lazypadawan: (Default)
lazypadawan ([personal profile] lazypadawan) wrote2004-03-09 07:47 pm

(no subject)

The SW Insider/fan club is changing ownership...again.  I heard about another unnamed gaming magzine buying it out last weekend but I hoped it was false. According to a cryptic message up at paizo.com, it looks like the story is true. 

The only indication I had that something might be up was Mary Franklin leaving the fan club a couple of months ago to work as events coordinator for Lucasfilm. She had this position before she went to work for Paizo.  My first assumption was that she went back to Lucasfilm because of Celebration III.  Well, I guess there was more to it than that.

I don't know the whole story yet, but as a humble consumer, this is annoying to the nth degree.  Back when the Official SW Fan Club was run by Lucasfilm
directly, we didn't have this presto-change-o nonsense.  They ran the club from 1978 through 1987.  Fantastic Media ran the LFL Fan Club from 1988 until it became the SW Fan Club in 1994.  They held onto it until 2000.  In four years, it has gone from Fantastic Media to Wizards of the Coast to Paizo to God knows what.  It disrupts subscriptions, publication schedules, etc..  All this while the engine is hot, so to speak.  I don't know why publishers can't hold on to the Insider for more than a couple of years.  I ran one zine by myself for 7 years and co-published/co-edited another for almost 8 years.  While in school and working!  How about a little stability, guys?

The second part of Lard Biscuit's essay on AOTC went up yesterday.  Go check it out at http://www.lardbiscuit.com if you haven't done so already.

Once again, I'm impressed with this guy's insights.  A lot of it is stuff I've been saying and what other perceptive fans have been saying for almost two years.  But he manages to bring up points I'd never considered before.  For instance, I never gave much thought to the idea that the reason why Anakin chooses to go off and find his mother is because Padme closes off the
possibility of a relationship. Or that saving Shmi from slavery would have denied her the happiness she found with Cliegg.

There are a couple of things I didn't exactly agree with; I think he uses
"genocide" a little too loosely in regards to the Tuskens and while it's true Padme is accepting of Anakin's flaws, I don't think it enables him to fall to the dark side.  I think he *needed* someone who accepts him for who he is, flaws and all, instead of what he can do for other people or fulfilling others' expectations.  The only other characters who accept him unconditionally are Shmi (deceased) and Luke, who saves him.  Granted, Eppy III might alter some of my perceptions, but I'd like to think I'm right 98.9% of the time :).

[identity profile] ladyaeryn.livejournal.com 2004-03-09 08:19 pm (UTC)(link)
the idea that the reason why Anakin chooses to go off and find his mother is because Padme closes off the possibility of a relationship.

That didn't occur to me until recently, either. It makes sense: we know the dreams have been plaguing him for a while. They apparently *don't* plague him when he's happy with Padme. When he gives up on being with her, that's no longer a source of light for him, so the nightmares return in full force. It's hardly a coincidence that the night she rejects him is the same night those dreams return.

Ugh. Not more "enabler" stuff. What was she supposed to do, slap him there in the garage and go 'snap out of it, dipwad!"? That would hardly have helped the situation then at all. (Yes, she does essentially do that later on, but not when he's an absolute wreck of a person.) If she hadn't accepted him and comforted him there, who knows what Anakin might have done in the anger he was feeling then?

[identity profile] lazypadawan.livejournal.com 2004-03-10 05:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Exactly. He might have become Darth Vader sooner and there would have been no Luke or Leia.
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[identity profile] lazypadawan.livejournal.com 2004-03-12 05:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Sure! This is definitely a SW saga-friendly journal!