Chat corner 13: The plural is metatextual

[annathecrow]

Welcome to this week’s chat corner!

 

Optional chat prompt

This week, the topic is “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”, meaning the 2008 film. I’m aware the Venn diagram of the fandom coverage of this movie and the TV show is a circle, but it is a theatrically released movie within the SW canon and we have A System here, ok. BEAR WITH ME. And ignore the prompt at will, ofc.

Comments

[annathecrow]

As always, we have a Dark Side version of this if you want to rant.

[fleurviolette]

I couldn’t imagine Anakin training his own padawan until I watched this movie.

[annathecrow]

Ha, yeah. It's hard to imagine that someone looked at Ep II Anakin and went "yep, lets give him a 13-year-old to keep alive in a war zone". XD

Reading

[annathecrow]

I've completely legally of course shhh gathered some SW reading material, and in the last three days I've read Jango Fett: Open Seasons and Republic Commando - Hard Contact.

(when I started browsing SW fic on AO3 I was like "why is everyone so into Mandalorians. wtf I don't get it. where is all that worldbuilding even FROM." ha. HA. anyway I still don't get it but I'm too deep to stop now.)

Open Seasons is suprisingly not-bad (look I love comics but I've SEEN THINGS). The art is fairly good (I din't want to stab myself looking at the faces, woo!), the dialog is alright, and the story holds up well enough.

Less surprisingly, it's extremely bare-bones compared to the fanfic characterizations of Jango and Jaster. Either I'm still missing canon, or it's all fanon - which, hey, 100% okay with me! But I'd like to know what's what before I use it in my own fic. Looks like the deep dive isn't over yet.

Hard Contact feels somehow both odd and very comfortable for someone who has a mildly embarrassing fondness for mil-SF. There are some things that just don't feel very SW to me (calling the non-humans "aliens", the Jedi in general), but I had fun and I'll definitely read more.

It gets a big kudos for a female protag but no romance. It does feel like it waffles around it a bit, but that might just be me being conditioned to see that kind of stuff in stories. /shrugs/

Next thing on my list is Jedi Apprentice: The Rising Force... once I un-fuck the ebook that is. Ahhh, the joys of shitty scans.

[yourlibrarian]

I had seen Rebels first and seeing the movie with its earlier animation style and the introduction of Ahsoka as the overly capable and outspoken new "junior" character was not encouraging. Like Omega now in Bad Batch she seemed grafted in as a stand-in character for young viewers.

I was, however, glad they'd chosen a female character and I felt like there was a better look at how Obi-Wan and Anakin were actually functioning in the war. I'm glad we got the series though and not just a few movies because Ahsoka got developed and Anakin became a real person for the first time, and someone who didn't just pout and sulk through a storyline.

[fleurviolette]

Yup!! And yet she became a Jedi even tho she left the order.

I hope Ahsoka meets Luke at some point. 😮

[annathecrow]

The bit about Ahsoka is interesting to me, because I have similar-but-not problem with Rebels now. I keep thinking that I ought to give it a try, but I just can't get over the feeling of "well, what does that have that TCW doesn't?", especially when I compare Ahsoka and Ezra.

Plucky child protagonists are sort-of inescapable in media aimed at kids (whether they're really necessary for the viewers I can't say), and they can get pretty jarring when you're not the target audience anymore.

Me, I'm unfortunately a bit too jaded about plucky boy protagonists now. Plucky girls (and anyone else) I feel a bit more tolerant about, but the stereotypical boy protagonist... augh.

Beside that, I can totally see how it might be weird to see a kid Ahsoka when you're used to her older version!

[yourlibrarian]

Ah, see to me the basic answer would be "more Star Wars!" Also, the storyline for Rebels is completely different from Clone Wars both because it's in a different time period (more Rogue One than first trilogy) and because, especially at the beginning, you're dealing with a guerrilla group.

"Plucky child protagonist" is definitely the phrase I was looking for! And yes, Ezra is that as is Omega, etc. However like Ahsoka, he too got developed as did the other characters. I feel like Clone Wars could be very wide in scope but very narrow in time frame. There were a lot of things to be filled in but there was a point beyond which they couldn't go. Whereas Rebels will eventually run into New Hope but they had a lot more time to develop to that point so I think they were more tightly focused on the central characters.