May the 4th Be With You!
No Tags
The World According to Star Wars by 
Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling by 
The Mandalorian is a very popular science-fiction show set in the famous Star Wars Universe. Studies have shown that myth and religious thought played a crucial role in the creation of the Star Wars Universe. This article continues that tradition, albeit from a particular perspective that highlights religious language: by viewing The Mandalorian through a New Testament lens, it is argued that while many elements of popular culture reference Biblical or mythological sources, The Mandalorian’s use of these referents illustrates the way in which ancient religious and New Testament literature are still very much a shared phenomenon. Both The Mandalorian and the New Testament share certain timeless topoi: a mysterious character with extraordinary abilities, a connection to life-giving powers of the universe that give extraordinary abilities, choosing a certain way of life and the costs thereof, and also themes such as “debt”, “redemption”, and “beliefs” and how these are challenged. By using these themes, The Mandalorian presents itself as a modern myth.
Here are a few words in praise of Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) of "Star Wars." Leia wasn't just the first great heroine of science fiction and fantasy to capture my imagination. She was one of the first characters I encountered whose power came from her political conviction and acumen. Introduced as the cell prisoner, her damsel in distress mode was the breakout of the 1970s. Instead of being helpless and depending on characters like Han and Luke to save her, her efforts invoked revolutionaries from the women's liberation movement to the political struggles of the disappeared in South America. She was a political icon. Leia's not paralyzed: when her unexpected rescuers show up, she's ready to go, and to gripe about their operational sloppiness. Han and Luke, influenced by Leia's passion, take their places as full participants in the Rebellion: Han overcomes his cynicism while Luke rejects his teacher Yoda's (Frank Oz) monasticism. And Leia, whose primary relationship has been to the political movement she helps lead, finds a partner in Han, acknowledging that personal happiness can help her sustain her commitment to building a better galactic order.
This paper takes as its starting point the contention that media representations of crime and policing, and undercover policing in particular, matter. Through a multimodal critical discourse analysis this paper explores the representations of undercover policing and intelligence operations in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The paper contends that despite its status as science fiction The Clone Wars engages with several of the real-life practices and challenges of undercover policing and intelligence operations. The overall analysis indicates that The Clone Wars projects an important critique of the morally problematic nature of the militarisation of policing and the routinisation of deceptive undercover policing practices. The paper concludes with a reflection on the consequences of this depiction, arguing that for those practitioners who are willing to engage with representations of their craft in popular culture there are valuable practical lessons to be learned from such fictional accounts.
"It's just us now," muttered the evil Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens. Yet viewers heard the voice of the films due to nostalgia amongst ardent fans of the universe. If you were watching, you were one of "us." We find in it another desert planet; another force-using, orphaned protagonist; another Death Star. Information crucial to the fate of seemingly everything is once again hidden inside a droid, planets are destroyed in demonstrations of force, and weird creatures mingle in a bar. Granted pride of place in Disney's great franchise the elderly Lor San Tekka (Max von Sydow) utters the first words of the franchise reboot, 'This will begin to set things right' only to be told by Kylo Ren "look how old you've become." For some Star Wars fans, the length of time spent in the franchise universe indeed stretched beyond the horizon. Kylo might as well have been talking to the viewer. The Force Awakens presents to both viewers and critics who cannot help but wonder and even scoff at its narrative choices, it becomes clear that, if individual Stars Wars films remain available as objects of study, they do so only to the extent that we idealise them and thereby artificially separate them from their particular media ecological niche. Viewers nostalgically invested in these characters, these actors and the specific story in which they appear, may be less willing to move on without familiarity. So when a sharp narrative turn comes in a film such as The Last Jedi -- Rey's parents are actually nobody -- the backlash immediately whips the pole back to its straight and narrow, tried and true nemesis of the third sequel, The Rise of Skywalker, "...somehow Palpatine has returned." No longer will Rey represent the nameless, faceless society that could have fostered the light of the Force; only must she descend from one of the chosen families, lest the viewer's own nostalgia become betrayed by new forces within the universe.