We are all true ‘Star Wars’ fans, so get over yourself!

I am a bona-fide, dyed-in-the-wool, life-long ‘Star Wars’ fan.

Well… at least I would be, if ‘Star Wars’ had been released before I was born. The original movie hit British cinemas when I was seven, so I somehow got through the best part of eight years on this rock without Jedi, TIE fighters and wookiees.

But since I was seven… life-long fan.

And I’d consider myself to be a bit of an extreme fan, too.

Right now, my coffee mug is resting on a ‘Star Wars’ coaster to my left. On my right is the hardback novel ‘Bloodline’ by Claudia Gray, which I’m working my way through and enjoying immensely.

The wall opposite my sofa is hidden behind an over-stuffed, six-foot-tall bookcase, bursting with ‘Star Wars’ novels and reference books – both Expanded Universe and New Canon – which I’ve collected over a thirty year period. And I’ve read pretty much ninety percent of them. Many, more than once.

I love the animated shows ‘Clone Wars’ and ‘Rebels.’ I fully appreciate that, to some extent, they’re aimed at kids and a cynical marketing ploy to create new generations of ‘Star Wars’ fans. However, some of the story arcs are absolutely brilliant, often as good as anything seen in the live-action movies.

I play ‘Star Wars Battlefront’ on my PS4 several times a week, often with my friend Karl, who I’ve known since I was eight. Karl is also a huge ‘Star Wars’ fan. In fact, our mutual love of ‘Star Wars’ is probably the reason we became friends in the first place. Well… that and seventies ‘Doctor Who.’

 
Oh… and don’t tell anyone, but I’m forty-five years old and I’m currently wearing bright red Darth Vader underpants.

Hey, they were a Christmas present. Don’t judge me!!!

There are fans who take their obsession even further, like the members of the 501st Stormtrooper division, who build screen-accurate costumes, then wear them to events to raise money for sick children in hospital. I have the deepest admiration and respect for those men and women. They do absolutely sterling work.

Also, there are what I call ‘purist’ ‘Star Wars’ fans, who have seen the movies multiple times, enjoy them immensely, can often quote them word-for-word, but who have no interest in reading the novels and comics, or watching the CGI cartoon shows, for various perfectly legitimate reasons. 

This afternoon, I was having a friendly discussion about fandom on a Facebook ‘Star Wars’ page, regarding the true identity of Supreme Leader Snoke.

This ignorant asshole turned around and said people who only like the movies aren’t “true Star Wars fans” and shouldn’t be allowed to discuss things on Facebook because they don’t really “get it” and have nothing to “bring to the table.” 

Which, of course, made me wail. And there was much gnashing of teeth.

So listen up…

I love ‘Star Wars’ very much (…can’t you tell?). I used to write for the UK fan club in the nineties, I’ve directed several of the actors on stage, I am a huge collector and I read all the comics and novels.

But I’m not a member of the 501st or the Rebel Legion. I don’t own a suit of stormtrooper armour, or an X-Wing pilot costume. 

Also, I absolutely cannot stand ‘The Phantom Menace’, even though I quite like the other two prequel movies. I thought the podrace and the lightsabre duel were okay. I enjoy parts of the soundtrack. But over-all, I have a deep dislike of that particular movie and I never watch it. 

Does this mean I’m not a true ‘Star Wars’ fan? No, of course it doesn’t.

My cousin Simon, who I saw the original film with back in the seventies when we were both kids, can quote all seven movies word-for-word. He goes to the conventions and collects ‘Star Wars’ autographs and vintage Kenner/Palitoy figures. But he has no interest in the comics or novels. And like many guys in their forties, he wouldn’t be caught dead watching a ‘Star Wars’ cartoon aimed at children. 

Does this make him any less of a ‘Star Wars’ fan? Of course it doesn’t.

My point is, there are a lot of legitimate ‘Star Wars’ fans. All types of people, leading all kinds of lives, with different levels of interest and involvement in fandom. 

To belittle one sub-group of fans or another, because they don’t follow every last comic, or they haven’t seen every episode of a kid-centric animated show, or because they aren’t wearing Kylo Ren socks is absolutely ridiculous.

And if you are unable to see that, you are ignorant, opinionated and snobbish. The kind of person who gives fandom a bad name.

We are ALL genuine ‘Star Wars’ fans, no matter what aspects of the saga we choose to enjoy, or follow.

Not following EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of ‘Star Wars’ culture does NOT make you any less of a fan.

We ALL have something relevant to bring to the table. We ALL love those characters and that universe…

…and if you think otherwise, you seriously need to get over yourself!

– Leigh

‘Star Wars Aftermath: Life Debt’ – spoiler-free review.

“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

‘Aftermath’, by Chuck Wendig, is a trilogy of novels covering the years immediately following ‘Return of the Jedi’, and depicting the fall of the Empire, the rise of the New Republic, and the birth of the First Order.

The books are sanctioned by Lucasfilm, Disney, and the ‘Star Wars’ Story Group think-tank. They are part of the official canon.

‘Life Debt’ is the second novel in this trilogy – and it begins in dramatic fashion. 

Han Solo and Chewbacca have set out to liberate the enslaved wookiee homeworld, Kashyyyk, from the Imperial remnant. The New Republic is unable to assist, as their ships and troops are already over-stretched and fighting on numerous fronts. So Han has to rely on his dodgy old underworld contacts for the mission to succeed…

…which, of course, it doesn’t. The pair are quickly betrayed, and Han and Chewie find themselves in the hands of the enemy, missing in action. 

Enter the rag-tag characters we’re following in this trilogy, who met in the first novel, ‘Aftermath’, and are now, several months later, working as a team: Norra Wexley (team leader), one of the best pilots in the New Republic. Her teenage son, Temmin ‘Snap’ Wexley (he’s one of Poe Dameron’s Black Squadron X-Wing pilots years later in ‘The Force Awakens’). Singir Rath Velus, an alcoholic ex-Imperial interrogation expert. Jom Barell, a burly Republic special forces commando. Jas Emari, a lethal bounty hunter who plays both sides, and finally, Temmin’s psychotic red-and-black modified battle ‘droid / body guard, Mister Bones (the comic relief).

This group are essentially the ‘Star Wars’ equivalent of post-world war two Nazi hunters. They’re sent into heavily fortified Imperial strongholds to capture high-ranking targets – Grand Moffs, Grand Admirals and the like – and bring them back to the New Republic, alive, to stand trial for their war crimes.

Leia, heavy with child and worried about her husband and his wookiee co-pilot, despatches Norra’s peculiar-but-effective team on a secret mission to find out what’s happened to the missing heroes.

Meanwhile, Grand Admiral Sloane, the woman apparently in charge of the faltering Imperial remnant, is becoming increasingly suspicious of her boss, the mysterious and shadowy Gallius Rax.

Rax, an insidious and manipulative figure, was at one point a secret agent working directly for Palpatine. He won medals, he was highly decorated and regarded, but there seems to be very little real information about him, as though he never really existed. The more Sloane digs, the more mysterious Rax becomes. He’s a dangerous ghost of a being. And whatever his end-game is, Sloane is unsure whether she wants to be a part of it. She suspects Rax might be bad for the Empire. A puppet-master, using the troops and ships under her command, for his own nefarious ends.

So the novel works on several fronts: the search for Han and Chewie, the liberation of the Wookiees, the gradual unfurling of the mysterious Gallius Rax’s master-plan, and Leia fighting political intrigue on Chandrila – the first inklings of the Resistance seen in ‘The Force Awakens’, perhaps. 

The plot twists and turns nicely. The characters evolve and grow from where they were in the first novel and the writing here is really good. There’s  a real friction and energy to Norra’s crew that’s authentically ‘Star Wars.’ You really get behind these guys and want their mission to succeed. 

There are great interludes in the story, too. Short vignettes showing the tumultuous state of things following the destruction of the second Death Star and what’s going on elsewhere in the galaxy. The Republic isn’t growing fast enough and there’s a power vacuum on many worlds where the Empire once held sway. These snapshots are interesting diversions and indicate where things are heading politically. There’s one particularly poignant interlude involving Jabba’s ex-Rancor keeper, Malakili the beaat-master, on Tatooine. But I won’t spoil that for you. 

Most fans will want to read this novel because it offers tantalising glimpses and insights into the background and machinations of Gallius Rax, who I suspect later becomes the enigmatic Supreme Leader Snoke of the new movie trilogy. Rax is as cunning as his predecessor Palpatine was. A terrific, shadowy master-villain in the making.

However, the big treat here is Han and Chewie. They’re difficult characters to get right – a lot of ‘Star Wars’ authors have problems nailing down those two scruffy-looking nerf herders – but Chuck Wendig writes the pair wonderfully. The interaction between those characters and Norra’s team is screen-perfect and totally believable

Also, the battle for Kashyyyk is absolutely brilliant. Pure ‘Star Wars’ through-and-through. You’ll love it. 

You can read this novel as a stand-alone story, but it’s probably best to double it up with the first volume, ‘Aftermath.’ The characters are so good, and I feel the second novel is probably a much more rewarding experience if you are already emotionally invested in this team, going forwards.

‘Life Debt’ is well worth your time and money. It’s a really great book. I can’t recommend it enough.

—–

The final volume of this trilogy, ‘Aftermath: Empire’s End’, hits bookstores in January 2017.

Siddown, shuddup an’ do it!!!

“Writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat.”

– Dorothy Parker

//////

People are largely defined by their actions. We are what we do.

And writers write. All the time.

When we aren’t putting pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard, our minds are bubbling away, twenty-four-seven, composing stories. In the shower. At the dining table. On our commute to the office. Watching TV in the evening. Always subconsciously absorbing and creating.

You see, we writers notice stuff. Little everyday things that other people take for granted or completely ignore.

One side of a heated mobile ‘phone conversation at a bus stop. A peculiar shape wrapped in polythene, glimpsed through the window of a speeding car. An upsetting newspaper article about the death of bees.

To most people, these things are relatively inconsequential. To me, they’re fleeting motes of inspiration.

That conversation at the bus stop? Co-conspirators planning to rob their ex-boss. The thing in the back of the car? A dead body, the result of a botched kidnapping. The death of bees? Stage one of an alien invasion.

Some of these ideas don’t stay, whilst others refuse to leave. These are the ones that crawl into the back of your skull like parasites, silently gestating over weeks and months, morphing, feeding on other ideas, until they become the germ of a good story.

And at that point, you need to get that story out of your brain and on to paper, or into a Word or Celtx document. Because otherwise, that monster will push its way to the surface and quickly quash all other thought. You’ll start to obsess over it. You’ll get insomnia. Forget to eat. Walk out into moving traffic. Pretty soon, all that seems to matter in the world is that story. And it feels as though you have to write it RIGHT NOW, before your head bursts like a frog on a hotplate…

…and that’s where things start to get complicated.

The late, great Douglas Adams said it best:

So you gawp at the dazzling page, eyes aglaze, trying to figure out the best way to broach this new project, even though you’ve been here a hundred times before.

Which method should you use to structure the story this time? Should you start with the protagonist or develop the plot first? What are you going to call the piece?

A number of false-starts later, it’s three in the morning, you’re deflated and you’ve mulled the evening away.

Self-doubt sets in. Maybe the story isn’t very good? Or, perhaps you’ll spend six months working on this thing and no-one will want to read it, that’ll own consider publishing it. And perhaps it isn’t coming together straight away because ‘it isn’t your usual genre.’ And all the while the story is still lodged in your head, festering away as a would-be mental illness.

So the next day, you write a list of all the things you need to do. Housework, food shopping, writing (circled three times in red biro) etc. And it gets to ten in the evening and you’ve managed to achieve every single other goal on that list… except the writing. You know you’ll enjoy the process if you just sit down and knuckle under for an hour, but you yawn deeply and think “I’ll do it tomorrow, instead.”

Tomorrow becomes a new today and you fire up your laptop with the intention of writing, only to get involved a heated discussion about the merits of Marvel movies on Geekopolis. Before you know it, the time you set aside to write is gone.

It’s okay, though. You tell yourself you’re just waiting for the muse. That little burst of inspiration and energy that will kick your project into high gear. But it doesn’t work like that. You have to write, a little each day, whether you feel inspired or not:

It’s a slow process, but eventually the words begin to crawl out of your head, down your arms and through your fingers, forming sentences, paragraphs, chapters.

If something is important, you will find the time to do it.

A yellow legal pad and biros on your commute to work. The office computer on your lunch-hour. Taking an hour out of your evening before you go to bed two or three times a week.

So that means switching off the internet and the TV. Putting your ‘phone on silent. Applying ass firmly to chair, and writing. A little bit at a time. However long it takes.

Slowly, gradually, your story will come together. But you have to persevere. And you mustn’t procrastinate.

If you really want to be a writer, siddown, shuddup an’ do it.

Your story won’t write itself, you know.

/////

Leigh Oakley – 19/5/2016

The joys of screenwriting.

I’ve been a part-time screenwriter for about eight years. I’ve written over twenty scripts and my name appears in the end credits of six movies.

I love screenwriting, because it is such a rich, pared-down art form.

As a rule of thumb, one side of double-spaced A4 screenplay equals around one minute of screen-time in a finished movie or TV show.

So a film with a running-time of an hour and forty minutes will probably be shot from a script that’s about a hundred pages long.

You’re aiming to convey information in a lean, fast style, without it feeling too rushed or contrived. It needs to be naturalistic, like a novel, but the writing has to flow quickly.

The piece you write is technically a blueprint of how to build a movie. As such, it needs to inspire everyone involved in the production, from readers to producers, to the director, to the cast and crew. To drive them to do their very best work.

You need to create a full-length story, with rounded characters, plot-twists, a definite act structure and a satisfying conclusion tied-up in a mere fraction of the pages most novelists have the luxury of working with.

But that’s not all.

You can only write what the audience will be able to see or hear on screen in the finished movie. So you can’t write what characters are thinking, how something smells, what it tastes like, how hot their food is, why they feel depressed, etc. You have to figure out ways to “show” these things onscreen, instead.

The rule here is “show, don’t tell.” Film is a visual, moving medium. As a screenwriter, your mind is the camera. You have to learn to think of your story in motion, as shots and scenes, and to break down your work accordingly.

Then, the icing on the cake is dialogue. The last thing you work on. Each character needs their own voice. A distinct way of speaking, based on their personality, age, upbringing, health, personal baggage, their role in the story, etc.

Elliot Grove, the founder of Raindance Film Training in London (my friend and mentor) says a character’s voice should be so distinctive that if you were to cover all the character’s names in a script and stick a pin in a random line of dialogue, you should immediately know who is speaking.

All this, in a hundred pages or thereabouts… but not always.

Comedy, romance and horror scripts are often shorter at only eighty or ninety pages, because it’s difficult to keep the audience laughing, swooning or screaming for more than ninety minutes at a time. People’s attentions begin to wande–

–Oh, look – a hedgehog!

Ah! Sorry.

Where was I, again? Oh, I remember —

–Thrillers! Yes. They’re often longer, maybe up to two hours (one hundred and twenty pages).

Anything directed by Christopher Nolan or Zack Snyder is way over three hours and the shooting script is probably the thickness of a small country’s telephone directory.

So you’ve managed to write your exploratory first draft, left it a month, gone back, rewritten it a few times.

You have the perfect script…

…which will now be torn to shreds.

Because, if by some miracle you’ve managed to sell this baby to a producer or a studio, you have to redraft according to available budget and what the director wants to put up there on the screen. Your script is now the director’s vision – and you aren’t in charge anymore.

Everything you write before you sell the script is what’s best for the story. After you sell the script, subsequent drafts are what’s best for the movie… and to facilitate the director’s interpretation of that work.

This is skimming the basics, of course. The very tip of the iceberg. Screenwriting is incredibly indepth and there’s soooo much more to it than that.

But the challenge of writing a full-length movie, conveying all that information in so few pages, whilst making it exciting, cinematic, compelling…

That’s what drives me. That’s why I do this. And frankly, it’s pretty addictive.

That’s why I love it so much.

/////

Leigh Oakley – 16/5/2016

Rey… from ‘a certain point of view.’

“Where do you come from?”

BB-8 burbles a response.

“Classified, really?  Me too.  Big secret.”

———-

Rey is the enigmatic new protagonist of last year’s ‘Star Wars Episode Seven: The Force Awakens.’

J.J. Abrams’ mystery box approach to the new movie trilogy has revealed scant information about this popular character’s background, leading to rampant fan speculation regarding who she really is and where she’s from.

There are a lot of theories regarding Rey’s origins, the two most popular being that she’s either a grandchild of Obi-Wan Kenobi, or Luke Skywalker’s daughter. I don’t subscribe to either of these views.  They both feel too obvious.

No… I think it’s something much smarter. something much more ‘Star Wars.’

So I’m probably just adding fuel to the fire, but as a produced screenwriter with a lot of story training, and being a life-long, die-hard ‘Star Wars’ fanatic, this is what I think is really going on…

Luke’s hand is the key.

Early drafts of ‘The Force Awakens’ begin with Luke’s lightsabre drifting through space at some point after the events of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, his dismembered right hand still clinging to the deactivated hilt.

The sabre tumbles through the atmosphere of Jakku (the hand burns up on entry) and lands in the desert, where it is discovered by Maz Kanata.

It is widely believed these scenes were rewritten due to elements of the movie’s plot being leaked on the internet during principal photography, but what if that wasn’t the case?  What if it was actually a Lucasfilm story decision?

In the finished film, Luke’s old lightsabre is indeed in Maz’s possession. When Han asks Maz where she got the weapon from, she says it is “a story for another time.”

But if Luke’s lost hand didn’t burn up in Jakku’s atmosphere, where else could it have gotten to?

Vader’s plan.

During the classic trilogy, Vader wanted to turn his son, Luke, to the dark side, so that the pair could overthrow Emperor Palpatine and rule the galaxy as Father and son.

With the Sith, always two there were.  A master and an apprentice.  One to hold the power and one to crave it.  A rule created by Darth Bane thousands of years before the events depicted in the movies, to prevent the in-fighting that threatened to completely destroy the Sith order.

To stay ahead of the curve, the Sith were generally wily and cunning.  Like the greatest of Chess players, every move they made was perfectly planned, which allowed them to stay several steps ahead of their enemies.  They didn’t take foolish risks and never left anything to chance.

If Vader was unable to turn Luke to the dark side, he would still need an apprentice to help overthrow Palpatine. Vader, although incredibly strong with the Force, had been crippled by Obi-Wan Kenobi on Mustafar two decades earlier. He wasn’t strong enough to overthrow Palpatine on his own. So if Luke would not be turned, it stands to reason that the boy’s severed hand would be a DNA source of the highest importance.

We already know that cloning technology exists – and has been perfected – in the Star Wars universe because of the prequel trilogy.  We also know that Palpatine’s old master, Darth Plagueis, had been doing a lot of research into midichlorian manipulation, in order to extend his own life indefinitely.  He could even prevent others from dying.

During the time period spanning the first six movies, if a Force-sensitive being was cloned, that clone would be a normal person without Force abilities.

It is possible Vader had agents secretly retrieve Luke’s lost hand.  Then, he would have put a team of scientists to work to try and buck the laws of nature: to clone Luke as the first custom-made, Force-sensitive clone.

(NB: The cloning of Luke and other Force-users was actually explored to some degree in the Expanded Universe ‘Thrawn trilogy’ of novels and the ‘Dark Empire’ comic book series, both of which are set in the years following ’Return of the Jedi’, but neither of which are considered canonical anymore due to Disney’s revised ‘Star Wars’ timeline.)

‘The Force Awakens’ is set thirty years on from the deaths of Palpatine and Vader at the end of ‘Return of the Jedi.’  The technology depicted in episode seven is far beyond anything seen in the first six films, indicating that there have been massive scientific and engineering breakthroughs in the three decades between episodes six and seven.

My theory…

The Empire has fallen.  The First Order is in ascension.

What if Snoke has discovered Plagueis’ and Vader’s midichlorian research – and, using episode seven era advanced technology, he’s actually perfected it?

What if his scientists grew a dark-haired little girl from Luke’s preserved DNA, who seemed to have no Force abilities whatsoever, despite a massive – but dormant – midichlorian count?
And the scientists who were raising her found out that Snoke intended to use the child – who they named Rey – as a weapon, but if her midichlorians remained dormant he would kill her because she was of no use to him?

So the scientists rescued Rey from a secret First Order scientific facility and went on the run with her.  Raised her as their own for a few years.  Realised they were being pursued by First Order agents or bounty hunters.  Left Rey alone on Jakku, until it was safe to return for her, in Unkar Plutt’s dubious care.

Somewhere she would be safe.  As a nobody.  With no chance that Snoke could ever discover her.

The title of episode seven, ‘The Force Awakens’, I feel is incredibly apt if my theory proves to be correct.  Rey’s dormant midichlorians are awakening.  She seems to have some kind of Force savant abilities – if she touches an object, she can feel its history.  She instinctively knows what that object does and how to use it, which is how she can fly the Millennium Falcon with no training, etc.

She can also learn skills if her mind is touched by another Force user, as we see when Kylo Ren tries to probe Rey’s thoughts in the torture chamber at Starkiller Base.  She absorbs his knowledge of the Force, in much the same way Rogue from ‘The X-Men’ can temporarily absorb another mutant’s powers by touch.  This mental contact with Kylo in the torture chamber scene also seems to speed up the awakening of her dormant midichlorians.  Rey becomes stronger and stronger in the Force, almost minute-by-minute, from this point in the movie.

This is especially important in her acid vision / flashback in Maz’s castle, when Rey holds Luke’s old lightsabre for the first time. It calls to her, I believe, because she is cloned from Luke’s own DNA.

So that’s my thoughts on the matter.
If I’m correct, Luke is kind of getting his old lightsabre and his hand back when Rey arrives on the planet Ach’ To at the end of ‘The Force Awakens.’  Well… from a certain point of view.

Is Rey Luke’s daughter?  No.  I don’t think so.  Far too obvious.

Not his daughter, no.

But his clone…?

Let’s wait and see.

/////

Leigh Oakley – 13/05/2016

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Article sources:

Star Wars Episode Two: ‘Attack of the Clones’

Star Wars Episode Three: ‘Revenge of the Sith’

Star Wars Episode Five: ‘The Empire Strikes Back’

Star Wars Episode Six: ‘Return of the Jedi’

Star Wars Episode Seven: ‘The Force Awakens’

Star Wars – Darth Bane: ‘Rule of Two’ (Drew Karpyshyn) (partially canon)

Star Wars – ‘Darth Plagueis’ (James Luceno) (partially canon)

Star Wars – Thrawn Trilogy book 3: ‘The Last Command’ (Timothy Zahn) (non-canon)

Star Wars – ‘Dark Empire’ (Tom Veitch, Cam Kennedy) (non-canon)