To the Dead, Dignity – Sci Fi Flash Fiction

I am officially a published science fiction author!

Read on Splickety’s Lightning blog!

Advertisements

A Close Read of Star Wars Rebels “Twin Suns” – Part 5 – Fireside Chats

HE’S KIND OF A STRANGE OLD HERMIT

“I think [sound design] adds so much to your storytelling,” Dave Filoni said in the “Twin Suns” audio commentary, “so I devised these cuts so that we’re going from a feeling of emptiness to very full [with] the sand and the chaos, and [then] we go back to emptiness.”

The cuts he’s speaking of are when Ezra treks out into the desert after Maul, where the sound environment consists of “a very full-sounding shot and an empty-sounding shot.”

“[T]hat’s Ezra’s mind. The chaos in his mind right now as he’s being beaten down… and again just crashing out into a feeling of emptiness. So, y’know, if Ezra was wishing for the storm to stop, well now it has and now the sun is punishing.” (Filoni, audio commentary, 12:00)

These two sound choices evoke an edge to the environment, painting it as unwelcome and harsh. This changes once Ezra wakes up to the campfire. Audibly, the environment is mellow. Not the harsh silence of the wastes or the overwhelming roar of the sandstorm. Instead, it’s a warm sound. The gentle crackle of the fire, the ambient noise of the planet’s night critters, the soft huffing of the dewback, which evokes (sorry, Zeb), the Lasat’s snores from the episode’s beginning. The sound environment is welcoming.

District 9: Family, Waiting

This was originally written for the online magazine Christ and Pop Culture. My second draft, and the one published by CAPC, was different enough that I now had two, stand-alone articles on District 9. You can read the CAPC article here.

You’ll miss it without subtitles, but the very first line of District 9 is about family.

“Attention, Mr. Hayes, your wife is waiting at the station.”

It’s simple background chatter to establish the atmosphere of the MNU corporate building of the opening shot, and  it’s overshadowed by the protagonist Wikus van de Merwe mentioning his own wife, Tania, just seconds later. However, the mention of family in this specific context, in that of waiting, is a stronger overarching theme of District 9 as a whole.

The Last Jedi and Living to See the Dawn – Finding Myself in Fiction: The Divine

About the series: Finding Myself in Fiction

This movie connected with me on innumerable levels, and it’s safe to say that The Last Jedi is my favorite film in the Star Wars franchise. We can, of course, talk about the ladies of the movie, but that’s not where I want to go right now. Instead, let’s talk about hope.

Modern parables do exist. And here is why Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi is one of mine:

The Last Jedi spoilers, of course, below the cut.

A Close Read of Star Wars Rebels: “Twin Suns” – Part 4 – Tatooine

JUST… BREATHE

In our last installment, we left off with an in-depth discussion about The Hero’s Journey and a touch of Force theory, and a lot of the past three installments have been analyzing parallels to other pieces of Star Wars media. So, before we dive back into literary theory, parallels, and symbolism, I want to take a step back and just acknowledge “Twin Suns” as a story that stands on its own.

Granted, Rebels is a highly serialized show, but even with Maul and Obi-Wan being “legacy” characters, you don’t need to know the movies or The Clone Wars to understand what’s going on. On the most basic level, you just need to know Rebels in order for the “Twin Suns” story to work. And I think that is significant, especially with all the callbacks and parallels and symbolism.

If you’ll allow me this small librarian metaphor:

A Story is Like a Database

Transcript below the break.

If Jane Austen Wrote The Empire Strikes Back

He dueled him for many a long minute, and then trapping him at the end of a gantry, removed his hand from his wrist. Luke was surprised, but said not a word beyond his cry of pain. After a silence of several minutes, Vader came towards him in an agitated manner, and thus began,

“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to offer you a place at my side to throw down the Emperor and reign over this galaxy.”