Friday, June 29, 2018

Force Awakens: The Opener

Caveat: These last six posts are going to be a bit tricky. We don't have IX yet, so we don't have the full scope of the story. And, since Lucas doesn't have direct influence here, it's going to be a bit hard to see if the same conventions such as the right to left and left to right rule that I've been forging my entire thesis of Star Wars on applies here. However, looking at this trilogy in the same way as I've looked at the first six films has revealed that they CAN be looked at in this way and provide a coherent message. So, for the moment, we'll go with the same conventions. I may have to re-write these reviews come 2020 but, somehow, I doubt it. We'll see.

The structure of The Force Awakens is not just from A New Hope, but from The Phantom Menace primarily.

-Two characters attempt a negotiation, but get split up. A character in black makes evil plans
- A hair-brained rescue attempt leads to going through a dangerous underbelly with horrific creatures and jerk locals.
- The mentor figure takes a chance on a previously unknown Force user in a seedy underbelly
-  The man in black comes for the woman. She leaves for a fake world.
- A surprise journey to the place of final showdown (which involves woods) becomes successful because of the locals
-The man in black kills the mentor
- A battle rages above the planet as the good guys engage in a suicide mission while on the ground the good guys confront the man in black. The mentor dies but the man in black is defeated by a Force user, with a chasm involved.
- After a brief celebration it is assumed that all will be well.

What we are seeing with TFA is the merging of TPM with ANH to create a different thing altogether. But that's not as urgent as the below picture:

What. The. Flaming. Hell. Is THIS??

Oh man, I may need to rethink that. The man in black is coming from the left, right out the gate. Kylo Ren is a protagonist??? What is this? What am I looking at? The guy who kills villagers without a second's thought as well as family friends is a hero? Since when, Disney? Black may be the color of purpose but it's also the color of hell and the abyss! What the heck is this??

Am I going crazy?

But Rey and Finn are both portrayed as heroes as well. This is weird, maybe Abrams screwed it up. Nope, Ren is showed from left to right in almost every single scene in this movie, regardless of what he's doing. It's like the movie keeps telling us that no, it means what it says: Kylo Ren is the good guy here! And it keeps the logic of the previous six films. The biggest takeaway for Kylo Ren is that something else is going on each of these scenes that makes him a good guy, regardless of how reprehensible his actions are. It's a tantalizing nugget of information that makes me question exactly what point they're trying to make.

Rey continues the WTFery. She's a slave, like Anakin, and she's sheltered and ignorant, like Luke, but unlike them she's a hardened warrior already. Don't believe me? Let me ask an awful question: what happens to women in environments where might makes right? Well, they don't wind up having their own place to live, unmolested, whole and healthy, I'll say that much. For all you SJWers out there who are raging saying "Women can be more than just sex-slaves!": I admire your innocence, if not outright naivety. Someone as pretty and with as much spunk as Rey would have been broken and used up well before nineteen and hooked up on drugs to keep them subservient, probably by the age of thirteen, and that's late, as far as sex-slaves go. By nineteen their fates are tragically sealed in a cycle of drug addiction and rape. And that's in the United States, a first-world country where you don't necessarily want to think of those sorts of things are happening. What's going to happen to someone on a backwater place as Jakku?? One would think that Rey, who was enslaved to Plutt at a very early age, would have been long gone. She should be broken, addicted to drugs, self-loathing, and almost past the point of saving in this environment.

Rey is none of these things.

Instead, we get a scrappy survivor, who has taught herself everything she needs to keep herself useful and relatively free. Instead of being thrown into a chainmail bikin Rey proves to Plutt that she can be useful in other ways, and is thus spared from the fate of girls her age in a place as awful as Jakku. She's the exception to the rule, that one in a million diamond in the rough that proves that sheer willpower can get you to wherever you want to go. But the problem is that Rey's mind is made up: she's going to stay on Jakku and wait for her family, who had left her there. Despite her clear aptitude for the Force, which we'll cover in subsequent posts, she still wants that connection to her parents. This attachment to her parents is her source of strength. She wants to be whole and intact for them when they get back. Making an image of who she wants her parents to see when they get back she clings to it, fighting with a ferocity that only the truly desperate can appreciate. She's strong and independent because, on some level, she thinks this will bring her parents back. It's the same with all abuse victims: maybe if I'm what the abuser would have wanted in the first place they'll come back and love me. Maybe, just maybe, if I can be good enough, strong enough, smart enough, I'll be someone worth coming back to and loving.

Finn is another example of the diamond in the rough. Finally(!) the kidnapping of children is flipped on its head and we can see how ugly the Jedi Order had gotten by taking children from their families. The First Order does it now and the context for the ailing Jedi Order's ghoulish ways has been exposed. Finn has been a slave since birth. The death of his friend, however, shocks him, and he can't unsee the blood and anguish that The First Order commits. The thing that I don't see a lot of people commenting on is how the rest of Finn's arc in TFA and TLJ is him mourning the loss of his friend. The shock of losing this person, whoever he was, causes Finn to do something that he had never even thought of before: to rebel. He resolves to get away as fast he can and so he frees Poe. Everything Finn does in TFA and TLJ is in done while mourning his friend. He sees Kylo Ren, the source of all this tragedy, and does nothing about it.

And this is where the tragedy starts to mix in. We meet Han Solo and learn a few things: every single member of the previous trilogy has met tragedy. Luke is gone, having lost hope after the destruction of his school. General Leia and Han are estranged after the turning of their son to the Dark Side, which they're very aware of. They know Snoke is the problem.

Waitaminute, we know what the problem is right off the bat?

Yes, we actually do. Unlike in the first two trilogies, where half the problem is the ignorance of the protagonists about what's actually going on, in this trilogy we know immediately what the problem is. Han, Maz Kanata, and Ben together clue us in that this time will be different. Knowledge is power and, even though the heroes of the Alliance had failed in the long run, they can pass on the knowledge they have... assuming they want to. Han is broken down by the loss of his son and marriage, but this tragedy has turned him into a softer, kinder human being. His speech about the Force and Luke is a testament as to how far Han, the eternal skeptic of the original trilogy, has come. He has seen enough to know that the Force not only exists but that he is a part of it. Many people who complain about the "stagnation" of the original trilogy characters seem to miss that these people are actually very different from when we last saw them. All of them have evolved into completely different people. They're sadder, wiser, and approach life completely differently from the subverter trilogy. But that's what 30 years does to you: you change. Did they stick to their stereotypical roles? Yeah, and that's what changed them. Once in a while you have the opportunity to individuate and become more yourself. Sometimes you take this chance and sometimes you don't. Han, Leia, and Luke didn't and their characters suffered the consequences of sticking with what they knew. But we'll develop that more in The Last Jedi.


We end this post with the reveal that Snoke is actively manipulating Ben with Force visions of his grandfather. With the right to left view we know that what Ben is seeing is not real. It's just an old helmet with no real power behind it. But Ben, confused and angry, clings to it with all his might. He needs purpose and the fake visions provide it. He wants a place in the world and the memory of Darth Vader provides a place for him to put his anger and hurt in a place where he thinks he may actually do something of meaning. I cannot understate it enough: Ben Solo places his entire worth in his resemblance to his grandfather. Snoke has convinced him that this is the only way for him to have worth.

Friday, June 22, 2018

Return of the Jedi: The Closer


It's important to know that Episode 1 and 6 share the same plot. The subverter trilogy and the opening trilogy must sync up in order for the subversion to be complete. The sequel trilogy, while necessary, doesn't have to subvert the first trilogy in entirety because it's been already done by the subverter trilogy. And, as has been pointed out by men far smarter than I, RoTJ subverts TPM. Like in TPM two Force users face a Darkside user. What does this tell us about Vader? Luke is right about him. But... they're coming from the right. Luke's wrong about what he thinks is going to go down and so is Vader. Only the Emperor seems to have a clue about what's going on. He holds all the cards and he knows it and so does the camera. Luke can't hold up under pressure and so he attacks the Emperor. Yes, he's making a mistake here. But... can we really blame him?

And this is where the Ewoks and Han come in, both of which were saved or recruited by Leia and Luke. There's no way Palpatine could have seen this coming. While he learned from Padme's compassion he never thought of the Ewoks as worthy of thought and I doubt he knows that Han Solo even exists. But it's Han who blows up the shield generator and it's the Ewoks who made it possible. All the chickens have come to roost and Palpatine, who thinks he saw all this coming in the Force, is proven to be completely wrong. While Palpatine may be a genius and stupidly powerful in the Force his ability to see into the future is completely discounted here. Palpatine is no Qui-Gon.

This lightsaber fight is my favorite in the saga. Luke completely surprises Vader. Gone is the foolish young man who Vader has to pull his swings with. In his place is someone who can let the Force flow through him in a way that Vader hasn't done in years. Luke is every bit of what his father was before the dip in the lava. He has a power so raw and overpowering that even Vader can't match it, getting kicked down the stairs headlong because Luke's genuinely better than Vader. And Vader knows it. He doesn't rush at Luke after that kick, but stalks back up, trying to intimidate Luke with raw, overflowing  hatred and darkness.


Instead of being intimidated Luke intentionally drops his guard, calling the bluff, and Vader is faced with a choice: to kill his son or to let him live. And, whether he likes it or not, Vader winds up doing something he never thought he'd do: let Luke live. The man who butchered children spares his child. Luke catches that second and rubs it in Vader's face, trying to get him to wake up to what he is. Vader, unable to believe what he just did, denies it and lashes out, angry at Luke for getting through. Palpatine mistakes that anger for killing intent and chuckles. But Vader's emotional armor is permanently cracked and it surprised him. And hopefully we all get to the point where our Shadows get surprised as well, where we are surprised by our own goodness and, even if we resent it, we realize there's more to us than we ourselves can see. And this can piss us off. How dare someone see us better than we see ourselves! How dare they! And sometimes, instead of giving in, we get even angrier, desperate to get our power and control back. So we push and push and push at those who see us better than we see ourselves, trying to get them to back off.

Sometimes we push them too hard, though.
(FROM LEFT TO FRICKIN' RIGHT! YEAH!)

That moment of Luke screaming is my favorite moment of all Star Wars, hands down. All the pain and horror of the Skywalker Saga (so far) just EXPLODES onto the screen. Luke lets fly and Vader finds himself hopelessly outmatched. For all of you who think that Vader was holding back, I present the fight between Obi-Wan and Grievous:




 Notice anything? Grievous is ridiculously stronger than Kenobi. His fists literally make imprints upon metal with a punch. And Kenobi cannot, for the life of him, exchange blows with Grievous, not straight up. Ben, not once, is able to overcome Grievous through brute force, defeating him by his trademark "find the weak spot and blow it up" approach.


There is no moment in ROTJ's fight where that is the case. Not. One. Single. Frickin'. Moment. Luke drives Vader to the ground, he wears out a cyborg. No one previous to this point has ever overpowered Anakin, nevermind driven him back. Once Anakin got going there was no stopping him. Luke is, by all counts in the Skywalker Saga, the strongest saber combatant, blow for blow. 

The Emperor sees every bit of this. And he offers Luke a job.


I'm not going to lie, this picture is here because it's the fulfillment of Luke looking at his face in Vader's helmet. He looks down, and sees that he's becoming Vader. Luke's actions, while damaging to Vader, has made him like Vader. This is an analogical truth to Luke. It's not that he literally stole Vader's hand, but he did steal Vader's hand.


Analogically it makes sense and you KNOW IT!
This is the secret of Star Wars, right here. Throw away your weapon when going against yourself, it won't work. And, what's more, what you do to  others you do to yourself. Luke, looking down at his own hand, finally sees what his wanderings for a year, on his own, have done. Others did not fail him, only Luke can fail Luke. And so he tosses the lightsaber aside, proclaiming the ultimate the truth: he has become everything his father ever wanted to be. He's fulfilled his father's dream: he's freed the slaves, fought for the downtrodden, and realized a level of compassion that no one in the entirety of the Jedi Order had done in probably over a thousand years. It's such a momentous occasion that the base on the moon blows up right after his declaration. As we'd covered in TPM, the smushing of these scenes means that one does indeed cause the other.

Many people are convinced that Anakin is the Chosen One. That's complete and total hogwash, because to bring balance to the Force is to find balance within yourself. And that's not something that Anakin ever managed on his own. So far in the series Luke is the only one to have done it, without help. Regardless of where he goes later Luke was, is, and always will be the Chosen One. The entirety of the series hangs its hat on him. Right here, at the end of RoTJ, Luke becomes the gold standard for what a person should be, Jedi or not. It's no small wonder Vader defends his son at this point, even if it means his death.




One of the things that Star Wars emphasizes is that people in epic events do not understand what it is that they're doing. They do things that happen to be huge and don't understand the personal and sociological implications of said actions. And that becomes the clearest here, with Luke and Vader. Luke doesn't understand that there's a lot more to life than, well, being alive. How you live is incredibly important and Luke, who is 23 at the time, has no real idea of just how true that is. But Anakin finally understands and he passes on in peace. And for the first time in the whole trilogy Luke, the man who never shed a tear over those that he lost, finally cries.

It all ends the same way that TPM did: in fire, tears, and celebration. But this time the Empire is finished, Palpatine is dead, and there will be peace.

Right?

Thursday, June 21, 2018

The Legacy of 4e DnD and FALL IN!

Let the edition wars end: 4th was, and continues to be, superior.
I was on board with 4th edition before it even came out. From the very first preview I knew it was the edition I wanted to play. And when the game came out it did not disappoint. What most people saw as "samey classes" I saw as "good player shorthand". Everyone knew what everyone else had. Someone saying "I spent my encounter power" at level one signified that a resource had been used and everyone had to be more careful; busting out a Daily Power  signaled to everyone else that they had to step it up to cover the loss of resources.  The fact that it was so easy to get what other classes did because of the similarity of structure is a sign of good design, and the negative reactions strike me as more of a symptom of Stockholm Syndrome over bad mechanics than a legitimate critique. The encounter design continues to be the best of the editions, hand's down. A 1st level encounter was, indeed, actually manageable by 1st level characters. There were no surprises when it came to the vast majori

Not that the game was perfect, mind you; 4th was a seriously flawed game. The math was bad but at least it was fixable. Several classes were permanently broken by multiple attribute confusion, but again, that was nothing a few house rules couldn't fix. But the real issue with 4th was that it's really a combat only game. The rest of the mechanics weren't very good, despite the solid ideas that were behind them, and the lack of actual RP for the system meant it was, at best, a glorified combat simulator. Not that 3.5/Pathfinder/5th aren't, but 4th was the most honest about its intent of design since Dungeons and Dragons Basic. Either you liked the fact that 4th's niche was combat or you didn't.

Eventually I stopped playing 4th. I wanted more than just combat from my mechanics. I wanted a story game and 4th could not deliver. Fortunately, Andy had already suggested Burning Wheel, a game that has since become my favorite RPG of all time and is my go-to. This sparked a huge investigation of what else the RPG world had to it, and the stable of games that I flit between at earliest opportunity (Burning Wheel, MouseGuard, World of Darkness, Dungeon World, Torchbearer, Tenra Bansho Zero, and Misspent Youth) were from this period of joyful exploration. But 4th has remained in the back of my mind.  Apparently I'm not alone; a number of my friends who were there to play 4th with me are still trying to design their own games that ape what 4th did. Talk about playing 4th itself is out of the question at this point. Our tastes have evolved and we don't want to play a game that fumbled its own core message in the way it did.

But what was 4th's message? What was its interior reason to exist? The funny thing is that it's not combat. I've played and read through many a game that has better combat than 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons, and have found that it lacks something... unique. 4th's take on combat, with its resource management and group combo's, is a unique animal in the RPG world. Ultimately, 4th's combat facilitated squad play, similar to games like World of Warcraft and MOBA's like League of Legends. These games have limited singular resources that are useful to the group in combat, and require everyone to be in sync in a way that one is not normally with people at your table. 4th aped this gameplay quite well, but forgot to add in an element that only TTRPGs can do: interpersonal interaction. TTRPG's superiority over computer MOBA games lies in the fact that the characters you are playing can interact with each other, thanks to the players. Training and bonding can continue past the battle and you can play the whole process out. And, while a good number of players did this sort of play with 4th, they did it without the help of the rules. But this type of game-play is what TTRPGs do best: turning the interpersonal into a game.

So it's here I'd like to throw my hat in to the task of making a game to fill a void that's been curiously absent since 4th's premature demise, with a game called FALL IN! FALL IN! is a game that will feature tactical combat in the spirit of 4th edition DnD, with systems for squad building such as training, downtime, upgrading equipment, infiltration, speeches, and ultimatums. Classes will probably work off of a series of proficiencies, skills,  bonds, and abilities, along with a mechanic called States, which are how you access your abilities and give you a bunch of raw material to roleplay with.

The following classes will be in the game. More may be in the game, but these definitely will be:

- Knight (a warrior with allegiance sworn to the local lord)
- Brigand (without attachment or care but hated by everyone)
- Paladin (a holy warrior sworn to God, but not necessarily the law)
- Ranger (the supreme guide in the wild)
- Monk (an ascetic who has learned spells from the esoteric writings)
- Sorcerer (someone in whom magic bubbles up, without restraint)
- Warlock (unable to find power any other way, this one has struck up deals with dark things)
- Swordsage (magic and swordplay are the same thing)
- Rogue (sneaky and daring, with a dash of improvisation)

There will not be a Monster Manual for this game; monsters should be unique to your campaign setting and I have no interest in telling you about the same boring orcs and goblins. Instead, tools will be provided to make monsters on the fly, with very little prep work involved. Also included will be rules for making NPCs and themes to be attached to NPCs or monsters. Also included will be rules for little to no prep-work in making encounters of all kinds; if you are spending more than an a half-hour to prep a game session in this game you are doing it wrong.

More in the coming weeks.

Friday, June 15, 2018

Return of the Jedi: The Subverter


At some point we were going to need things from Obi-Wan's point of view. Luke's pissed off at Ben for lying to him about Vader, but Ben turns the tables on Luke. For about a year Luke has been waiting for this conversation. We now know that he'd gone and found Jocasta Nu's stash of Jedi Lore, including a whole bunch of holocrons. He abandoned his training with Yoda for a time and decided to figure things out on his own. His return to Dagobah is him finally realizing that he can't hold onto his bitterness forever. Yoda's death and Obi-Wan's lecture on how people's perspective means everything is not what Luke was looking for, but it was what he needed.

Obi-Wan's explanation is his character capstone. The prequels were told through Anakin's point of view, tonally and plot-wise. We never actually got Ben's point of view at any point in the first three episodes and this is his only real chance to explain what he saw during that time. And... it's a doozy. Ben's explanation of the prequels doesn't line up with Anakin's in the slightest, and that's the point. The question is raised: does Ben have his head where the sun doesn't shine or is Anakin wrong to see what he saw?

That's a good question. I don't know. Nor will I try to figure it out.

Luke goes back to the Alliance, armed with the knowledge of who his sister is... and then promptly loses her. Huh, looks like we're still on Episode IV's plot. But, this time it's flipped: Leia finds the Ewoks. But their advent doesn't seems to phase Luke, who leans back into the Force and realizes that more's going on than meets the eye. And this is where 3PO's purpose is finally revealed. Throughout the whole series 3PO has been sort of hanging out in the background as comedic relief. He's gone through his own arcs throughout both trilogies and here, finally, the creations of Anakin finally bring him down thanks to his son, Luke. Even when someone has embraced the evil inside themselves there's no telling what good he has done may do that may come to help him. So don't discount what you've done, it very well may help you in unexpected ways one day. 



This conversation is the fulfillment of so much in Star Wars. So much of the Prequels happened because people weren't honest with each other. Whether it be Anakin and Obi-Wan or Anakin and Padme, the whole plot of the prequels kept devolving as people put up more and more barriers up, between each other. The beginning of the end for this trend began in Episode IV with Ben's honest love for Luke. It continues through Episode V with Leia finally being honest with Han and Vader's honesty with Luke, and is fulfilled here with this conversation where Luke finally lets his guard down and reveals the truth that he's withheld from Leia. Remember, Luke has been absent in some manner for over a year, avoiding his friends, trying to keep the truth from them. But can't do it anymore. He's finally letting his guard down. Step by step Luke is undoing all the turn to the dark the he did between V and VI.  Unlike Anakin, who hid from his issues and refused to air them to his friends, thus creating his own downfall, Luke is relying upon the friendships that he has in order to help them understand what he's going through and why his recent behavior has been so uncharacteristic. And Luke is honest enough to admit that he may be wrong. "I have to try" is not a confident "I will turn him", but "I very well may be wrong and I may have to kill our father and, while I'm prepared to do it, I have to try  to save him first."

I love this conversation so much that I think it should get linked directly. I also linked it directly because it mirrors Yoda's and Anakin's conversation. Whereas the first conversation was a primer in how to not relate your spiritual experiences to someone, this is the textbook for how to do it: by relating instead of pontificating. And it's incredibly important to know that Luke is hardly correct in anything he's saying. Vader does remember who he is, that's why he's in torment, he is going to turn Luke over to the Emperor. Vader wasn't going to kill Luke because there was good inside of him but because he wants to turn Luke to the dark side so they can take over the galaxy. This is, in part, because Vader is vulnerable to Palpatine's lightning. Vader feels trapped doesn't think he has good intentions. He may love his son but he's not cognizant of it. There's no beating around the bush about it: Vader is not warm and fuzzy. He doesn't know he's a good person and can't tell he's in conflict.

Sometimes people see something in us that we don't see ourselves. And, for all that we may protest, they might actually be right.

Friday, June 8, 2018

Return of the Jedi: The Opener


Until The Last Jedi this was my favorite Star Wars episode, and it's entirely because of the character of Luke and what he turns into by the end of the episode. And it all starts very unexpectedly. Like Anakin and Obi-Wan Luke has changed, but in a different way. The cares of knowing that the greatest mass murderer in the history of the galaxy is his father have worn upon Luke. His entire mood has shifted and he's become more like his father than anyone else, choking out the guards with but a movement of his hand and trying to shoot Jabba right in front of everyone. And it's all coming from the right. Luke is lost and he's doing the only thing that makes any sense to him anymore: saving his friends. But it's corrupted.

Just as a quick and fun aside (I've already got the clips on the appropriate parts):







It's just one of those moments where Lucas was clearly having some fun. The lightsaber is cut from Grievous and drops into Luke's hand. At this point there's been too many coincidences like this to not be an accident. Ben completely missed what being a hero was and Luke grabs onto it. It's one of the few times in this part where Luke actually does something right. He's so focused on his own interior darkness that he can barely see anything else in front of him. Luke oscillates between being entirely too reckless and being a brilliant master planner. Heck, had Jabba lived I'm not sure Luke would have been able to survive.


Fortunately Leia has the opportunity. Facing the possible destruction of all her friends she finally does what she's never able to do throughout the rest of the series: fight back. And, together with Luke, Leia destroys the top criminal brass in this part of the galaxy, fulfilling Anakin's dream all the way back in TPM. Yeah, remember when Anakin says he had a dream about freeing all the slaves? Turns out he was dreaming about his children. You could watch TPM and ROTJ back to back and see where everything lines up. And yes, that's on purpose.

Luke, Leia, and Han have certainly come a long way since Episode IV. Despite some serious missteps and setbacks each of these characters have individualized and become so much more than their prequel counterparts. Instead of being distracted from having to face their inner demons they've fought themselves and, so far, have won. And it all comes to a head with the destruction of Jabba's sail barge. But Luke's going down a dark path. Something's wrong.

Friday, June 1, 2018

Empire Strikes Back: The Closer


It's finally come: the moment when the Shadow reveals itself again. Only this time it doesn't do it by saying the truth, since what sane person listens to something as terrible as Darth Vader or a villainous traitor like Count Dooku? So this time the Shadow uses relationship to try and get its way. I am your father. And, for a lot of people, this is a lot more true than we'd like to admit. Generally the Shadow has bits and memories locked away from long ago in a person's unconsciousness. Its consciousness of the person is generally much longer and deeper than the Overworld's. As awful as it is to admit it, we all have something like this within us. But it's here we finally learn what the Shadow's actual aspirations are: to conquer, to take over, to destroy the things that plague us. While it may not know how to do the right thing that doesn't stop Shadow from trying. But, like Kenobi, Luke doesn't understand exactly what his father is offering him. So he makes the only decision he can: he drops down the shaft rather than deal with an entity he doesn't understand.

And look at THIS

I found the image here, at another awesome blog post!


Notice the colors? In Episode II we start in blue, in the clouds, ending on a red desert planet. In Episode V we begin on a blue desert planet and end up in red in the clouds. As Star Wars Ring Theory points out V is II backwards. If you hadn't looked at this amazing 9 page essay on the original when I had linked all the way at the beginning of this series shame on you, go read it! I'm working within the Ring's context and it's essential reading. Moving right along!

Vader isn't willing to give up so easily. He reaches out to Luke directly, through the Force, and Luke finally feels it. He now knows that Vader is his father and he accepts it. The boy who spent his whole life searching for his father has found him and the father who has spent his entire life feeling empty has found fulfillment.

Now, this part is conjecture, cause now we're reading backwards from an incomplete trilogy to this one. I think Vader and Luke forged a Force Bond here. Force Bond, as has been pointed out, is a connection between two individuals through the Force that defies time and space. Anakin had one with Padme for sure (which was broken with Anakin Force-choking Padme) and I think here we see the forging of one between Anakin and his son, Luke. As we see later Vader and Luke can detect each other at any point in time. Force Bond has also been revealed by The Last Jedi novel to allow one to see into the other's experiences and learn Force Powers from that bond. We see this in Luke's completely changed personality and the ability to Force Choke in Jedi. I posit that Luke didn't just do this out of the blue but learned from his personal contact with his father in this moment, here at the end of Empire. We'll get more into that with The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, where Force Bond comes front and center.

There's very little time to savor this, however, because R2 acts. R2 was Padme's droid, given over to Anakin. In a very unexpected sense R2 is also Anakin's and Padme's kid. And, unlike everyone else on that entire ship, R2 remembers Anakin as Anakin the kind Jedi who always took care of him. Whether Anakin wants to admit or not, there's very little good in Luke coming to him right then and there. So R2 reaches out, turns the red light blue, and saves Luke and Anakin from a fate worse than death. Shadow is not supposed to subsume Overworld, to make it an extension of itself. And so the Force reaches out through R2 yet another time and saves us from a fate far worse than death: the Shadow getting exactly what it wants.

At the end of this, the shortest Closer, Luke has matured into something quite different than what he was at the beginning of the movie. He makes a plan to save Han, convinces everyone to follow it, and then gets a new hand. The contact with Anakin has woken up something powerful in Luke and he's ready to do something with it. The sheer power of Anakin Skywalker has been passed on to Luke. Unlike Attack of the Clones, which ended with the spiritual death of the Republic, Empire ends with a revitalized Luke and Leia. They're ready. It's a clear contrast with the ending of Attack of the Clones. Instead of having separated from the world and being set up for disaster the twins are ready to set wrongs aright. They're ready to be heroes.

The world is a threat


The world is a nurturing presence.
A special shout-out to Peter Lee is due here. Not gonna lie, I was about burnt out as I was starting on The Empire Strikes Back and was thinking of taking an extended break, perhaps not coming back at all. These episodes can be emotionally exhausting to write, especially when you have to translate out your own experiences so that way people don't look at your sideways when things get too... personal. After Peter told me to keep going I churned out almost the entire episode's review in the space of a morning. Thanks, buddy. I needed the encouragement.