10/10 - The classic lando look - contrasting colours, cute lil chunky belt, everybody is jealous of that exquisite fucking cape, except edna mode. You can tell he made his guards coordinate with him.
2)
8/10 - Wearing Han’s clothes - this is a very nice detail, they are just bros helping each other out even when oneisfrozen in carbonite, however i am missing the flamboyance here.
3)
7/10 - Rebellion fit - The cape is back! Though this time slightly more muted. His outfit is more practical in this scene.
4)
4/10 - Undercover at Jabba’s - Although i love the details on the breastplate and mask of this outfit, it really doesn’t convey any of that flashy Lando charm, so this one unfortunately doesn’t score very high.
I mean, the “no attachments” thing has been there since the original trilogy:
“Remember, a Jedi’s strength flows from the Force. But beware. Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are they. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.”
And was continued in the prequels:
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
“Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is. Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”
(Yes, I know it’s all Yoda but you get my point.)
Attachment is the root of suffering (see: Buddhism). It is very difficult for people to accept that loss is inevitable, since we are afraid of losing. It’s also very difficult to not feel anger when someone you love is wronged.
It is acceptance of that inevitability and learning to let go that the Jedi are espousing, not the denial of love, because attachment is not the same as love. The Jedi love, too. Whether you’re more familiar with Western or Eastern philosophy, there’s a fundamental truth to love that we can all agree on — love is selfless, love is kind. What the Jedi are against is love turning into something else, something selfish and ugly, without so much thought as to its consequences.
I agree with this, and I’d add that it’s been present in the films as more than just “this is a rule the Jedi have”, and more that non-attachment is a philosophy that’s been informing the story from the very beginning (or, you can think of it as “Jedi teachings reflect the worldbuilding’s underlying philosophy” if you prefer).
For instance, in ANH we have Leia rebuking Tarkin: “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” And the victory later in the film is achieved by Luke following Obi-Wan’s directive to “let go”.
These examples aren’t about letting go of other people, but they’re coming from the same place - non-attachment is much broader than accepting personal loss. It’s also about giving up attachment to things and outcomes and such. It’s accepting that there are things outside of your control. Death is the big one, of course, so it gets a lot of attention in the story (and also because it’s a more sympathetic and dramatic struggle, than, say, getting upset because your plans for the day got changed on you without warning…a form of attachment I personally struggle with and was especially bad with when I was younger), but the broader concept has been present in, even fundamental to, the story from the very first film. So, yes, OP is entirely correct - this is not something that was introduced by the prequels just because the exact word “attachment” wasn’t used until then (and really it was only directly used twice there, at that).
Even Han and Leia don’t get to have a happy relationship until Han learns to let Leia go. He’s hounding her, dragging her with him on the Falcon, forcing intimacy when she says no, he’s pressuring her to talk when she’s not ready, losing his temper because he’s jealous of her and Luke… but it’s not until he completes his character growth, lets her go, and lets her be a free person who makes her own decisions that they truly get their happily ever after (shut up).
Han:I’m sure Luke wasn’t on that thing when it blew.
Leia:He wasn’t. I can feel it.
Han:You love him, don’t you?
Leia:Yes.
Han:All right. I understand. Fine. When he comes back, I won’t get in the way.
Sometimes I like to think about the fact that R2D2 knew exactly who everyone was throughout the entirety of the original trilogy and never thought to tell anyone, even Luke, any useful information, like, say, the identity of his father.
honestly the only reason I can think of for R2, resident chaos gremlin and nonsense enabler, not telling Luke something that would at least result in some shenanigans, if not outright pandemonium, is that Obi-Wan was threatening him from beyond the grave, but that would mean that droids can see Force ghosts and I don’t have the strength to get into the messed up implications of that
STAR WARS AU: Raised as a Sith by Palpatine, Anakin Skywalker, otherwise known as Darth Vader, enters into a secret relationship with Republic Senator Padme Amidala during the Clone War. At the birth of the Empire, Palpatine takes steps to separate them. Both thinking the other dead, Padme raises Luke amongst the Rebellion, whilst Leia grows up amongst the Imperial High Command, used by the Emperor as a bargaining chip to keep her father in line.
Part Two: Just some Anakin and Leia for this AU, since it wouldn’t leave me alone. I’m working on a part three as well, which will be for Padme and Luke.
this has probably been said elsewhere and better but i miss the days in star wars when the oppressive empire was made up of white men with british accents. that wasn’t an accident and it wasn’t a trivial decision, like they are the face and voice of power and oppression both in the past and today. giving these roles to women and people of color feels like… idk obfuscating or something? like don’t get me wrong i very much want more diversity in star wars, but the empire being a monolithic sea of white men with imperial accents, and the good guys being a diverse crowd of allies from all demographics, it implicitly communicated something important.
[ID: KungFu Panda’s Oogway saying, “There are no accidents.” /ID]
Something that George Lucas was at least tryingto do that Disney has absolutely no interest in doing is critiquing the USA’s military and imperialism more broadly.
Lucas made a movie that sided with Vietnamese rebels defending their homeland from an evil empire. The villains dressed like Nazis and had posh British accents to drive all of this home, but it was also much closer in time to all of that so the audience was more likely to “get it” without much more than the aesthetic references and dynamics.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with having the Empire/First Order in the sequel films include ethnic and gender diversity, and it is a bit of a cop-out to deny actors those parts because you’re claiming it cuts against your message.
But, it’s also clear Disney wanted to make movies that would move merchandise, so Kylo Ren reforges a mask with red lines in it in the third sequel so it looks different from the one in The Force Awakens, and C-3PO has a red arm, which in most cases would be some good environmental storytelling, but in the sequels is clearly used so they can sell a different model of toy for kids who want thatC-3PO.
Disney also wants people to buy just as much Empire/First Order merch as Rebel/Resistance merch. They want villains to be “evil” but not actuallyevil. People can’t cringe when they see Stormtroopers at a theme park.
When General Hux gives a speech about why they are going to murder billions of people, you don’t get anything more than “order” and “disorder”.
Today is the end of the Republic, the end of a regime that acquiesces to disorder.
At this very moment in a system far from here, the New Republic lies to the galaxy while secretly supporting the treachery of the rogues of the Resistance.
This fierce machine which you have built, upon which we stand will bring an end to the Senate, to their cherished fleet.
All remaining systems will bow to the First Order and will remember this as the last day of the Republic!
The Nazi imagery is still there, but there’s not really ever a good explanation given for whythey’re doing this or the internal logic of people who would do something so awful and think themselves protagonists of their own lives. The First Order are just cartoonishly evil, so there’s nothing in them a person would recognize in themselves, in real-world politicians, in their own family members.
What the First Order really needed to be, and because of Disney never could, was a rump state of the Galactic Empire that was dangerous because it was revanchist and explicitly human supremacist.
They needed to be eradicating planets not just because the First Order was “the bad guys” but because their ideology justified it. No more “conquest and rule”: now everything needed to burned to the ground and sowed with salt because only then could the people of the First Order truly be safe.
In that speech, you don’t have the justification that, for example, these are degenerates and parasites who have infested the worlds that the once Empire built for them and made great (it doesn’t matter that this is ahistorical nonsense in the canon; that’s what fascist propaganda is, too). Nothing about how the Jedi still survive in the Republic and use their powers to infiltrate and attack the First Order even now to stir up rebellion in their own territory. The unhumans would be happy with their lot if not for these hidden troublemakers.
Hux doesn’t say that this is a pre-emptive attack to stop the Rebels from destroying the last place that their people have gone to try to survive, that this is a war of survival they plan to win. That, really, they’re bringing freedom from “anarchy” and liberating the places under the yoke of the Republic’s so-called democracy.
He just frames it as “Order” versus “Disorder” because you can sell toys on both sides of that, and it doesn’t actually sound like anything you’ll hear anyone around you say.
When you look at what the Nazis told their people, or the Bush administration justifying Iraq, or Russia state media today explaining how they have to de-nazify a country by wiping out millions of people, they justify it to their people with a lot more than “ending disorder”.
After the duel, Trilla, Ahsoka, and Sacher all adjust their missions accordingly. Though in doing so, Omega reveals the truth about why she needed Ahsoka’s help—and Ahsoka is shocked by the news that a friend once thought to be dead is actually alive.
wait if this hairstyle contains an alderaanian mourning braid
does this one too?
:O oh my god,,
I want to say yes, absolutely, because it’s so heartbreaking to think of Leia slowly plaiting her hair into a mourning braid before the ceremony (maybe her fingers move stiffly over the steps, because she’s only had to do this particular braid once or twice before). Here she is, Princess of a place that no longer exists, standing before the Rebellion, a beacon of hope and strength - quietly mourning her home in its own way.
Maybe the less detailed the braid, the more intimate the loss? It looks like the first is a simple braid or maybe even just a twist, but the medal ceremony braid is more intricate, is piled high on her head, and uses almost all of her hair. The more people one has to mourn = the more intricate the braid. And since she’s mourning her entireplanet… Oh, my god I’m so sad now
(!! and this reminded me a little of Victorian mourning jewelry - where mourners would braid locks of the deceased’s hair as a sort of meditative mourning ritual. This is fascinatingto think about, and now I really want a visual directory of different types of braids and their possible meanings!)
