thing I've been able to find has been Martha's stuff on the Corellian Embassy archived pages. Can anybody link Jen Heddle's and Claudia Gray's stuff please? And/or any other recommendations! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteYou don't need the wayback machine for Dianora, most of her stuff I know of is here: http://www.useakiss.com/web-content/dianora/dianora.html
DeleteYou're not thick, the way back machine doesn't like me much either. I always struggle with it.
DeleteBy the way, legitimate spoiler sites are reporting that Leia has a cameo in Rogue One. Wonder who will play her? Billie Lourd?
ReplyDeleteWhaaaat? So now we'll have a recast Leia too? Gah... Well at least Billie Lourd looks like Carrie Fisher... LOL, so if the did cast her it wouldn't be such a huge stretch. And she's the same height, so we won't have a diminutive new Han paired with a non-petite new Leia.
DeleteSorry, I'm still smarting over diminutive new Han. The luggage is sexiest when he's tall and lanky. Sexy luggage should not be the same height as Luke.
I don't believe we'll see either of them in Rogue One, think this is still pure speculation. It's waaay too close to ANH in the timeline, ( and we are talking a matter of weeks most likely) for these cameos to work. I think if it were to happen Leia is more likely than Han, as it would make sense to the story, Han would not make sense and be just fan service. I also think any appearance from Leia would be either her in shadow, her face obscured, or from a distance, or maybe from behind (with the iconic buns so we know who it is) so that we can still believe that's a young Carrie Fisher without bringing in a pretender!
DeleteAlso I must be the only person on the planet who thinks Billie bares very little resemblance to her mother. But she's the spitting image of her dad.
Disney is furiously shooting new scenes for Rogue One this summer, as producers aren't happy with the dailies. This concerns me that Disney may screw this up even more. Maybe they will include a Han cameo now that the actor has been hired? It would be interesting to see if Leia has a cameo appearance too.
DeleteI have a feeling Disney is getting cold feet about anthology films feeling less like Star Wars movies and more like genre films. Rogue One is (was?) supposed to be a heist film and war film, like Ocean's 11 meets The Great Escape. There's rumor the reshoots are supposed to address tone. I could totally buy a room of execs freaking out after seeing a heist film when TFA just made a bazillion dollars and was so widely lauded for "feeling like a Star Wars movie."
DeleteThat said, the reshoots must be substantial. If they just wanted to up the retro Star Wars factor (more troopers, more AT-ATs, some random mouse droids, etc.) that could all be done much more cost effectively in post-production. Since they're reshooting with actors, they must be making major structural changes.
All I have to say is Harrison Ford in the early 80s is as good as it gets. You can't really do much better than that. And Harrison Ford as Han Solo, is just about the yummiest thing in contemporary cinema, and certainly the best eye candy in the entire SW saga. I personally really hate the idea of recasting Han with another actor. I admit to actively disliking the Han Solo anthology film solely based on this. I was kind of looking forward to Rogue One, but if they put that new diminutive Han in it and give us a new "whatever" Leia as well, I will go gag myself until I vomit. LOL.
DeleteIt kills me that they split Han and Leia up in TFA. I agree with many that the OT big three didn't have to suffer so badly. I too worry that Leia will die in some planet explosion in Episode VIII and Luke in Episode IX sacrificing his life for Rey. While I love the newbies, I weep for the OT characters. Why does Ben have to be a baddie? I think they could have introduced a new villain without it being H/L's kid. I will see the new films, but like many, I'm just not emotionally invested anymore. Why hire Laura Dern to be another high ranking military person for the Resistance? Does this mean Leia will have a smaller role, relegated behind some green screen maps and have no interaction with Kylo? Really? What's the point? Why hasn't Leia thrown herself off a bridge by now? How much can one person take? She's suffered so much already in the OT. I don't think the writers or director will even waste their time with a Han/Leia Force ghost reunion. Oh well, at least we have the fanfics. It's all about the new kids in the ST. Just sucks that the OT characters all got the collective shaft. Luke, Han and Leia all deserved better.
ReplyDeletePerfect post. THANK YOU.
DeleteExactly! WHY did Ben have to be a baddie? It would've been so cool to watch TFA if it had featured H/L's kid being a bad-ass young Jedi (with a bit of his dad's slightly cocky attitude). Hmm... sounds like a fanfic idea!
DeleteThat's the thing. As much as I now accept TFA and the new canon, Ben did NOT have to be the bad guy. Nor did Han and Leia HAVE to be separated, nor did Han HAVE to go back to smuggling. I think it was just JJ wanting to be "edgy" and also wanting to fit the big 3 into his reboot story idea, no matter how lame. I've said it before I can accept what happened, but it really was the laziest and least creative choice made by TPTB. JJ was too afraid to take the risk of trying to do something original, so a barely disguised reboot is what we got, along with the big 3 for nostalgia and the incredibly charismatic Harrison Ford to carry the film just in case the new characters failed to capture the audience's imagination.
DeleteWell said. Absolutely agree. Even if Ben still WAS the baddie Han and Leia didn't have to be separated too. There could have been a strain put on their marriage because of what happened, but they could have worked past it, and in doing so, becoming a lot stronger. Han didn't have to have gone back smuggling. He could have been working for the resistance doing shipping runs or something. They could have told the exact same story without having everything super sucky for them. For the amount of time we actually see Han and Leia together, what does them being estranged actually achieve? Absolutely nothing. It serves no purpose whatsoever. It's just JJ being a total arse.
DeleteAnd Han didn't even have to die. As long as Ben believed he had killed his father, and left him for dead, the same thing could have been achieved. See it doesn't take much to change little details and make things better.
Two words: SEXY LUGGAGE. It's very revealing that this is how JJ describes Han. It also shows how little he understands Han's character if that's all JJ can see him as.
DeleteDon't get me wrong. I love sexy. And I love luggage. The luggage is so sexy that I can't even imagine that new diminutive knock-off carrying the brand. There's only one set of sexy luggage and it's 6'1". Go tall and lanky or go home! But to reduce Han to sexy luggage is the ultimate misunderstanding of his character.
JJ is a whack job.
Yes, very true. The thing about it too is if this had been the second movie, it might have made more sense. All of the supposed "drama" was overshadowed by confusion. I wasn't thinking oh isn't it sad and tragic that Han and Leia are apart and their son is evil, I was just asking a million questions in my head. WHY are they apart? What happened with their son? What were they like as a family? How long has it been since they saw each other? There is no context at all. With what we see in the movie he could've been away from his parents for as little as a year or as much as 20. The answers to those questions make a difference as to how we watch the movie. Yeah, there were unanswered questions in ANH as well since we are technically picking up in the middle of a story, but how long it's been since Obi Wan and Vader saw each other isn't nearly as relevant because we know they were both adults and the difference between someone who is 24 or 34 doesn't really matter, certainly not as much as if we are talking 24 or 14. Or 14 and 4.
DeleteI've said it multiple times on here I'm sure, but the show-down with Han and Ben on that platform could've been WAY more emotional if we had ANY context at all of their relationship prior to that moment. And no, just telling us that they are father and son doesn't mean anything because just knowing that tells us nothing about how close they were. I mean just think about how you'd view Luke and Vader's showdown differently if Vader had actually been Anakin and a good father for a fair portion of Luke's life.
We don't know Kylo at all, or his struggles. Every supposed conflict he is given is force-fed to the audience, like the "pull to the light" stuff. You can't just tell us that but not really show him struggling at all. If there had been anything in there to show some humanity left in him, SHOW us his struggling with being pulled to the light, then I think it would've been more interesting. As it stands we can't even tell really if he drew Han out on that bridge and really didn't know what he was going to do and struggled right up to the moment he ignited the lightsaber, or if he was acting as a cold blooded murderer the entire time and lured him out there, knowing Han would do anything for him, so that he could kill him. And sadly, I have so little faith in the people in charge that I feel as though they will never really address that. And I'm nearly certain they will all but ignore his relationship with his mother, Leia.
It's like they had a lot of the pieces that COULD have made for an interesting story, but they just shoved them all into the movie without giving us any time to really see what was going on between these people. You can introduce new characters and get us into their new story or you can throw all sorts of drama at the old ones, but you can't really do both at the same time in the same movie. There isn't enough room.
But that's the thing. They needed to have the OT characters there to spur nostalgia and fan feels, but they really didn't want them there overshadowing the new characters. So they used the big 3 as little as possible, and quite ineffectively, as mere props to facilitate our introduction to Rey, Finn, Poe, and Ben/Kylo. It was stupid because it was poorly executed, and if they were going to do this, they should have stuck with the original Lucas treatment with Han and Leia bidding their Jedi daughter farewell as she goes to fight off a new evil in the galaxy.
DeleteBut JJ needed his fanbro fan movie!
If ONLY we had gotten Lucas' original treatment where the Jedi killer was unrelated to the Skywalker/Solos and the main character was Han and Leia's Jedi daughter. But JJ Abrams wanted to play with Han Solo as a frat bro and capitalize on Harrison Ford's star power. Seriously I think if Harrison Ford hadn't been such an A-list star there wouldn't have been such a push to make him one of the stars of TFA and therefore break him up with Leia because no one wants to see responsible Han *rolls eyes*
DeleteI also hate that they turned the Solo family to fuel to cliche "the villain comes from a broke home and has daddy issues" trope. WHY did Han and Leia have to be sacrificed so they could make Kylo a woobie villain? https://ohtze.tumblr.com/post/137735730948/death-and-the-maiden This post gives a literary analysis of how Kylo's arc follows the traditional redeemed villain arc of coming from a broken home, feeling like he was never loved by his father, etc. But WHY would Han act so distant to his only son? That makes no sense with what we know about his character. So JJ says he's a huge fan of Han but then says it's all his fault Kylo went bad because he was such a deadbeat dad. ARGH.
Yes! Thank you, Ewokkey! What's the point of directing a new movie if your villain is going to be just like every other villain. So, some formula was discovered as to the perfect backstory for a villain everyone can come to appreciate and pity. 'Oh, his Dad was just horrible! Never around, never understood him'. I don't like this new so-called "canon" and every time we talk about it, it makes me feel more and more depressed. Like most of you have said before, I'd rather see Leia get killed off and put her out of her misery.
DeleteI remember a time (long, long ago) when I truly had faith and hope that I'd still love the new movie even if it wasn't EU-canon. I always loved the EU despite certain events. Jacen didn't go dark because Han was a horrible father, Leia and Han's marriage only strengthened after each tragedy they endured, and it was different, no clichéd story lines because it makes for a good story. A good writer would come up with a NEW idea rather than the same old.
I don't know how much more of this I can handle. I'm going to go read Recovery for the fiftieth time since watching TFA . . .
Oh good point comparing the EU to TFA. Jacen's turn had nothing to do with Han or Leia or anyone else in his family. And the way they had it happen I actually WAS still somewhat sympathetic to his character, and would've accepted redemption there.
DeleteWell, it was different, right? See, it isn't thay difficult to come up with a new storyline. Once I started thinking about it, it's bothered me how some EU fans compare TFA to the EU. So what if Han and Leia' son in both storylines turn evil? Jacen was a character that authjors spent years developing, his story catching us by surprise as we read the Dark Nest trilogy and then LOTF. Now, we have Ben, merciless, stupid, kriffing Ben Solo who we know essentially nothing about other than the fact that he hates his father. And, dare I say, I don't believe Jacen/Caedus would have killed Han or Leia. With the understanding that he sacrificed himself to save Allana, he didn't even kill Jaina. Or, is that just my love and faith in the EU and a kind, caring Jacen coming through . . .?
DeleteYes, we KNEW Jacen when all of that happened. Which made it that much more awful to see him go through it, and to see his family struggling with wanting back the boy they'd known and coming to terms with the fact that he was never coming back. Does anyone remember specifics? I don't remember Jacen to be struggling AT ALL with what he was doing. I think that almost made it harder, watching his family trying to bring him back but knowing there was just nothing really left of Jacen Solo in there anymore. Maybe I'm wrong though, I don't remember a lot of those specifics. It makes it harder to forgive when he killed his own aunt. I do seem to remember thinking he at least could never have killed his mother. Not sure about Jaina though.
DeleteI remember in one of the earlier LOTF books, the beginning of the chapter was some note Jacen had tyoed uo for Jaina but deleted before she could see it. It was something about him questioning his own actions and debating whether he's making the same mistakes as Anakin (Sky.). It's basically this paragraph of him struggling with whether the path of the Sith is really the best solition to his problems. Tjen, he ends it with saying that he'll always love Jaina no matter what because she's his sister and heart. It's in Chapter 2 of Bloodlines.
DeleteAlso, my stupid memory seems to only want to keep reminding me of when he released the detain and arrest watrant for his parents, but wouldn't you think Jacen/Caedus would have killed Leia jad he wanted to in Fury when Leia goes to talk to him as a distraction and they have the whole argument about how politics work and history decides who's a criminal.
DeleteI guess he kind of did lose the struggle of deciding between light and dark after he became Caedus. That is, until the end of Invincible.
DeleteYeah, see, I don't remember a lot of specifics about it. I don't even remember whether or not he struggled with what he did to Mara. I do kind of feel like by the end when Jaina did have to kill him there wasn't really anything left of him by then, but maybe before that there was? Maybe someday I'll read it again and find out for sure. I do kind of remember that Han had basically written him off and seemed ready to kill him himself but maybe those were just some bad moments.
DeleteNo, I'm pretty sure there were a couple instances where it's said that 'he and Leia talked it over and they agreed Jacen died shortly after Anakin'. As for Mara's death, that moment was when Jacen set himself in thinking that all the horrific things he was doing were for a greater good and no one understood, I think.
DeleteSee? This feels so much better than dwelling on TFA for hours a day. Start me on anything about Tahiri and I'm cool if you just ignore me and my obsessed rants.
Yeah and with Jacen you didn't see this intent to woobify him like we're seeing with Kylo. He decides to go to the Dark Side for his own selfish reasons and no one blamed anyone else but him for his actions. With Kylo, there's this whole movement led by AD and JJ's comments of "Aw, poor Kylo, he had SUCH a bad childhood, his parents had screaming fights, his dad was never there for him, his parents were afraid of his powers, so he had no choice but to turn dark." Then people are intent on completely whitewashing all his past deeds like "He didn't really kill the Jedi students, he was framed" "Han deserved to die because he was an abusive father", "the villagers at Jakku were a secret terrorist organization". I really don't get it. I somehow doubt there'd be this many people clamouring for Kylo to be redeemed and hook up with Rey if he wasn't considered "hot". :p
DeleteFrankly, I was never into woobified villains so I'm not that sympathetic to Kylo. But FFS JJ, if you're going to give Kylo the sob story "my parents didn't love me and I came from a broken home, please feel sorry for me" just make him a random character with parents we've never heard of so you can desecrate their characters all you want. Kylo's dad who we never knew before was a deadbeat alcoholic who abandoned his family? Sure! But don't make his parents beloved heroes of the OT and have them act in ways that would be completely inconsistent with what's been established with their characters in the OT. And don't even get me started on the sexist BS "Leia had a career so OF COURSE she was a terrible mother."
Sorry, rant over. :p
Ewokkey, you need to stop reading the rantings of crazy people! LOL. I also hate the "Bad Father Han" meme that seems to have gotten out there. I can't stand fanfic that uses that trope and I hate reading about Han and Leia as selfish bad parents as a way to excuse Kylo's behavior.
DeleteThat said, they're wrong! They're like crack fic writers. Han and Leia and bad parents are the equivalent of people who pair Leia with Jabba or Han with Lando. It's all wishful thinking and as fic writers they should be able to ship whatever they want and construct whatever inaccurate head canon they'd like. It's still not real.
We know the truth! LOL.
Though I know, it's incredibly annoying.
I know, but it's not just crazy people. First, JJ Abrams legitimized it in the TFA documentary which was produced by Disney. He's the writer and director of TFA and the producer of Episode VIII and IX (and Episode VIII is going to go into Kylo's backstory) so it's not like we can just write off his opinion. Second, it's not even just the crazy fans - it's now pretty much accepted fact among SW fans (even fans of the OT) that Han and Leia were lousy parents and were the main reason Ben went Dark. The Han/Leia fans are pretty much the only fans who don't agree with this.
DeleteScrew them all! It's definitely not what we've seen in Bloodline, and it seems that TPTB are trying awfully hard to re-orient this bad parenting narrative along more palatable lines. JJ is a fanbro with no imagination.
DeleteHm... I can't wait to see Kylo's back story! Maybe they'll reveal Kylo to be mentally ill because of Snoke's predatory behavior and it will be revealed that Han and Leia were good parents who tried their best. Hey, I can be optimistic, right?
Artoo and I resent the part of the "backstory" saying he was raised by droids.
DeleteI write off the opinion of producers all the time. Producer credits are given out like candy to big names who have no further say in anything.
DeleteI regard TFA as an AU. we have the real canon. but sadly, it is the AU that is the last change to see Han and Leia together on screen. that is what sucks.
ReplyDeleteSome spoilers for Episode VIII regarding Rey's parentage and Leia's role just got posted on MSW (He's the one that got the entire plot of TFA a year before the movie came out based on the call sheets): http://makingstarwars.net/2016/06/rumor-the-force-is-with-a-beloved-character-in-star-wars-viii-and-who-is-not-reys-father/
ReplyDeleteWent and read it, and gotta say my only reaction is "meh, who cares." Gotta say I'm probably not seeing this film. The only thing that could make me care is rumors that the long shaggy beard HF is sporting is not because of the CIA movie he's doing or the Blade Runner sequel, but because they're going to make ErinDarroch's awesome fic come true.
DeleteThat was pretty much my exact reaction when I read it. Except mine was maybe more like, "Huh, whatever." Which makes me sad, not trying to say anyone who is excited for this movie shouldn't me, I'm just not. I will have to go see it though because I have family members who will think aliens have possessed my body if I claim I don't care about seeing it, even if I don't.
DeleteSeriously though, what is the deal with that beard? And the hair? I'm going with him just enjoying the freedom of not being contractually obligated to maintain a certain appearance, or there is a new homeless-chique look he is going for that we are not aware of.
Thanks, Kels! Where's that "like" button when I need it? :) I'm thinking Zyra's right, though. He's just lettin' it all hang out...
DeleteRe the beard: PLAYOFF BEARD! We'll know if the beard gets shaved after someone wins the Stanley Cup. LOL.
DeleteI thought that the beard was going to be for the Natalie Dormer CIA movie he was supposed to shoot before the Blade Runner sequel, but it's gotten so out of control that unless he's playing the world's oldest undercover CIA agent (I think he's playing a higher-up), I'm puzzled.
I'm happy for anyone who has a shred of excitement about Ep VIII. As for me, it's all like McKak said - just an AU, and it's one I don't like. So my interest is in the good fan fiction out there.
Oh, by the way, my comment about "rumors" above was not that there ARE any rumors about the beard being a Star Wars beard. It is that were there such rumors - which there are not - they would make me happy.
DeleteI've really been enjoying the AU story "Identity" by Madame_Alexandra, if there's anyone who hasn't read that yet. It's a WIP but she's regularly updating. Intriguing concept!
DeleteI actually think it's sort of weird that there have been ZERO rumors about why he has the beard and that it could be Star Wars related. Briefly I thought it could be for a movie too but when they pay to have Harrison Ford in a movie, you pay to see his face.
DeleteI don't know - think that still holds true? I think at his age he can get away with more charactery stuff, esp. after 42. (Halfway into the film my friend leaned over to me and said, "When does Harrison Ford show up?")
DeleteOk I concede the point about not wanting to hide the face they pay all that money for. Still, that beard is too crazy for almost any movie role unless he is gearing up to take over Tom Hanks' role in Cast Away 2.
Deletehttps://stormtrooperlarry.com/2016/06/11/star-wars-episode-viii-leia-written-out-in-opening-sequence/ Some more info on Leia's role in Episode VIII
DeleteA few blurbs I read about Harrison at the John Williams tribute event speculated that the beard is for Blade Runner. Part of me hopes that's true so this isn't some weird choice he's making and part of me doesn't want it immortalized on screen for all eternity.
DeleteIt's for Bladerunner 2? Wow, Deckard must have hit hard times, is he homeless now?
DeleteWell it MIGHT be for Bladerunner 2. Anything I read was purely speculative on that.
DeleteAlso, whatever it says or does not say in Bloodline does not mean Rey is not H/L, it just means that no current theory about that is supported by the novel. And then there is a reveal and we all go aha and search for hints that could have revealed it. The thing that keeps me going on this is that Daisy has such a close resemblence to Natalie Portman. So I do think that is possible in the future for H/L in the new timeline.
ReplyDeleteEh, I think Rey being H/L is dead in the water. We have an entire book from Leia's POV and she constantly thinks about Ben and how much she loves and misses him and nothing about any kind of tragedy that happened in the family 8 years ago which is when Rey got dropped off on Jakku. It would be one thing if we had a book from Luke's POV and a missing daughter by Leia is never mentioned because you could say that you don't hear what's in Leia's mind. But we have an entire book that's 100% in Leia's mind and unless we want to think Leia's some sociopath who would never think about a dead or missing daughter it doesn't fit.
ReplyDeletePlus, Daisy has said that she isn't Han and Leia's daughter and Pablo confirmed that. And JJ said Rey's parents aren't in TFA.
Curious who her parents are now though that it doesn't seem like she's Luke's. Maybe Obi-Wan's granddaughter?
I just hope Reylo doesn't happen now that they're not related. The good girl saving the bad boy from darkness with her love would be exceedingly lame.
I'm not ready to say they are not related. I'm sure this has been posited elsewhere, by people who have paid way more in-detail attention to "Episode VII: A Newer Hope" that I have, but this just came to mind as I was on the train coming home:
DeleteThe prophecy from the prequels is about the one who would bring balance to the Force, that Anakin is "the Chosen One." Lucas told us that Eps I - VI were really all Anakin's story. Although that's partially a retcon to make us care about the prequels, it is at least partially true given Anakin's arc. For Lucas, the Force was in balance at the end of Ep VI. VII-IX were always going to be descendant stories.
When TFA opens, we can see pretty clearly that the force is not in balance. Luke's gone, Leia quit Jedi training as quickly as I quit Irish dancing lessons as a child, Kylo's a jackass, and the Dark Side is once again on the ascendancy.
So the prophecy is not fulfilled.
Dammit, Anakin, you're as big a failure as TFA's versions of Han, Luke, and Leia. Can't any Skywalker get ANYTHING right?
Apparently not, unless Rey is Anakin reincarnated and the prophecy can still be fulfilled.
Which would explain why Rey can use the Force so easily in a way that's not just a Mary Sue, would explain why Anakin's saber calls out to her in the NotCantina and why it comes to her in the battle with Kylo before the DeusExSinkhole happens, would explain explain why she's such a good pilot out of nowhere (but doesn't explain the instant connection she and Han have, which I think is part red herring, part Han wishing his kid weren't a jackass). Anakin would hear Yoda and Ben, as Rey does, because he knew them both.
It explains why she and Kylo have that weird instant connection that neither understands (she's grandpa and he idolizes her, which is really going to suck for him when he finds out. Too bad, so sad, jackass) and why Luke seems unsettled, as if he somehow, but he's not sure how, knows this person. (LUKE! It is your father!)
It would also make her the person uniquely positioned to redeem Kylo, as she's a version of the person he worships, and also because the Dark Side (in the person of Palpatine) lied, drew Anakin away and made him suspicious of the people who truly loved him (Padme, Ben) in order to apprentice him, in the same way the Dark Side (in the person of Snoke) could have lied and drawn Ben away from the people who truly loved him (Han, Leia, Luke). Anakin killed a father figure, Kylo killed his father. And then there's the two Jedi massacres. Who better to save Kylo from this and in doing so bring balance to the force than the person who was prophesied to do it in the first place?
Oh, and she looks like Padme because who else would Anakin want to look like as a female?
So that's my thought du jour. Rey isn't Luke's kid or Leia's kid, she's their father. Rey isn't going to be Kylo's bae, she's his grandfather.
I still think Kylo has to die in the end of IX (I pray to everything that is holy if I am at all right here that Kylo does not get frisky with his grandfather), but if Rey lives, then the Skywalker line can continue.
And if this is true, hey, Reynikin, could you bring back your dead son-in-law and reunite him with your daughter so I could really care about all this again? Kthxbai :)
Oh, and can I add that this background picture of Captain Tightpants in the pre-Sexy Luggage era is really, really distracting in a good way.
DeleteWow, you have given this way more thought than I have! I haven't pondered her parentage really, because I am convinced that when it is revealed I'll be rolling my eyes only slightly less than when that medical droid announced that Padme had lost the will to live. But that is an interesting theory, for sure, and definitely one I hadn't yet heard.
DeleteI haven't actually thought about it at all until tonight when I was bored on the train. Just kind of popped into my head after I read Ewokkey's comment that Kylo and Rey aren't related, and then I started to think that it's the only way that Rey's character kinda works.
DeleteThat said, what made me a Star Wars fan for all these years is Han and Leia, and I don't think anything's going to change the fact that without them or without their (non-jackass) offspring, I don't think I care all that much.
Yes, that I can definitely agree with you on. I've been trying to think of anything they could do to make me care very much at this point and without Han and Leia, I just don't.
DeleteWhich is why they should have given Han and Leia decent kids, you know, heroic ones that are kick ass awesome that we can root for and follow into the future.
DeleteYeah I really wish Lucas treatment of the heroine being Han and Leia's daughter, them having a non Force sensitive son who was a pilot and the Jedi Killer being unrelated had been kept. I know tons of fans adore Kylo and want to follow his adventures but I have no interest in him. Too bad Han and Leia's only kid had to be a whiney brat.
DeleteThe brat's fans apparently aren't buying his merchandising. I have been recently to a Disney Outlet store and a Kohl's to shop for Star Wars stuff. There were a lot of giant dolls of the brat (and a lot of Talking Finn dolls) at Disney Outlet and no Artoo stuff other than 2 items with the new movie logo which I refused to buy. Kohl's had a lot of toys and a lot of pillows of the brat on clearance. I found a set of washcloths (2 each of Artoo/Vader/Stormtrooper) and a ROTJ poster T-shirt.
DeleteCaptain Tiuhtpants! I like that! Oh, sorry, were people discussing something else other than how hot Han Solo is? I tend to get distracted easily...
DeleteGood article on Han and Leia's fate in TFA vs the EU: https://stormtrooperlarry.com/2016/03/31/the-worst-thing-about-the-force-awakens/
ReplyDeleteLook!! Carrie Fisher has an advice column!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/jun/10/carrie-fisher-advice-from-the-dark-side-column
This made the USA Today entertainment page that we get in our paper. I thought that was a bad sign for the movie - that she's in Britain but working on writing
DeleteI don't think she's in Episode VIII much. According to the rumours anyway. I think TPTB don't have a lot of faith in Carrie's acting abilities unfortunately.
DeleteUgh. they are so doubling down on the Han as man/boy. New comic series has him leaving the rebellion to go smuggling. Thats right. Even though he owes Jabba big, and now has the $ to pay him off, he is ignoring that not for the noble reason of assisting the rebellion, but because he wants to smuggle again. So this takes Han out of even reluctant hero column into just incredibly stupid column.
ReplyDeleteWell it's now "official" that Han was a deadbeat dad: http://www.starwars.com/news/parenting-padawans-the-legacies-of-star-wars-fathers
ReplyDeleteIsn't that more than a little vague to be jumping to terms like deadbeat dad? It says we don't know much about his time with him when he was little, and they sent him to train with Luke, which doesn't make him a deadbeat dad. And "losing touch" with him AFTER he had turned dark is maybe kinda understandable as I'm guessing he wouldn't have taken his dad's calls at that point.
DeleteAnd don't tell me that the "Reylos" are using that one paragraph to call him a deadbeat dad, because I don't really care what their interpretation of it is.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteJust noticed that they edited it though from the original article I posted. The original one said Han didn't spend much time with him. The new one says he didn't have much time with him. Hmm.
DeleteMeh. It's hard to write about Han's influence on his son when poor Kylo's story has not yet played out. Pffft. We have no idea what Han's relationship to his son was really like!
ReplyDeleteI've read a lot of speculation from the "Han was a deadbeat dad" folks that the line in Bloodljne that Han wanted to train Ben in racing but didn't means that Han told Ben that since he was Force sensitive it would be "cheating" for him to race, causing Ben to feel like he'd been kicked in the teeth because of his Force sensitivity, something he couldn't control and making him feel that his dad resented his Force sensitivity. Do you think there's any merit to that? I don't remember anything in TPM that Force sensitives weren't allowed to race, but admittedly I haven't seen the movie in like 17 years.
DeleteNo I don't think there's any merit for that. I think the crack smoking ReyLo's never mastered reading comprehension and probably could use a bit of remedial grade school education. LOL. I think Ben probably wasn't interested in flying. I'm sure Ben/Kylo is a decent pilot (what with his family heritage) but he very well could have had no interest in the finer points of piloting and starships and may have been more interested in learning about The Force. I think Ben was disappointed in his Dad not because of anything Han did, but because Han is just force-blind. He's not "special" like his midichlorian blessed mom, uncle, and grandfather. But that's about as much speculation as the crazy ReyLos. Bottom line is "we don't know!" So the speculators (specu-haters?) drive me crazy!
Delete"I think the crack smoking ReyLo's never mastered reading comprehension and probably could use a bit of remedial grade school education." - hahaha. Dying at that comment.
DeleteEwokkey - WTF. Leave it to Reylo fans to conjure something so demented.
I agree with LoveThis! in that Bloodline implies that Han wanted to be able to teach Ben, but Ben merely was more interested in studying the Force than following the in the footsteps of his father.
Leia's pregnant in Life Debt!
ReplyDeletehttp://mashable.com/2016/06/21/star-wars-aftermath-life-debt/
I know! just when I think Im out, they pull me back in.
ReplyDeleteSo, if she's pregnant, then Han and Leia are married too. I can't believe they're not going to give us anything about how they got married! One can only hope they're saving it for another time?
ReplyDeleteZyra/Push, I hope this is okay... Is there another place here to promote a Han/Leia fic I've just written (co-authored with justinegraham)?
ReplyDeleteIt's called "The Only Constant" and it's a post-RotJ fic that is, I suppose, completely AU now, because we believe in a happily-ever-after for H/L and we've decided to completely ignore any/all TFA-related "canon". Our Han and Leia will never, ever have a psycho child named Ben. Hurrah! If you're interested in reading it, you can find it on FFnet and AO3. Here's the FFNet loc:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12017012/1/The-Only-Constant
I'm avidly following your fic! So glad you two are writing!
DeleteThanks! I am a bit slow and only just realized that you're the same person posting such lovely reviews on FFNet (to which I cannot reply because you're a 'guest' and not logged in there). I also just twigged to that fact on AO3. lol (Yes, as I said, I'm sloooow.) Anyway, THANK YOU for all the lovely reviews! They are much appreciated. :D
DeleteThanks for writing such endearing stories about our OTP! I am such trash for Han and Leia it's not even funny. Hope to see more stories from you soon!
DeleteOkay, sorry to comment with my own troubles, but I need help with a fanfic cover. I know some people here are more into fan art than I am, so I was wondering if anyone knows someone who might be willing to make me an EU-related fanart for a cover to a fanfic of mine? I need a black and white picture of another ship of mine and hardly anyone else ships and there's no fan art! Help me!
ReplyDeleteAlso, I've done a lot of thinking on Kylo's character and the choice to have this new story once he's gone to the Dark Side. I know I said something before about Jacen and how it's stupid to compare the two, but even if this was "Jacen/Caedus" instead of "Ben/Kylo Ren", it would still feel horrible for others to watch without seeing Jacen before he turned dark. He really wasn't too likeable himself once he became Caedus. I'm NOT defending Kylo Ren and the evils that are TFA, but I was just thinking . . . Why do Han and Leia's soins always have to suffer these tragedies?!
ReplyDeleteIt is pretty sad, isn't it? And I'm still frustrated that we know almost nothing about him before he was Kylo. Han and Leia's sons suffer because they are the ones who procreated. Today again for the first time in a long time I got annoyed about all of this, that this is what we got when we could've had almost anything else. Of all of the elements of the old EU they had to keep, it was this one. While we're at it maybe they can do a spinoff movie with Isolder or a comic about Waru.
DeleteThe more annoying thing I was thinking today was that Ben Solo is apparently the only one to carry on the Skywalker legacy, and that's just sad. Han and Leia should've had a heroic child. Really, they should've. He/she could've been like the Harry Potter of this universe (minus dead parents) where everyone knows him/her and expects great things just because of who they are. I guess maybe somewhere down the line Ben might turn out to be heroic, but honestly that is all going to be pretty hollow, because we're probably going to be expected to just accept that and somehow forget that he presumably murdered billions along with betraying and murdering his own father who was only trying to bring him back.
I love your post, but there was a recent article that came out that stated to watch TFA closely regarding Rey's parentage. That still leads me to believe that she's Han and Leia's daughter.
DeleteYeah I am curious what their long term plan is with the Skywalker legacy. Now that it looks like Kylo is the only Skywalker (anyone who's read Bloodline knows Rey isn't Han and Leia's) I'm assuming he's going to be redeemed and join the heroes in Episode IX, but I don't really think I can root for him knowing all the evil he's caused (part of this may be influenced by my annoyance at Kylo Ren fans who insist he's the hero of TFA and Han is the villain). I have no interest in reading about him having kids with Rey and Episode X being about them and their kids. And is Episode X just going to repeat the same cycle with Kylo and Rey's son going evil, killing Kylo, wiping out the Jedi and bringing the Empire back? How many times can they reset the Galaxy? It seems like everyone is scared of repeating Lucas' mistakes with the prequels and showing a Republic and a Jedi Order in peacetime so they're just going to keep the Empire v Rebellion war going forever.
DeleteI am with Koalas and I have read Bloodline. Until Rey's parentage is actually established, H & L are still in play. These guys will just say anything that seems to now dispute that is just misdirection. I'm not saying she is. Just that you cant rule anything out with these guys.
ReplyDeleteI really doubt the person who wrote the article knows anything about Rey's parentage. Very few people know at this time.
ReplyDeleteHow do you explain an entire book written from Leia's POV where she never once mentions a dead or missing daughter from 13 years ago? Do we think Leia is a sociopath who didn't love her daughter and forgot about her after she died? :|
You keep saying this, but considering the universe these people live in, there could easily be other explanations. People's minds could've been altered, made to forget. All kinds of things like that.
DeleteI am still convinced she is NOT a Skywalker in any capacity, although that is more largely because I have moved on to the point of expecting that they will never do anything moving forward that I'd actually want to see, not because I think it isn't possible. I do agree with Mckak though that at this point we really can't entirely rule out anything.
That said, my guess is the supposed "clues" in TFA are that she is Obi Wan's granddaughter. This is stupid and I don't like it, but see above about expecting the worst.
Eh, that would be a major deux ex machina if they did that and we've seen nothing to show that the Force is capable of altering memories like that. Do we want to believe that every time Leia or Han is remembering a happy memory in Bloodline of their family that's a false memory that's been imprinted there? That'd be kind of weird and creepy.
DeleteI agree we can't 100% rule anything out but I would say given the evidence we have there's a 99% chance she's not Han and Leia's. Daisy's said she's not Han's daughter, we have an entire book written from Leia's POV that thinks constantly about Ben and how much she loves him but nothing about a daughter presumed dead or missing for 8 years, Han and Leia never mention a dead/missing daughter in TFA. It just doesn't add up and makes zero sense story telling wise to shoe horn a daughter that was never mentioned in. This isn't like ESB/ROTJ where they had no plan and didn't know there were going to be sequels - they've known who Rey was from the beginning. At this point I don't think she's Luke's first based on what some of TPTB have said - JJ saying Rey's parents aren't in TFA and Pablo saying Kylo is the Skywalker of TFA, as well as the current rumours that Rey and Kylo will be involved romantically. I think she's possibly the child of a Dark Sider that Luke killed or maybe Obi-Wan's daughter.
I do think some of the parallels we see with Han/Leia that some people are picking up to be clues that she is Han and Leia's (piloting skills, affinity with Wookiees, etc) are because in original drafts she WAS Han and Leia's daughter and the Jedi Killer was unrelated. I think once they decided that Kylo would be a Skywalker they made Rey unrelated to the Skywalkers. How I wish they'd kept the original script!
Oh and Pablo also confirmed Rey isn't Han and Leia's daughter and he's the head of continuity so....
DeleteI cant explain it but that doesnt mean some writer(s) wont. I mean, you know, this is space fantasy with a galaxy that has a mystical Force, so we will just have to wait to see how it all turns out and what the retro clues were. The one thing that is very clear to me is that Daisy has an amazing resemblence to Natalie Portman for a role which could have been given to any one of a cajillion young actresses. It seems there has to be a reason for that, one of which may be that she is genetically related to Padme through Padme's son or daughter.
DeleteThere is a LOT about this movie that makes zero sense storytelling-wise. A LOT. Like I said, I don't think that she is actually Han and Leia's, and considering what would have had to happen in order for her to be theirs it would be kind of a hollow victory to find out they had at least 1 good kid, I'm just saying that I would listen to nothing at this point until there is something that happens in the actual movies that solidifies it as "true."
DeleteMan, JJ really ruined everything.
That wasn't the only reason I said she isn't Han and Leia's, it was just one of many. Taken in conjunction with Daisy's statement that she is NOT Han and Leia's daughter, Pablo's statement that she isn't Han and Leia's daughter, Bloodline with Leia never thinking once about a missing or dead daughter, it just doesn't seem possible at this point.
DeleteAnd as for Daisy's casting, one of the runner ups was an Aboriginal actress who clearly could not have been Han and Leia's daughter JJ said the casting for Rey and Finn was race blind which doesn't make sense if she's Han and Leia's daughter.
I had a user contact me who was having trouble getting a blog comment to post, so she asked me to post it for her. This is from knitzkampf:
ReplyDeleteHi there! I found this blog a few months ago and have been leisurely lurking, catching up on posts. It has been delightful and fun.
I wanted to share my perspective on fanfiction and address the 'where are Han/Leia fanfic writers' question.
Believe it or not, I didn't discover fanfic until last year! I know, what sand did I stick my head into!
I have always been a Star Wars lover, particularly OT, particularly Han/Leia. I am old enough to have seen the movies during their original release, old enough for Han Solo to be my first cinematic crush. Years ago, you would find me in a place now almost obsolete, called a bookstore, standing in the middle of the aisle and thumbing through the Star Wars books looking for all the "good parts":the parts that included Han Solo and anything he was up to. But the books were always such a disappointment. The writing was so-so and the character development sorely lacking. Let me just say, you have been more than fair in your reviews here. More than fair. :)
Years went by and in some ways I moved on, but Star Wars never left that special place in my heart. I introduced my children to it, and we have a lot of fun. Jango Fett is a screensaver on our desktop, and when I play Lego Star Wars on the Wii I am always Han Solo.
My daughter told me about fanfiction, and one day when I was bored at work I did a search. Oh my goodness! What a wonderful bounty! Some of the fanfic writers rewrote the movies and made them better; others filled in missing moments and managed to flesh out the characters so much better then the limited scripts had given us. And I loved the way our favorite characters were given expanded lives, full of meaning and beauty.
Writing was also a hobby of mine, and I even got the nerve up to publish (I am knitzkampf on ff.net)
My stories are a thank you to all the wonderful moments I have enjoyed reading fanfic.
It saddens me to sense that the wind has gone out of some of your sails. I know that the recent movie did some terrible things to us. I cope with a powerful psychological mechanism. I ignore it.
I like my happy place, so I'll return to fanfiction. Thank you, all, for your wonderful writing and inspiration. I hope you continue.
Thanks for your comment and I do hope you'll figure out how to post some comments in the future. I remember how exciting it was first finding fanfic. Like you, I was reading the books and just holding out for any Han and Leia scraps we were thrown, so it was like the best thing ever to find all of these stories that totally focused on them and often just totally left out all the annoying plot and crap I didn't care about anyway ;)
DeleteI do agree that at this point I've kind of moved on to ignoring it, although it still really managed to take the wind out of my sails. I do think plenty of people will continue writing much happier futures for them, that much seems certain.
Oh and this is super cute: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VEQGtKFlOek
ReplyDeleteIn the interest of moving away from the unsolvable "problem" (TFA) and moving towards the best solution we have (great fanfic), I am delighted to recommend a story to you all: "The Incident" by corellian-smuggler (another 'Erin'). She has only published two stories so far on FFNet and both of those went up three days ago. IMHO, both are well worth reading.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.fanfiction.net/s/12017280/1/The-Incident
According to her profile, she maintains a tumblr page but, idk, maybe I'm too old. I find those pages incredibly difficult to read and navigate. I'm hoping she'll transfer other stories to one of the archives for easier reading! Indeed, I hope she gets more traffic and reviews, so she'll be encouraged to write more!
I read those stories! They're wonderful!
DeleteHere's some more Episode VIII spoilers on Leia if anyone is interested: https://iwasraisedtodoonething.com/2016/07/05/the-truth-about-leia/
ReplyDeleteWhat's left for Leia? Nothing in particular. I still believe that if anyone has the right to redeem Kylo that it should be Leia and not Rey or anyone else for that matter. Leia was the one who still sense "the good" in Ben, it seems only fitting that she pull him back to the light.
ReplyDeleteI would love to see Leia be as bad-ass as she's written in Bloodline, a mere 6 years or so before TFA. I know that is not likely going to happen but I can only dream. I read/heard that Carrie may have let out a tiny blunder at the possibility of Ep VIII opening with a brief funeral for Han. I would very much like this to be true. A proper farewell for him. His character deserves it. If the timeline of VIII is truly set right after VII then it's possible, no?
What do I have to look forward to? I've read Bloodline, I intend to read Life Debt and I've been reading the new comics set in the new canon. I'm actually really enjoying them, so I have all this backstory to look forward to. So far, they're quite enjoyable.