It’s difficult to deny our innate call to storytelling, exercised each time we interact with character and plot. Certain tropes and archetypes have resonated down through the ages and myths and poems thousands of years old can feel as fresh, vibrant and subversive today as they were when […]
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 […]
Recently watching Rogue One, I was struck by its style and storytelling chops as if it was the first time but then its deeper themes and devices become more apparent to me than they ever had before. I tweeted as much at the time and while the replies […]
For over a decade, animation has formed one of the key pillars of the Star Wars franchise. The success and popularity of The Clone Wars kept the franchise alive long enough for Disney to swoop in and turn out new movies. But before the series that introduced Ahsoka […]
Literature’s most famous balcony scene belongs, of course, to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Centuries of scholars and school students have pored over its meanings, readings and implications, loading the scene with a depth and power that still resonates today. Among these many interpretations, the one that stands out […]
Since Dominic’s paternity leave ended and I’ve been home alone with Lorelei, I’ve had varying levels of luck getting used to the new routine (or lack thereof). My days were once devoted to my writing, but now they’re sporadic, lethargic, time-stretched and more beautiful than I could imagine. […]
By his own admission, the happiest day of Anakin’s life is finding out that Padmé is pregnant with his first child. Imagine his elation had he known she was carrying twins. In a life punctuated by pain, loss and longing, a moment of pure and perfect happiness is […]
Re-watching The Clone Wars as a father has provided new context for character relationships and the omnipresent threat to the galactic status quo. As well as presenting the eponymous conflict on screen, the animated series also served as prelude to Anakin’s fall to the dark side. In […]
There’s a helplessness that comes with being a father or birth partner to a woman in labour. Just like the cliché, my duties were relegated to holding her hand, mopping the sweat from her brow and offering encouragement. This before the tears upon first seeing my baby daughter […]
Since I’ve been through the doubt and fear, the thrill and the hope of pregnancy for myself, Padmé’s tears and unfulfilled promises to Anakin in Revenge of the Sith have taken on something more of a potency. What I believed to be a ridiculous vow that she would […]
