One of the key things that marks the Disney era of Star Wars out from what came before is its willingness to put everyday heroes front and centre: a shuttle pilot, a stormtrooper, an engineer etc. Compared with the Jedi, senators and royalty that dominate so much of […]
Perhaps the only way of achieving a definitive answer to the long-standing ‘nature versus nurture’ debate is through human cloning. Setting aside the ethical dilemma, using clones would enable genetic copies of the same child to be raised in myriad settings to see whether they grow up different […]
To say that Star Wars means a lot to me is an understatement. My daughter’s middle name is Amidala, my wife walked down the aisle to ‘Across the Stars’ and my home is filled with various merchandise, collectables and memorabilia. Even in the off weeks where my fandom […]
The names given to Star Wars characters, like the names we give to our own children, are often heavy with meaning. The tender shoots of their creators’ plans for them, and beyond that the role they are destined to play in the galaxy. In this, Padmé Amidala’s name […]
Even before The Last Jedi shook up the status quo, it was clear that Star Wars was always about much more than heroes and dynasties and the evils of right-wing ideology. The story threads woven throughout the saga films and the auxiliary story materials was as much a […]
If, as Churchill proclaimed, “history is written by the victors” then any account accepted by a cultural majority is a prescribed and biased narrative. Individual accounts of the same events rarely align, but on the national scale this becomes much more sinister. Taking charge of an information stream […]
Names in Star Wars range from the ridiculous to the sublime, combining marketing fun and in-jokes – Elan Sleazebaggano, I’m looking at you – with the pantomime stylings of Sidious, Grievous and Tyrannous. From a linguistic perspective, many names across the saga offer subtle clues and insights […]
“I must be allowed to speak,” Luke Skywalker demands of Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi. Historically peacekeepers and diplomats, the voice and spoken word are as important to the function and philosophy of the Jedi as their lightsabers. Having already struck out in anger against […]
From its inception, Star Wars has always existed as political allegory, with its goodies-versus-baddies narrative also acting as the marginalised struggling against far-right supremacy. As a politically opinionated film student, George Lucas imbued his work with a social commentary that would transcend his early avant-garde efforts and supercharge […]
In The Last Jedi, Rey asks if Luke created Kylo Ren. But Ben Solo’s fall from grace is not so easily defined and certainly not so simple as having a single catalyst. Of course, Luke’s brief failure as a mentor contributed significantly to Ben turning to the Dark […]
