Ever notice how Star Wars movies come in threes? Of course you have, everyone's noticed that. But have you noticed that, within these groupings, a pretty reliable pattern can be found?
Rule of Three
The cycle goes as follows:
The Set-up
This is the tone-setter of a given trilogy. The most straightforward, whatever that means in its time and context, and it's also, naturally, where much of the series' most lasting iconography is introduced. If there's one thing Star Wars can do right, it's iconography.
A New Hope is a neat little late-70s genre flick, a coming-of-age story and stock-standard Hero's Journey. The Phantom Menace is nakedly a toy commercial, engineered to appeal to little boys whose parents have disposable income and Star Wars nostalgia. The Force Awakens is A New Hope.
The Moody One
So you've hooked an audience, they're excited enough to come see the next entry a couple years later, or maybe they're just curious. Any of these movies can have character deaths, sure, but now it's time to push the boundaries a little, work in a theme or embarrass yourself trying. This is the one that is allowed to take itself more seriously, to elevate the franchise, to get a little dark.
Often, contentious, and certainly impactful for better or for worse. Most often for the better, I think!
The Silly One
Or maybe, "The Climax" (no duh its the last one), "The Show-stealer", or perhaps most accurately, "The Campy One". Take your pick.
Mind you, this is all relatively speaking – This is Star Wars, after all.
I'm talking ewoks hoisting C-3PO on a throne, Leia in a bikini, and lots of hugging. I'm talking a chain-smoking cyborb with four spinning sabers, a Jedi's sorrowful bride dying of a broken heart, and some of the most quotable lines in the series. I don't think I even need to explain how the last of the entry of the last main-line trilogy is relevant here.
This is the note we're ending on, so go out with a bang or not at all.
There's something inherently compelling to me about the way a given Star Wars trilogy closes out. It's so unpredictable, right down to its quality at times being totally inconsistent with the trilogy it's in.
Episode 9 is possibly the worst canon Star Wars movie ever made, whereas Episode 3 is one of the best, despite being grouped in with an otherwise pretty bad set of prequels.
I don't know, that sounds a bit too simplistic
Star Wars is simplistic.
Hm, well, alright, but what about the EU?
Who cares about the EU? Lucasfilm sure doesn't!
I'm kidding. I care about the EU. And so does Lucasfilm, when it comes to TV/streaming series.
Here's the thing – When you think "Star Wars", it seems to me there's a strong chance your mind goes to something to which this pattern applies. Given the series' obsession with its own past, I think this will never not be the case.
As an example: Although I didn't personally watch much of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, an animated series that first aired in 2008, for many people my age this was Star Wars. It is this series' iconography and voice that set these fans' standards for what good Star Wars looks like.
That series didn't come in threes, it was a TV show, but it is tied to distinct points in the cycle, as it takes place between Episodes 2 and 3.
So it all comes back to three. Right? Right.
Just to lay my cards out on the table, before I had the patience for those movies, my formative Star Wars memories were of Lego Star Wars, a video game on the Gamecube console which retells the stories of Episodes 1-6, albeit abridged and acted out by voiceless lego people.
It was pretty cute and fun. This also meant that when I did watch the movies in earnest and paid attention, I couldn't help (and still can't help) but think "Ooohh, this is just like that scene from the lego game! Only... With less physical comedy."
Rule of Two
Speaking of video games...
As you maybe could've guessed if you read or got the gist of my previous blog entry, I've recently finished playing KotoR II, fresh off the heels of the first game.
Knights of the Old Republic I
The first Knights of the Old Republic game is amazing. It's an awesome, fun game with a lot of heart. Its characters are memorable, as are the locations despite dated graphics... And despite me having the settings cranked way down, and no upscale mods installed out of fear of the game crashing again thanks to some bug or another.
The use of color, lighting, and composition come together in such a gorgeous way that sometimes I had to sit there, motionless, allowing myself to enjoy the view. The Upper City of Taris at blue hour, the fresh sea breeze promised by the bright blues of the Unknown World, the quiet dread of stumbling into a white room with no walls.
This is a game that had me immersed and invested enough that when it was over, I banged out a blog post like a man possessed, as if I wouldn't be able to move on 'til I told everyone about this fictional guy that I just spent around thirty hours with.
It really is all about that hero – If indeed he is a hero, in the story you choose to guide him through. It's all about this one digital life, this Jedi, this Sith, this woman, man, loner, lover, saint, shit-head, savior, seducer.
It's an RPG with a nice clean split between the goodie path and the baddie path, and it is satisfying to see it come together.
All the little choices along the way primarily serve to define who this protagonist is. What they value. What their friends, enemies, lovers, and victims will remember about them when they're gone.
"We had never met one like you before, and never since. How can you even ask if I will follow you? Whatever you are fighting, it will be worthy of my skill. I'm your man until the end."
This is what makes it sort of conventional within its genre and medium. It appeals to a gamer's sensibilities and ego, mine included!
That's not to call it shallow, because that's not what I think. KotoR I doesn't lack things to say, but it doesn't sit with its themes or deeper questions all too long, it doesn't demand that you engage with them. There's a gentle forward pressure, an urgency to see the story through to the end.
The themes are there for you, the invested player, to read into, to interpret through the lens of your little hero. A deep reading comes (in my case, anyway) as a byproduct of caring a whole awful lot about the main character's personality, relationships, and inner world.
Or maybe by caring about Star Wars continuity, if that is your cross to bear.
Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
"Let me show you - you who have forever seen the galaxy through the Force. See it through the eyes of the Exile."
KotoR I and KotoR II are like apples and oranges, if by biting into an orange you find yourself pulling the occasional apple-seed out of your mouth. Then, staring down at that seed in your hand, you start to wonder how this chewed up little thing found its way between your teeth.
While the first game had me yammering about the guy I played, I won't do that quite so much here as I reflect on my gameplay experience.
This is in part, honestly, because I was playing yet another adaptation of a character of mine that I have talked about extensively elsewhere on this very site. This isn't quite the time or place for that.
What I will say is that although both games reward playing to type, leaning either dark or light, with KotoR II directly incentivizing it by locking prestige classes behind light/dark ratings, I also felt emotionally rewarded by playing the morality by ear.
I played based on a character in my mind with a certain set of virtues, flaws, and hypocritical tendencies, and waited to see where the game's moral system would take him. I spent much of the game genuinely unsure if he'd be a hero or a villain.
He felt like a ronin. He felt like a cowboy. He slid from grey to dark, from dark to light, from light to grey, then light again, but never a Jedi. Not truly.
KotoR II has a totally different voice to its predecessor, but not one in opposition to it. It's made by different developers, but there is a certain loyalty to the first game and to those who loved it.
Like I said, KotoR I is all about its hero/antihero... And KotoR II knows it. It honors that. Its writers didn't erase that impact, they expanded on it.
As you go through the game, encountering recurring locations and characters, you feel the grief left in their wake, be it a grief born of love, or of unresolved resentment.
The way I felt after growing attached to Canderous of clan Ordo, last and greatest of the Mandalorian warrior clans, this gruff, loyal pitbull of a character... Oh my God! I was living for his stoic, dignified pain, the pain of absence, like there was a gaping wound where his dearest friend used to be.
I'm not too proud to say it, KotoR II had a grown man squeeing at the computer screen.
You see a lot of this, this idea that the severing of a bond doesn't mean it's gone away. It only leaves a wound.
You're told this early on, and reminded of this theme often, especially if the first game is fresh in your mind, or simply by caring enough to bond with these people-shaped lines of code.
I found it in the bloodthirsty assassin droid HK-47, in his resentment and apprehension in having a new master, new hands tinkering with his inner parts, remembering the fondness and loyalty he felt for his creator. I found it in the Blinded One's loneliness and survivor's guilt. Really, it's all over this damn game!
I don't know if I'll say "A broken bond is a wound" is THE theme of the game, although I'm tempted to. It's a big one, but it's one of many. This game is swimming in themes, DROWNING in them.
Loyalty and Betrayal, Fuel and Hunger, Corruption and Renewal, Revenge and Peace, Passion and Duty, Parenthood, Loneliness, Sexual frustration...
Hmm. As a guy who can and does info-dump unprompted about Werewolf: the Apocalypse, I think I'm seeing how this one got its hooks in me.
"His power is great, and it comes from hunger. He is a wound in the Force, more presence than flesh, and in his wake, life dies..."
It can be a lot, but surprisingly, it isn't crowded. It simply deserves a nice, slow approach in places. It can be a little meandering, a little literary, there's an atmosphere to it that invites you to soak in that melancholy for a bit.
I've likened it to Dark Crystal, and to the feeling of taking a walk to your childhood playground, only to find it in disrepair and littered with cigarette butts. As I sit with it, I think I'd also liken it to Adolescence. Late adolescence, a spiritual puberty brought on by nostalgia, regret, trauma, or a renewed understanding of the self.
KotoR II is an odd little game, I can't stress this enough. It's weird in ways that Star Wars can't be, not these days (and I'll get to that eventually).
At times, KotoR feels embarrassed to be constrained to Star Wars – Or is it? Is it possible that I'm only projecting? Maybe that assumption is a byproduct of that boundary-pushing I talked about before, a knee-jerk resistance on my part to this entry's attempts to elevate the setting it has inherited.
In this strange world, with its strange timeline wherein a society and all its institutions and technologies can remain stagnant and strong over several-thousand years, only to crumble to dust in the space of a single generation... It takes guts to take that on while taking it seriously, and it takes a lot of charm to pull it off.
There were times I found myself thinking "I can't wait to play this again", not to collect a bunch of branching endings, but to let its philosophies, its questions, its voice rattle around in my head. To poke at whatever things I found confusing or contradictory or just "off".
I felt very aware that I had a relationship with this text that could only be my own, because there's only one me, and that there were questions raised that each player has to answer for themselves.
"What a difficult passage it is
the passage from night, from day,
from good, from evil,
from silence,
from tumult,
from hatred,
from anger,
from love,
from love."
— Abbas Kiarostami, A Wolf Lying In Wait
Honestly, I think it makes total sense that tons of fans of the original think its sequel doesn't compare, and that tons of fans of the sequel think the original doesn't compare.
That said, let me be clear: If you love one of these games, I think it's in your best interest to give the other a shot. I think it will be good for your soul.
KotoR II is an amazing sequel because it brings something new to the table, it doesn't try to replace it or rehash the previous game or steal its thunder. Each improves the other.
With the bombast of KotoR I fresh in my mind, I felt its echo all throughout KotoR II. And by bringing KotoR II and all its mysteries and themes and dead ends to KotoR I, I feel that it's easy to hear what had been left unsaid.
That can't be all, right?
"Forrest," I hear you thinking, you who have been reading passively without ever tabbing away to Wikipedia. "What was the point of that 'Rule of Three' spiel if you were only going to blather on about a series with just two games? I think you've lost the plot, sir."
Well I have the right to lose the plot! It's my blog! But also, there both is and isn't a KotoR III.
There was a plan at some point in time to develop and release a sequel proper, but as history shook out, this wasn't to be. Instead, in time, an MMO was made.
Let's take it as a given that Star Wars: The Old Republic, or SWTOR, is KotoR III. And after all, why not?
Following the logic I outlined earlier on, I think this more than fulfills the campiness quota in the trilogy. Not necessarily because of the events of the game, but by its very nature.
It's an MMO, and if you're an MMO player, I think you get what I'm getting at. Any Star Wars game where you might encounter a gender-bent Darth Maul selling sexual favors is about as far from "conventional Star Wars" as you're gonna get.
I haven't played very much of SWTOR. Not far beyond character creation anyway.
A couple years back a pal of mine bought me one of the cash-shop races, a race of lion-like humanoids called Cathar, to entice me to play it with him, and I am ultimately glad to have an uncanny cat-man doll-maker on hand because of that.
I bounced off of it, and by now I've imprinted on a different MMO. I don't think I have it in me to jump into a new one, even just to check out its single-player story.
It's hard to be into two MMOs at once, man. The only people I see do that are those poor souls who have Stockholm Syndrome for World of Warcraft. If you are one such person, I see you, I hear you, I'll pray for your health and recovery.
When it comes down to it, I love KotoR, but I'm not invested enough in Star Wars as a brand to jump in because of a shared setting.
What is a Star Wars fan, really?
Here's the thing – Star Wars is great, but it isn't all that good.
Wait, let me try to rephrase that...
Star Wars is not a franchise which deserves anyone's unconditional love. This applies to both Legends and Canon.
What are Legends and Canon? If you're honestly asking that, I'll have to assume you're not much into Star Wars beyond the Disney-Canon, and neither are any of your friends, which makes me wonder why you're reading this blog entry. But I won't complain. Hello!
You can find the history of this split in the Star Wars Expanded Universe documented more neatly elsewhere online, so to keep it brief: Not long after Disney bought Star Wars, they looked at this thing they had acquired and said... "Christ, what a mess."
Much of the EU, that being Star Wars novels, comics, and yes, video games, grew too expansive to really be considered one continuity, one unified, internally consistent world.
They didn't really have to be, who cares? It would've been like demanding all fanfiction of a given series follow a common continuity.
Even if you're a fan of Star Wars, I doubt you're a fan of all Star Wars. There's just too much of it. You'd have to have unlimited free time, and questionable taste.
The Walt Disney Company is very committed to "brand integrity".
Now there's a funny word, integrity.
In the context of Disney, its goals, its incentives, the push for integrity meant they needed Star Wars to be nice and clean, they needed to trim out the manic creativity and tastelessness of much of the EU. Star Wars, the brand, needed to be like a sterile fluid wherein its world lies still and suspended. Bloodless, wishy-washy, and unable to reckon with its own flaws, its racist tendencies, its dull, circular self-obsession.
The great splintering of Legends and Canon (or to put it another way, "what was thrown away" and "what was kept") was, I think, not an unexpected thing or a drastic thing. I think it's kinda just sad in a way. It's sad because it reveals how suited Star Wars already was to Disney parks, to the Marvel mill, and to Baby Yoda Funko Pops.
I guess, I find that term "brand integrity" kinda ironic, and that's why it irks me. Where is the integrity? Does that word mean anything?
I had a good time watching Rise of the Skywalker – I was pretty stoned, it was a nice evening out with loved ones in the Christmas-time – but are you going to tell me it had integrity?
In my estimation, the people who feel the most resentment toward Star Wars are the people who built up, or continue to build up high hopes for it. Hopes that as a franchise, it might care to make good, thoughtful art.
I get a real kick out of Star Wars. When it's good, it's really good. And mind you, I didn't like it much as a kid, and I'm more of a Trekkie at the end of the day, so this isn't me compulsively going along with Star Wars out of an unthinking nostalgia.
I think this world and its tone are so weird, so fun. It's often beautiful.
I love fantasy and samurai swords and fuzzy puppets creeping around in swamps. I love the desert sky over the Valley of the Dark Lords, I love its lonely tombs. And man, I love forbidden love.
I care a lot about interesting art, and that can even include the repetition, the cyclical nature of Star Wars, when its used in a fun way.
Don't think I'm here to say "Star Wars was good until 2014, then it became slop for pigs." I've just grown frustrated with and disinterested in Disney's MO with this property. The truth is, I think that the strength of Star Wars lies in the passion and creativity of those who love it most, whether those people are official screenwriters, or hobby-artists with Twi'lek OCs.
I hope I didn't sound too dismissive of SWTOR earlier. The type of Star Wars it is, that which is wild, creative, and contradictory, is the sort of Star Wars I feel most compelled to defend, to at the very least see as interesting pieces of history and expressions of those who brought them to life.
So many cool original characters were born in that game's character creator and in the chatlogs of roleplayers.
Even though I'm not involved in that world, I see them around sometimes online, I'll even seek them out now and then. Character sheets that are so identifiably Star Wars, with that fun Legends-y flavor. Strong archetypes, rich colors, torrid melodrama squeezed tight into a hard-to-read blurb. That is Star Wars. Pure, distilled Star Wars.
I've gone on far too long, so I guess I'll close out thusly:
If you're hungry for good Star Wars, for good art, play KotoR and really let yourself lean into the immersion to give it its best shot at reaching you.
Draw your original Star Wars character even if you think it's crummy – I'll probably think it's cute.
& of course,
Live long and prosper ☺