Yes. Padme has a lightsaber. Deal with it!
I love Star Wars. I love it so much that my kid loves it too. My husband loves it. We have more ultrasabers than people living in our house. I made myself a custom Padme pregnant costume to wear to Austin Comic Con this year because that is what you do if you want to cosplay pregnant. I played through KOTOR. I did an actual paper in grad school about the characteristics of the 19th century Romanticism present in Star Wars IV-VI. (Got an A.) Like so many of us, when faced with the excitement and ultimate disappointment of I-III, I admit I am a little reluctant to be what you call “excited”! But I wanted to share what I am thinking and see if any of you are with me.
My first instinct when hearing everywhere today about the title announcement “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was to giggle dispassionately. It has a much better and more “Star Wars” name than “The Phantom Menace” for Yoda’s sake. But it really doesn’t have the exciting tone as the game title “The Force Unleashed”. Unleashed means that shit is about to go down! Awakens is when something blinking-ly comes to life after a long slumber. It feels like something you might see on 90s BBC, in period costume perhaps. (I really liked the Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth.)
And as a Star Trek fan as well, I admit that thinking about Bad Robot and JJ Abrams taking on this project made me very nervous. Here he had already taken something I cherished and turned it into something I didn’t recognize. And isn’t that the real problem? Whether you liked the “rebooted” Star Trek films or not, they were not recognizable as Trek and that is what made so many of us uneasy. In order to enjoy those films, I can’t take it in the context of Star Trek. I know that is hard to do. Frankly, I didn’t want this dude sneaking in and ruining something else I held dear. Especially since George Lucas had also done so in such a grotesque manner. But my spirits were lifted slightly when it was revealed that JJ, unlike Star Trek, actually has a relationship with Star Wars (don’t get gross, we all have one, don’t deny it). I am hopeful that because he appears to love the original trilogy as much as we do, that he will do his best to preserve its dignity. Maybe the adoptive father Star Wars needs.
Don’t get me wrong I am prepared for disappointment, but I am willing to go in with and open mind. Bottom line, I don’t hate the title, and I have high expectations for JJ. So don’t let us down man. Don’t let us down.
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