The light will fade, but is never forgotten

Star Wars fan and Rick Riordan bookworm.

[seleneisrising]

Both of the times that Sabine took up a lightsaber, it was in the context of accepting a mission to lead.

[seleneisrising]

#i like to view it as the two callings - one she rejected and one she accepted#she only trained with the#darksaber#for her own safety and by her own admission it was heavy and hard to use (at least at first)#but the emerald lightsaber#our lightsaber#was always easy for her to use#even before she trained#and I think it’s rather symbolic that she uses the emerald sword to defeat the darksaber solidifying her choice even then#Sabine realizes during the#mandalore arc#that she is too far divorced from Mandalorians to lead them#that her ideals and goals and methods no longer strictly align with them#because of her#weapon and time at the imperial academy#her experience in the rebellion and in the wider galaxy#and her association with jedi#all of which help her realize that a free Mandalore is not a fight she can or wants to lead#and that there is someone else who is meant to do that#but when Ezra gives her his lightsaber#and entrusts not only the completion of the Lothal mission#but also his life to her#this mission is one that is uniquely suited to her#one that ONLY SHE can do#and it perfectly embodies all of Sabine's unique qualities#warrior artist weapons expert rebel Jedi-trained#and so she chooses life and defense instead of rebellion and death#she chooses loyalty and faith

Sabine never chose Mandalore.

I really like that she chose Lothal. Instead.

I think it's often forgotten or overlooked that Lothal should've been the story of "Sabine, In-Between". We won't ever see it because it's too quiet to be a Star War (and it looks like it was dropped from canon anyway), but it was important to Rebels!Sabine's character. All of her experiences up through the Rebels time period prepared her for it (for routing out Imperial remnants and setting up Rebel bases and commanding defenses and for living on Lothal), and it would've been during this time that she finished growing up and became an independent adult. A Leader. A Protector. On Lothal, she could've built something that she was proud of, the opposite of the Duchess.

"Sabine, In-Between" was the Starbird/Lothal being reborn. Together.

This was also what would've prepared her for her next adventure, her Star Wars story, Finding Ezra.

Seeing the Lothal story as it lead into the Epilogue would’ve perhaps satisfied those who felt like she deserved more after the Mandalore arc, those who wished she would’ve lead the Mandalorians.

But Sabine’s Star Wars story was not set up for her to lead her people or to return to them.

Every time she had the opportunity to choose Mandalore, she didn't.

The Rebellion was her choice. Lothal was her choice.

Ezra was her choice.

By the end of Rebels, Sabine's armor tied her more closely to her family - to both of her families - than to Mandalore and its people, and the Epilogue gave no indication that Sabine had any ties left to Mandalore outside of the armor that she wore.

And with all of this time spent away from Mandalore and its people (both in Defending Lothal and in Finding Ezra), it's hard for me to believe that she ever was or is meant to become the Mand'alor.

Rebels!Sabine's story makes sense up through the Epilogue, and I'm always gonna love the subversiveness of a Mandalorian warrior staying to defend and rebuild an agrarian, Outer Rim planet instead of fighting a war she helped start or accepting a call to leadership that she never felt was hers. I'm always gonna love that she was a Mandalorian who embraced Jedi ideals but who also recognized that the Mandalorians weren't ready for that, that it was just one more thing that made her “other” among them, and that that was ok. I'm always gonna love the potential of her second story because in it Sabine was starting out at the culmination of all of her experiences, not out of her lowest places, and there was so much hope and excitement for her, ever the Unconventional Mandalorian, to do something new as she began her own Star Wars hero journey.

[rebelscum218]

Found this again after reading your recent post about Firebird. I loved how you described Lothal as a cause she willingly chose and that this is what her journey in Rebels prepared her for, and framing it in direct contrast with creating the Duchess: that she was able to to create something good and meaningful on her own terms this time, and that it would be the completion of the Starbird reborn journey. Love this idea!

[rebelscum218]

One thing that bothers me more and more in recent Star Wars stories is the oversimplification of its characters into neat little boxes where they are portrayed in a more palatable or marketable way. And what happens is that it either strips them down to just one facet of who they are, or in some cases, rids them of their originality entirely. So let's talk about some of these cases.

Ahsoka Tano

This is the character that I think suffers the most from this kind of treatment, and there are a number of things that the writers had imposed on her that made her into either copies of other characters, or reduces her into just one role in the story. And one of those things is the comparison to Gandalf.

It began during her appearance in Rebels, when she starts investigating about Darth Vader after the Season 2 premiere, which you can say is similar to Gandalf searching for information in the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring. Ahsoka even directly quotes a line from him.

And while it's a nice little nod to that story and I'm fine with the occasional reference, I do think that the idea of Ahsoka assuming a Gandalf-like role has gone too far afterwards, when her own character arc starts to get mapped out to resemble Gandalf's, and her appearance also fashioned to look like him.

(Honestly, I was always weirded out by this scene. I know it's supposed to be an emotional moment, realizing she lived through the OT all along, but it feels off to me for some reason, like seeing someone wear another person's clothes.)

Although the idea has a certain appeal to it among fans, I would say it does more harm to Ahsoka's character than good. Aside from making the story beats predictable, since we know already how Gandalf's story goes, it imposes another set of standards on her portrayal that is not authentic to her character, which in my opinion, is deeply unfair to Ahsoka as it undermines her existing story and personality in favor of a self-indulgent trope.

While I do understand the idea of giving Ahsoka a journey from grief and trauma towards enlightenment after Twilight of the Apprentice, there was no actual need to have it presented in a Gandalf package, and I would say that by using it as a means to further Ahsoka's story doesn't work. The thing is that by following the formula for Gandalf's story (climatic fight, disappearance and transformation) together with the fact that Ahsoka cannot be present during the original trilogy, and that the Ahsoka show, where her story gets continued, is set during the Mandoverse timeline, the disappearance part has to be drawn out of proportion. This leaves us with the current version of the character where she has been carrying trauma and has not moved on emotionally for more than ten years in-universe. As a result, more issues have emerged that has to be addressed like where she has been, what has she been up to, why hasn't she moved on, what made her come back into the fight etc, which the Ahsoka show did not answer anyway. This leaves an unnecessary gap in her story that could have been avoided if not for the insistence of replicating Gandalf's story.

Another problem is that in Lord of the Rings, Gandalf functions as a guide, someone that kick-starts the heroes' journey and helps them along the way, which is an important role but not a central one. He is there to advise, to deliver messages, and provide what the characters needed and point them in the direction they needed to go. Because of that, there was no need for him to go through as much character work as the main heroes like Frodo, Sam or Aragorn. He could be written out of the story for a period of time, so the heroes will have to continue with their own resources and rely on their own courage and resilience, then return later with a sudden transformation to reinforce the cast at the turn of the tide, which is what happened in LOTR.

But by applying this in the Ahsoka show, where she is in fact the title character, it robs her of the series-long development that main characters should have in stories. A main character needs time and space to grow and overcome and make choices and be fleshed out, not just be transformed in the span of one episode. And a series such as Ahsoka with themes of overcoming grief and letting go of hurt and fear needs to be given the emotional payoff of a series-long journey, but the fixation on Gandalf only allowed one outcome for the story to be told.

And one more thing: no matter how good the writers are able to further Ahsoka's story with this added element, Ahsoka will never be as good of a Gandalf than Gandalf himself anyway. The story is already told once, and any copy of it will never be as impactful as the original with that specific setting, in that fantasy world with those specific characters and circumstances. Fans fell in love with and wanted to see more of Ahsoka precisely because she's Ahsoka, not because she's Gandalf. Which then begs the question: why does Ahsoka have to (try to) be someone else in order for her to be cool or relevant? Why have her be a second-rate Gandalf when she is already a first-rate Ahsoka Tano? Why should Ahsoka's greatness be measured by how well she could be fitted into another mold and conformed to another character's standards? Perhaps these should be the real questions that needed answering.

The second issue with Ahsoka's portrayal is the stoic samurai vibe and the Kurosawa-inspired fight scenes that appear in almost every fight as her only fighting style in recent stories. There is already a great post that talks about it, so I won't be saying much here. My opinion is basically the same as the Gandalf comparison. Besides diluting the suspense and emotional impact of the Kurosawa standoff, it creates a foreign image of Ahsoka that is not only too performative, but is also previously not seen in her personality or her training as a fighter, and it's done more as a film making homage rather than something that serves the character, and that we now have two foreign elements that stood in place for Ahsoka's authenticity and uniqueness.

Now that I have talked about the things that made Ahsoka unoriginal, let's get to the final and arguably, the most (or at least equally) damaging constraint to her character, and that is confining her into just 'Anakin Skywalker's padawan'.

Ahsoka being Anakin's student is one of her most defining roles: it is the core relationship in Clone Wars, and it is established since her introduction in 2008. And the problem is not that it keeps being brought back up and featured in recent stories, but that it is written as the single pillar that builds up who she is as a character. Yes, her relationship with Anakin is a hugely important part, but it is just one facet among so many other interesting things about her. Giving too much credit to Anakin for Ahsoka's accomplishments makes Ahsoka's overall strength as a character overly dependent on him, and her story in Clone Wars directly contradicts it.

In Clone Wars, there are multiple story arcs where Ahsoka learns to grow apart and be independent of Anakin, to solve problems and take the lead without his guidance. Whether it's prioritizing the needs of the group over her worry and fear in moments of crisis:

Or learning to pull herself up after a reckless mistake and devastating defeat, trusting herself in a position of command:

Learning to trust herself and her instincts:

Guiding the younger generation:

Inspiring others to fight for themselves:

And continuing to choose to help people even without the structure of a Jedi life:

Side note: I really liked how the Martez sisters both symbolize different things to Ahsoka. Trace as a mirror of Ahsoka's younger self: reckless, idealistic, wanting to prove herself and be seen and recognized, which gave Ahsoka a chance to befriend and guide someone similar on her path, which I think was healing for her and her past self, who was forced to grow up fast; while Rafa represents a possible version of Ahsoka if she went down the path of survival: a bit cynical, wary and controlling, making deals with criminals and compromising on your morals, which is something that Ahsoka rejects. And it gave her perspective about herself and who she is: at her core, even away from the Jedi, she will always do her best to help people, and even though the whole Wrong Jedi situation shattered her trust in herself, it did not undo all the growth she went through.

The point is that Ahsoka's strength as a character comes from being able to stand on her own, trusting herself to take charge, able to persevere through failure and hardship, being compassionate, patient and humble, being good with children, and remaining steadfast even in desperate times. This is the character we were given. She was never just defined by being Anakin's Padawan, and she has multiple identities developing along the way: as an experienced fighter and battlefield commander, a wise and responsible leader, a loyal friend, a good teacher and more. And the recent additions to her story diminishes all of that by centering her around Anakin Skywalker and featuring nothing else.

From the extra training she got that explains why she survived Order 66:

To Anakin modifying Ahsoka's lightsabers, so that it carries extra emotional weight when he finds one of them in the shipwreck, making the moment all about Anakin and his closeness to Ahsoka:

The decision to have Ahsoka's issues be just about Anakin's fall to the dark side (or at least prioritizing it), and not focus on something more personal for her, like her place in the galaxy, where her sense of belonging or source of strength lies (aka anything that reinforces Ahsoka's strength as a character):

(This, I think, goes hand-in-hand with the Gandalf situation because it's being used as the in-universe reason for her not being able to move on for so long. Since she has to disappear for a period of time, then the encounter on Malachor has to affect her so much and the relationship with Anakin has to be defined as so important to her that she spent all this time closed off and still devastated by it.)

Anakin being the one who transforms her into her enlightened state:

(And even then, the scenes were more like a showcase of Hayden Christensen and a live-action Clone Wars buffet rather than doing anything to meaningfully resolve Ahsoka's issues.)

Anakin having a bunch of lightsaber training recordings specifically for Ahsoka, crediting her prowess as a fighter to him:

By having Ahsoka's decisions and growth, insecurities and achievements to be all given by Anakin, it writes her into a corner story-wise because her character would be entirely dependent on him. And in-universe, the idea that Ahsoka is predictable because she was molded by Anakin would actually be a good flaw for her to overcome, and Thrawn did succeed in predicting her moves because of his knowledge of Anakin Skywalker.

But I don't think the story was ever going to treat it as something to grow beyond, seeing as how Ahsoka reached the conclusion that Anakin was a good master, and that she pardoned Sabine's actions because it's what Anakin would have done for her.

All of this creates the illusion that Anakin is Ahsoka's sole influential figure in her life, essentially erasing her own agency and independence, as well as all the other qualities that made her unique. Fitting her forever into the mold of 'Anakin's student' backtracks her existing journey of growing into her own, and if the writing cannot move past that, it will continue to be something that hinders her full storytelling potential.

(Part 2 featuring Cad Bane, Sabine Wren, Din Djarin and maybe more.)

[rebelscum218]

First time doing a video for Velcinta, and it took me way longer than it should. The fact that I finished it during Pride Month was a pure coincidence (insert 'a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one' meme). Anyway, enjoy the video!

[horatio-fig]

I firmly believe that when Trace dumped the Spice when they were traveling through hyperspace, at least one Purrgil ended up off its fucking face and went on a cocaine bear style rampage.

[dexterthewolf]

An Over-Analysis of Maul and Obi-Wan final fight in Rebels S3

Because I've been thinking both Obi-Wan and Maul thoughts today, here you go

It is Star Wars Rebels - Twin Suns (3x20) Obi-Wan has grown exponentially since Episode I. Maul hasn't.

As Sam Witwer describes in this interview, we can tell this through the positions Obi-Wan takes before the fight begins. This is such a masterclass in visual storytelling, it makes me giddy.

But, before we even get to the duel, let's go from the beginning.

The scene begins with Maul addressing Obi-Wan's losses. He views Obi-Wan how we did in Episode 1 of Kenobi (TV) -- "Ah, look what has become of you. A rat in the desert."

But, when Maul says this, through this entire line, the camera remains entirely fixed on him. Zoomed right into his face. We, the audience, don't see what Maul is talking about, we don't see Obi-Wan as a rat, or Obi-Wan in general, at all! The only rat in the desert that we can see, is Maul.

Also this line is the crux of the fight -- Maul thinks Obi-Wan has lost his way. He judges a book by its cover. He thinks Obi-Wan is just a rat in the desert. And, hey, if he had arrived only 7 years earlier, that is who he would have been greeted with. But this isn't Ewan McGregor, it's Alec Guinness. Maul underestimates Obi-Wan again and for the last time.

Obi-Wan returns the banter by viewing his transformation differently: "Look what I have risen above"

We know that he is talking about becoming a Sith. He has risen above 'debasing himself' by turning to the Dark Side like Maul (and Anakin) did. This is Obi-Wan overcoming his losses. He has forgiven his past actions. He has accepted who he is. He's not going to lower himself to petty fighting anymore, like he and Maul used to do back in TCW. And, in Maul's competitive little petty brain, this is Obi-Wan directly placing himself above Maul. Implicitly, Obi-Wan gives himself the upper-hand

Also, when Maul is talking about rat in the desert, Maul takes up the left side of the screen when he talks, zoomed right in - we can barely see his tatty clothes. When Obi-Wan says his line about having risen above, Obi-Wan is the only character on the screen and takes the right-side. We get a view of his chest, wearing his Jedi robes.

This camera work tells us a few things:

By having Maul on the left and Obi-Wan on the right, they are diametrically opposing one another. They are entirely different and are facing off

Maul is so zoomed in, we don't see the tip of his horns or his chest. Alternatively, Obi-Wan has ample space above his head and below it. This makes us better able to feel Maul's mental state over Obi-Wan's - Maul seems closer, crazier, more desperate, where Obi-Wan seems calm

Similar to 2 but it is a thing amongst actors to want to be on the left side of the screen. Because your eyes go from left to right (like when you read), you look at the person on the left side first. The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl movie commentary discuss this when talking about Captain Barbossa's actor Isaac always wanting to be on the left so people look at him instead of Elizabeth Swan (Keira Knightley) or Jack the Monkey (timestamp: 39:47-40:17). By having Maul on the left and Obi-Wan on the right, your eye takes longer to find Obi-Wan. Through the distance, he seems more detached and composed than Maul does

The camera pans out. Now we view the pair around the campfire in the middle of the Tatooine desert, back where they first met in The Phantom Menace.

Maul is the first to start circling the fire, Obi-Wan follows suit. Maul is waving his unlit lightsaber around as he walks and talks without any respect

Maul then shows that he has not changed at all: "I have come to kill you but perhaps it's worse to leave you here, festering in your squalor."

Remember Rebels Season 3? Maul has fought for so long to figure out where Obi-Wan is. Him claiming that he's going to leave Obi-Wan here is utter garbage. He is just trying to mock him.

Maul still defines himself by what he has, not who he is. Maul still thinks the world owes him for his suffering. He projects this onto Obi-Wan, viewing his state as a failure despite Obi-Wan not seeing it as such. He also lays out his plan to kill Obi-Wan, presumably for revenge, just like he did 20 years ago. Nothing has changed. Maul is still the same man, consumed by anger and self-pity

Maul pauses as he finishes his line. But the camera keeps turning as Obi-Wan keeps moving, as if he is controlling it. He remains stable, whereas Maul stops and starts

Obi-Wan still does not lower himself to insult him back, which makes Maul look even more petulant. He calmly tells Maul something he knows will ruin Maul's day "If you define yourself by your power to take life, your desire to dominate, to possess, then you have nothing."

Maul stutters to a stop at his words. The camera zooms, closer than ever before, to catch his eyes narrow and his teeth bare. It seems, the closer we are to Maul, the more furious he is

The line angers Maul (most likely) because it has a substantial amount of truth to it. And because Maul has had a whole lot of nothing for a very long time. Obi-Wan knew how to hit where it hurt

The camera flicks to his hand as he pulls out his lightsaber. We then get a view of his upper torso as he strikes the ground. Then we cut to the campfire, which he has just blown out (rude).

As he does this, he angrily demands, "And what do you have?"

He says this right as he destroys something that Obi-Wan does have - the fire. It seems, no matter how much or how little Obi-Wan possesses, Maul will always endeavour to take it from him.

And, despite destroying this symbol of everything Obi-Wan physically has, Obi-Wan barely flinches. The camera is closer to Obi-Wan's face as we get a reaction shot of his lips thinning. This seems like a small change on the outside but, as we know from our previous experience in camera work - up-close = more emotional. Tension is rising.

Maul does this because he is hurt from Obi-Wan reading him so well. Now that Maul is 'back', he has tried to fall into old patterns like taking on apprentices and now he has come to restart the cat-and-mouse game with Kenobi that kept him satiated for all these years. But Ezra brutally rejected him and is now actively trying to stop him and Obi-Wan isn't playing

Also because, whatever weird relationship the two of them have had for the last 20 years, it has always been competitive. In TCW, Maul sees Obi-Wan thriving and he is furious and wants to completely destroy him. But now that Maul sees Obi-Wan losing and he is not gleeful. Perhaps partly because the game isn't fun if Obi-Wan has been overcome by someone else instead of him. But also because he is confused. Why would Obi-Wan place himself on this awful planet in these awful conditions?

We pan out to view the two of them standing across from each other. They have switched positions now - Obi-Wan on the left as he gets more worried, Maul on the right as he calms.

When we return to Maul, it is more zoomed out. He is calming down but his lightsaber is still on and the red is lighting up his face.

While Maul calms himself, he seems more confused than angry. He asks: "Why have you come to this place?"

When the camera pans back to Obi-Wan, the switch becomes even more obvious. We had an excessive amount of negative space around Maul and can see his entire upper torso, essentially. But now, for Obi-Wan, it is only a shoulders-and-up shot.

And Obi-Wan is frowning more and more. He is growing wary and protective. The camerawork reflects this anxiety. He knows Maul will figure it out. He is coming to terms with the fact that, when Maul figures it out, Maul has to die. For Luke, he would do anything.

And Maul is not an idiot. He and Obi-Wan have been playing this game for too long. They know each other too well. Obi-Wan knew exactly how to hit Maul where it hurts, Maul knows Obi-Wan well enough to read him like a book. "Not simply to hide. You have a purpose here."

The camera cuts to Maul. He leans forward to emphasise his words, like purpose, which make him seem even more deranged. The way he is holding his lightsaber low makes him look hunched over.

Maul is studying him closely, watching his face. He takes Obi-Wan's facial expression as what they are- admissions of the truth. Maul is getting close. So he continues, happy to have the upper hand. He leers: "Perhaps you are protecting something."

The camera cuts back to Obi-Wan at this. His eyes grow wide, presumably at "protecting" because Maul is so close. And Maul reads him easily.

Maul almost smiles because he has figured it out. As Maul gets there, the camera is zoomed right into his maniacal expression. "No. Protecting someone."

Back to Obi-Wan, right zoomed into his face, and, immediately, Obi-Wan activates his lightsaber. No hesitation. The camera lingers on his furious expression as it is now aglow with the blue light emitting from his saber. I think the fact that we don't see him actually light the saber shows how immediate this action is - it makes it seem like there isn't a process, he just lights it immediately

Obi-Wan is a Jedi. Obi-Wan is a warrior, even after all this time. Obi-Wan will do anything to ensure Luke is safe. For him, for the legacy of the Jedi, for Anakin and Padme's memories, and for the galaxy as a whole. Nothing takes precedent, not even his 20-year-situationship.

Maul dies today.

The camera pans out and we see Obi-Wan holding his lightsaber in front of him, directly mirroring Maul. He is standing in the classic Alec Guinness position From what I can tell, this seems to be Shii-Cho (Form I) middle guard

Then, quickly, Obi-Wan turned his lightsaber and he enters the classic Ewan McGregor position From what I can tell, this seems to just be the opening stance to Soresu (Form III)

Interestingly, it was after Qui-Gon lost the duel to Maul that Obi-Wan picked up Soresu. Qui-Gon used Ataru (Form IV) as did Obi-Wan during The Phantom Menace. The main issue with Ataru is that it is not a defensive form. To correct this, Obi-Wan uses the defensive form after this point - Soresu. That's why he's flipping and spinning and so fast in TPM but not as much after. This is Obi-Wan's key position during the Clone Wars.

The camera pans back to Maul, on the right, facing him off. He bears his lightsaber.

We pan out to see them both facing each other off once again. Now that Maul has taken Obi-Wan's position on the right, we recognise that their roles have changed. Now Obi-Wan is the aggressor because he will not let Maul leave with his knowledge of Luke.

While Obi-Wan stays still, Maul keeps spinning his lightsaber. Just like 30 years ago on Naboo, He seems to be the exact same guy from TPM.

We're back to Obi-Wan, who furrows his eyebrows.

Now Maul, who bares his teeth. He takes position in Juyo's opening stance (except with both hands on the lightsaber), with the lightsaber high (very aggressive!)

Maul uses Form VII, Juyo. This form is known as the Sith form and is unpopular with Jedi. It is bold, erratic, and focused on offense. It can be weak when fending off multiple attackers, which is why Maul had to split Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. It was his high skill that defeated Qui-Gon, and it was his underestimation and arrogance that caused him to lose to Obi-Wan the first time.

Notably, Juyo can only be at its best when its users are exciting. Moves have to be spur of the movement. They have to be new and different and, most importantly, passionate.

In TPM, Maul's opening stance tended to be the lightsaber placed horizontally and down low in front of him. He was cool then, he was collected, it wasn't personal. But now it is.

The view returns to Obi-Wan, who changes stances.

As Sam Witwer says, this is his thought process:

"(When taking his Soresu stance) he turns into Ewan McGregor for a second and then takes a breath and goes, 'oh, no, no, no, that was the mistake. That's the guy that fought in the war. We learned that was not the way to go. Mistakes were made back then. I'm actually Ben Kenobi'."

Then he takes back Alec Guinness's position and centres himself, not allowing himself to fall back into his old patterns.

Then, slowly, he moves his saber to his right and takes on the Ataru opening stance.

This is the stance he took when he first fought and defeated Maul in The Phantom Menace.

This was Qui-Gon's stance.

This was Anakin's stance.

Ataru holds a lot of weight for Obi-Wan.

But Maul is blinded by seeing Qui-Gon's old stance.

When the camera pans back, his eyes widen slightly at the realisation, then narrow. The squinting both makes him seem angrier and less able to see.

He thinks he knows how this one goes. He forgets the first rule of Juyo. He forgets that Obi-Wan isn't just a desert rat. He underestimates him for the last time.

He readies himself. He flexes his hands on his lightsaber. He bends his knees in preparation.

Then back to Obi-Wan, hands flexing, brows furrowing. The camera is slowly zooming in.

Then Maul, right into his eyes, closer than ever.

Then Obi-Wan, focused on his face.

Aw, shit, the audience is thinking. Oh, yeah. Maul and Kenobi, Duel of the Fates Round 2.

Maul makes the first move. He lunges, spins to gather up speed, then goes for it.

Obi-Wan is ready.

Maul tries to go high - Obi-Wan blocks him. Their lightsabers clash and they are face to face.

Maul tries to go low - Obi-Wan blocks him. Maul's on his knees whereas Obi-Wan is standing.

Maul tries to stand back up but, well, Obi-Wan has the high ground.

He slashes through the air.

There is a moment where neither of them move.

We zoom into Obi-Wan's face, now alight with the red from Maul's lightsaber. His positioning in the shot is high and he is still.

We cut to Maul's face, lower down, seemingly still bent in the crouch. His teeth are bared but his face slowly falls. His eyes lower, then widen. He realises what has just happened. We see genuine fear and panic on his face as it hits him.

The camera pans out and we see Obi-Wan standing slightly over Maul's hunched over position, Obi-Wan's lightsaber is low.

Maul's arms slowly move and so do his lightsaber as they break into two pieces. Obi-Wan's cut broke them in half. The slash is sparking.

This symbol of violence and oppression. Very similar to the double-sided lightsaber that killed Qui-Gon. Darth Maul's iconic weapon. Now broken in two.

He lowers his new pair of lightsabers to the ground. They go out - seemingly with Maul's fighting spirit

In TPM, Obi-Wan wins through emotion and aggression, but he does not succeed and Maul survives. In Rebels, Obi-Wan wins through restraint and composure, and he finally succeeds in defeating him.

He lands on one knee as Obi-Wan's lightsaber goes out too. The audience may only now realise what happened - Obi-Wan didn't just cut Maul but also killed him. The suspense makes the moment where he falls over all the more shocking

Despite not having a prolonged fight like Duel of the Fates, which seemed to be what all the gearing up was going towards, the tension in the moment is astronomical.

But before he can collapse, Obi-Wan catches him and cradles him in his arms. The position is familiar to what Obi-Wan has done before - to Qui-Gon, to Satine, as Obi-Wan lets go of the last part of himself he needs to, his warring spirit.

The camera has remained in the same position since panning out so the audience can soak in the shot, completely bare for us to see. They are positioned in the middle of the screen, right at the centre. Nothing fancy, nothing crazy, just the death of Darth Maul

Obi-Wan looks down at Maul. The camera zooms into his face as the two are extremely close.

Neither of them say a word as Obi-Wan soaks it in. He seems to be mourning as he studies Maul, steadfast. When we flick back to Maul, he is looking around hazily and gasping for breath.

It's sad. After everything Maul has done, after all that he is, the audience genuinely mourns his death.

He leans in, closer to the camera. Finally, he says - "Tell me".

The camera zooms out and we can see him lean up into Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan's expression unchanging. He raises his arm, either to gesture or to grab Kenobi, it isn't clear. "Is it the Chosen One?"

We zoom into Obi-Wan's face as he seems to be deciding what to say. Then we're back to the shot of Obi-Wan holding Maul in his arms. He's dying, the camerawork seems to say, what harm can he do now? Give him comfort in his final moments.

We zoom back into Obi-Wan's face as he admits it - "He is."

When we cut back to Maul, he doesn't respond. He seems to be considering it. Or maybe he's grasping for words to say, out of reach, as he is dying.

And Maul says his final words:

"He will avenge us."

He is slow to say it, seemingly struggling for strength and the effort it takes to say the words. The beats between them are long and stretched out.

By the end of the line, his face has contorted with anger. So much anger. It's so old and has lasted for so long. It's all Maul knows.

But he says us. Him and Obi-Wan, together. He recognises that Obi-Wan was also a victim of Maul. And us isn't just him and Kenobi, but every single person that has suffered at the hands of Sidious. Like Savage, or Ezra, or Ahsoka, or Qui-Gon, and so many others. They will all get their revenge when Sidious falls.

Maul dies, still consumed with getting what he is owed and getting even and getting his revenge but, in his final moments, he thinks of others too. Maybe he has grown, just a little bit.

His eyes widen so large. His head rolls back.

We cut back to Kenobi, who is watching his silently with lidded eyes and a sadness to his furrowed eyebrows. He looks so tired.

He recognises Maul's suffering and he acknowledges it.

He closes his eyes in respect as Maul dies.

When he opens them, we cut back, and Maul has stopped moving. His eyes are opened, staring up at the sky like he's seeing it for the first time, the last time.

We remain focused on Maul as Obi-Wan's disembodied hand reaches up and closes his eyes, stroking down his face. Maul is finally allowed to rest, after so much suffering and torment. After so much war and battling. Maul can finally let go of his anger.

We pan out to Obi-Wan still holding Maul. We watch Obi-Wan's hand slowly lower, resting on his arm. Behind Maul's back, Obi-Wan is still holding his unlit lightsaber, sticking straight up as if ready for further battle, and reminding the audience who did this. His expression tight and sad but peaceful. Like putting down a rabid dog, keeping Maul alive would only lead to more suffering, for himself and others. The camera is still for a long moment as Obi-Wan just stares at him.

Then it pans out further. Maul and Obi-Wan are tiny amongst the expanse of stars above them, as if reminding the audience where Maul will be going after death, or all the others that need to be avenged too. The put-out fire, Maul's doing, is still smoking as his stain on the galaxy still lingers. In the centre of the sky stand out two moons. Reminding us we're on Tatooine, the place where it all started. Reminding us of who Maul and Kenobi are - character foils, so very similar to one another.

We stay here silently as the screen slowly fades to black, as if having a moment of silence for Maul as he passes away, finally allowed to rest.

[rebelscum218]

Ten People (Or Fewer) You Would Like To Know Better:

tagged by: @seleneisrising

Last Song: Antonín Dvořák - Piano trio no.3 in F minor

Favourite Color: Grey

Currently Watching: Maul: Shadow Lord

Currently Reading: Haven't read in a long time, but the last one I finished was Africa is Not A Country: Breaking stereotypes of modern Africa by Dipo Faloyin. I love how the author tackles and pokes fun at the negative stereotypes and the way he presents all the different aspects like history, food, language, and politics. That was a fun and memorable read.

Current Obsession: Rereading old Sabezra fics, I guess

Currently Working On: I have a Kanan/Hera edit sitting around for a while now, probably won't be finished anytime soon, but I am excited to share it once it's done. Recently got an idea for a Vel/Cinta video too, so that might come out first.

Last Google/Firefox Search: Probably looking for ways to remove sticky labels from jars.

No pressure tagging: @universesstardust @jedi-nurse @dreams-are-paper-thin @alphaofdarkness

[seleneisrising]

Lyrics from Caves by The National Parks

[animatedjen]

to be a jedi. (maul: shadow lord spoilers)

[pep-no]

Kanan’s training method...

… is bordering on the extreme, I’d say 😜

This…

Reminds me of this…

Kanan, the Seeker of Truth.

[gentryfilm]

You can’t truly learn if you can’t face your demons.

Besides this is no more extreme than sending children into ice caves, to face illusions of their darkest fears…just to get crystals.

[pep-no]

True…

The difference is that sending those Jedi younglings to face their darkest fears is an “impersonal” trial. The Force eking out the Truth out of the Jedi Knight-wannabes. The Jedi master(s) just wait outside whiling their time.

Kanan was upfront and personal in squeezing out the Truth out of Ezra and Sabine.

[autumnwoodsdreamer]

The method changes because the students are different.

The Jedi younglings were raised in the temple. They were trained with care the majority of their lives. They’ve been protected and nurtured all the way through. The test at Ilum isn’t dangerous and it moulds to each individual to help them understand which flaw or weakness they’ll have to fight the hardest on their path to becoming (and living as) a Jedi.

The episodes that follow show the younglings working through their fears and flaws and how the tests in the ice caves prepared them for it.

But Sabine and Ezra are totally different.

Ezra had a loving family but they were ripped away from him and his support network collapsed, leaving him alone on the streets. Fending for yourself on the streets is totally different to life in the temple—the life Kanan grew up with. He knows both. He realizes training Ezra like a youngling back at the temple isn’t working—the lessons aren’t sticking, aren’t hitting home. So he changes his approach.

Ezra will ignore what he’s afraid of until he’s staring it in the face. He learns by survival, so that’s why Kanan takes him to that asteroid (also it helped give them something to fight off the Inquisitor).

Then Sabine is a Mandalorian—completely different upbringing and culture to the Jedi. She went to the Imperial academy young (likely around the age of the younglings in that arc) and she was not nurtured there. She herself describes it as a nightmare and it would have been: she was forced to conform, forced not to ask questions, forced to build weapons that were used against her own people. Absolutely nothing like life in the Jedi temple.

When she joins the Ghost crew, she’s reserved. She keeps things bottled up and she struggles with trust. She doesn’t talk about her family or her past, preferring to leave it alone and move on.

But Kanan (with Hera’s help) realizes she needs to address it and come to terms with it. She has to face her fears. He realizes she won’t open up easily, so he changes the approach. The way he taunts and pushes her in that final fight with the Darksaber is much more like how a Mandalorian trainer would approach a student and it works—it gets Sabine to finally open up.

One of the core themes of Rebels is change and adaption

[ahsokatanoe]

So do extraordinary things. | m.a.w. poem credit

[dranktwocoffees]

tbh i just wanted to draw hazel in the fields of asphodel idk what the other one is doing there

[alongtherubyford]

jason grace was written for the ones with divorced parents.

leo valdez was written for the ones who lost the one who loved them most.

piper mclean was written for the ones who never seemed to be enough.

percy jackson was written for the ones who grew up with single parents who chose bad partners.

annabeth chase was written for the ones who never seemed to get it right.

frank zhang was written for the ones who were deemed too soft to amount to anything.

hazel levesque was written for the ones who were given nothing but pain since the beginning.

nico di angelo was written for the ones who knew loss too soon.

reyna avila ramirez-arellano was written for the ones who were the last line of defense for their family, but it wasn’t enough.

will solace was written for the ones who have been served with loss too many times to count.

[cursivequestion]

just found this in my docs... enjoy this mini fic

Hera’s arm had been injured on the last mission, so that meant they were lying low with for a week while she recovered. And by “lying low,” Kanan meant that Sabine was not allowed to blow anything up. Instead, he had them earning their keep at a caf shop. (The owner was a rebel sympathizer and was kind enough to let them stay.) Sabine thought she’d be restless, and she was slightly paranoid of every visitor the shop drew in, but admittedly, she was enjoying wiping tables with Ezra. It was peaceful. Ezra seemed to think so too.

For once, Ezra’s expression was pensive. She waited for him to bring up whatever was on his mind. Finally, he looked up from the particularly tough stain he’d been working on and asked,  “Do you ever imagine a life where we didn’t have to fight?”

Sabine leaned on her elbows against the counter. “I try not to.”

She sensed Ezra’s ‘Why?’ before he could say it.

“Because it’s depressing.” She followed her words with a resolute sigh as she straightened her posture. “There’s no good in wishing for something you can’t have. It only makes you sad.”

Ezra’s brow pinched. “I guess so. But maybe some parts of my wish can be real.” He realized he’d been staring, then quickly shifted his gaze. “Not right now,” he said. “But maybe some day… you know, if I work toward it.”

Maybe it was the relaxed atmosphere, maybe it was the many restless nights catching up to her, or maybe she just wanted to let him convince her; whatever the reason, she asked,

“What’s your wish?”

His eyes flitted between her and his cup of lukewarm caf. “Can you close your eyes? I can see it so clearly, but it’s hard to say with just words.”

She humored him, just this once, and let her eyes shut. Ezra’s voice came strong and clear.

“I’m imagining that we live here, on this quiet planet. You, me, Kanan, Hera, Zeb, and I guess Chopper too. We run this shop. You and I always get stuck serving. It’s quiet but sometimes it’s loud when there are a lot of customers but somehow it still seems quiet.”

Sabine wasn’t sure if Ezra said anything else; her imagination had run away with her. She saw it all so clearly: 

She and Ezra were bickering over the counter and pulling each other’s aprons. Hera gave them that look whenever she spotted them, but Kanan just smiled. He had his arm around Hera. Sabine would pretend to be annoyed by their public display of affection but inside she felt her heart squeeze. She was happy that they could love without fear. 

She’d catch Ezra looking at her with admiration and instead of anxiety she’d feel butterflies.

Sabine opened her eyes, and the dream faded. 

“Did you see it?” Ezra asked.

Sabine turned away, fingers fiddling with a dishtowel. “Yeah. It’s nice.”

[rebelscum218]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

'Thrawn is preparing for a planetary bombardment,' Hera was saying. 'How's the shield coming, Zeb?'

'We're about to fire it up now,' Zeb reported. His ears perked up, a thought suddenly coming to him.

Without missing a beat, he continued. 'Rex and I have done our best, but this is really Sabine's baby.' He emphasized the words with exaggerated gusto and winked at Rex, who was standing at the other side.

...

aka. what if 'Sabine's baby' was an inside joke between Rex and Zeb?

[rebelscum218]

Because of this post and its replies, here is the 'talk about my Youtube channel' post. Over the years, I've accumulated a bunch of videos that are especially rewarding to finish, so I thought I will share my thoughts about them here. Cue all the posts about people that won't shut up about their work once the floodgates are open, because this is going to be long.

First, a little background of how I got into editing: I started around the time during the break between Rebels Season 2 and 3. Back then, the speculation around the show and Star Wars overall was really something, and I was itching to do something with my excitement and contribute to the scene. I saw some Rebels edits on Youtube that inspired me and decided to try doing some my own. At the time, I was a teenager with little to no social life, so it quickly became a side hobby I indulged in. I had no prior experience about editing, so I mostly improvised and learned during the process. My earliest videos were mostly trailer remakes, lightsaber montages and rescores that make me cringe now when I revisit them. (For better or worse, these early videos were no longer on Youtube, since my old channel got taken down because of copyright issues. My uploads for the past seven years or so are now on my current channel.)

The music of John Williams and classical music are near and dear to me growing up, so I always tend to use them for my videos. My goal is always to retell a story through the lens of the music I chose. The channel kind of peaked around 2020 and 2021, after that, as life got in the way, I started editing less and less. To offer a taste of what they are like, here are some snippets of the videos I will be talking about in this post.

A large portion of my videos are character portraits/tribute videos, and there were a number of them that I'm especially happy with the way they turned out. The Phantom Apprentice was an edit about Maul that pushed my skills and creativity to new territory, and its format kind of became a basis for my later videos. Shortly before working on that, I was messing around with the Rebels and Clone Wars soundtracks and compiling some medleys for myself to enjoy. They were character specific, and I did one for Kanan, Ezra, Hera, Maul and Thrawn, and the more I listen to them, the more I think they should be made into videos, so they became character tributes one by one, and this Maul edit was one of them. Around that time, Clone Wars season 7 was released not long ago, so the story was still quite fresh in my mind, and the ideas flowed pretty easily. The first half was sort of a montage of Maul's journey up till the end of Clone Wars, and the second half was his story in Rebels as well as a summary of his character, how his quest for revenge and power fueled his downward spiral into oblivion at the same time. The video never got much attention, but it's still a work I'm quite fond of.

General Syndulla was the last medley I converted into a video, simply because Hera was a character I find difficult to summarize. While the other main characters of Rebels like Kanan, Ezra and Sabine have clear paths of development, Hera's character was pretty much fully formed at the beginning, and her role in Rebels is more about being the constant: to be focused on the cause, the steadying element, the heart of the group, the one that pulls them all together, and her strength lies in maintaining this attitude despite everything that happens. That requires a different way to present her character, which took me a while. When I finally started, it was also good timing, because by then Bad Batch season 1 was out, and I was able to use the episodes she was in as well. In around 12 minutes, the video is an extensive account of Hera Syndulla that hopefully will take you along all of her highs and lows and let you finish with a smile on your face.

Watching Clone Wars as I got older made me gain a deeper appreciation for Padmé, and Senator Amidala was the result of that. Her quieter forms of strength and resilience as she struggled to stay afloat and hang on to her beliefs amidst war and violence made a lasting impression on me, and the bulk of my video was dedicated to that. Looking back on it, I do think the part at the end about her eventual fate and relationship with Anakin was a bit overdone, but it's still a good example of my later, more mature editing style.

Soldiers of the Republic and Heroes of the Rebellion are two similar videos that show my appreciation for these two different set of characters in a compact form. Taking the idea from the way Rex and Ahsoka honored the fallen at the end of Clone Wars, I decided to make a video about clones the same way, by remembering them for who they were, instead what they were made for. With no mention of Order 66, it is a video that highlights their brotherhood, individuality and self-determination. As for Heroes of the Rebellion, it originally started out as a video about Jyn Erso I tried to make a few years ago, but eventually gave up. After watching Andor season 1, the idea came back and expanded to include all the other heroes in that time period as well, which worked much better, as the extra material and tighter edit made the message even stronger.

Sabezra has always been my thing, but at first I was unable to articulate exactly why it appealed to me so much. As a teenager watching Rebels for the first time, I just thought it was kinda cute, and my earlier videos about them were mostly just their scenes together compiled in a way that made them look shippable. It wasn't until a few years later that I was able to look deeper at it and spot all the nuances and building blocks of this relationship, which resulted in Sabine and Ezra: Their Story. By putting their individual stories side by side and letting that speak for itself, removing my shipping goggles for a moment to focus on their natural dynamic in the show instead, it was a video that strengthened my love for these two characters and allowed me to express what made them so attractive to me. After Ahsoka came out, I did make a sequel video about them, but I was never truly happy about that, because it felt like I was going against the story at times, like deliberately omitting the infamous sister line, or editing out Sabine's use of the Force in the finale. I never liked tripping over myself to create a different message and reframe a story in another light, so that never felt completely genuine on my part. One thing I do liked is the continuity in the soundtrack I used. For the original video, I used exclusively music from Far and Away. For the sequel, I used the Ahsoka soundtrack as well as War Horse, but once Sabine and Ezra are reunited in the video, I switched back to Far and Away, so musically we're back in familiar territory with recognizable musical motifs from the first video, as a way to signify their reunion, which is something I enjoyed very much putting together.

For one of the Rebels Remembered anniversaries, I did the video Specters, Crew and Family. Using Kanan's narration from the TV special 'Star Wars Rebels: The Ultimate Guide' as a through-line, I put in snippets of Rebels Recon, the DVD featurettes, and convention panels where the cast and crew talk about their characters to create a sort of love letter to the show. I used quite a bit of Dave Filoni's commentary, and while my opinions on his ideas have changed a bit these few years, the video is a good example of what I took away from the show back then. There was a short introduction scene at the beginning that was especially fun to put together. It's basically a montage of the Ghost crew bantering and working together, with the Rebels theme as background music. It's only a bit less than a minute, but it puts you right back into the Rebels feels and always makes me smile.

Rick Riordan's books were a big part of me growing up, so I did make a few edits about them from time to time. The ones I'm quite happy with are my videos about Magnus Chase, Alex Fierro, Piper and Jason, and Hazel and Frank. They're basically made the same way as my Star Wars videos, except with the audiobook narration as dialogue and fanart for footage. Sometimes it works, and sometimes not so much, since audiobooks are not as performative as acting, so a lot of the emotional content and drama is carried by the music.

One type of edit I used to do back in the day is flashback videos. Basically, I take a scene where I can imagine a character going down memory lane, then I put in old footage and some sappy music over it. An example of that is Ezra's Memories. It's an older video that has an overdose of transition effects and pacing problems, but I still remember how strongly I felt about it. At the time, I was watching the 2016 film adaptation of The BFG, and the ending scene became the inspiration for it. The main character, Sophie, after a bunch of adventures in the film, ends up with people who cared for her and a place to call home, and one morning she was staring out the window remembering all of that, and says good morning to the BFG, her companion in the film. Since he can hear all the secret whisperings of the world, BFG hears it in his home far away and smiles fondly. It reminded me so much of the 'goodbye Kanan' scene in Rebels that I had to make it into a video. So I took the music from that scene in the film and made an edit of Ezra thinking of moments with Kanan as he bids farewell to the wolf in A World Between Worlds. Looking back on it, it's a video with too much audio reverb and felt like I was trying to cram everything in those two minutes of music, but I still have a bit of a soft spot for it, remembering how much I felt this needed to be made.

Saw Gerrera's Memories is another flashback video that flows much better. Revolving around his scenes in Ghosts of Geonosis with inserted footage of the Onderon episodes in Clone Wars, the pacing is handled much better this time and it doesn't feel too jam-packed. Even though it's just two and a half minutes, the point is made and it's just the right length.

There are times when I make a video in response to current events, as a way to make a personal statement through the medium of various stories I like. Senator Amidala and Heroes of the Rebellion are two examples, but Star Wars: The Dark Times is much more direct and elaborate. Starting from the beginning of the Imperial era, with music from Shostakovich's symphonies to set the tone, it's a video that focuses on the tyranny and brutality inflicted on the galaxy and its people. It's quite the bleak picture of that time period, intended to be uncomfortable watching, with only a faint glimmer of hope and solace at the very end. I liked the video a lot, but what's frustrating about the process is that since the file is too large, it makes rendering very difficult. I eventually had to split it into three parts, then stitch it back together and add the sound after exporting, and even then, some of the footage has shifted so it doesn't synchronize perfectly with the audio. But since it's a miracle already that the video survived the rendering process, it's the best I could have done at that time.

So there you have it: character portraits, love letters, flashback and shipping videos, plus the occasional political statement. I rarely edit anything nowadays, although there are still a few ideas lurking in my mind. I've been wanting to make a Kanan/Hera video for a while, and maybe someday I'll get to it. If you've read this far, thank you for reading all of my ramblings, and if you've gotten any sort of joy and satisfaction from watching my videos, it means a lot!

[tarisilmarwen]

Just reblogging to comment that I have loved pretty much ALL your Star Wars music medleys and edits. You were the one that did the huge series tribute to Mahler right? The one that clocked 20 minutes? That one was my favorite with your Ezra ones coming pretty close behind.

You always have such a knack for finding little parallels and thematic foils/foreshadowing moments.

[rebelscum218]

Thank you so much! Yes, that Rebels series tribute with the finale of Mahler's third symphony was one of my work, I'm glad you remembered that! Although I realize it's not so easy for ordinary people to connect with such a musical setting, no matter how transforming Mahler's music would feel like for classical music lovers like you. It's still in my uploads, but it's not public anymore, because I keep seeing comments about how they skipped the series after watching the video, and I didn't want it to be used as a bypass for watching the show itself, or for it to appear when people are just looking for a summary.

[rebelscum218]

Because of this post and its replies, here is the 'talk about my Youtube channel' post. Over the years, I've accumulated a bunch of videos that are especially rewarding to finish, so I thought I will share my thoughts about them here. Cue all the posts about people that won't shut up about their work once the floodgates are open, because this is going to be long.

First, a little background of how I got into editing: I started around the time during the break between Rebels Season 2 and 3. Back then, the speculation around the show and Star Wars overall was really something, and I was itching to do something with my excitement and contribute to the scene. I saw some Rebels edits on Youtube that inspired me and decided to try doing some my own. At the time, I was a teenager with little to no social life, so it quickly became a side hobby I indulged in. I had no prior experience about editing, so I mostly improvised and learned during the process. My earliest videos were mostly trailer remakes, lightsaber montages and rescores that make me cringe now when I revisit them. (For better or worse, these early videos were no longer on Youtube, since my old channel got taken down because of copyright issues. My uploads for the past seven years or so are now on my current channel.)

The music of John Williams and classical music are near and dear to me growing up, so I always tend to use them for my videos. My goal is always to retell a story through the lens of the music I chose. The channel kind of peaked around 2020 and 2021, after that, as life got in the way, I started editing less and less. To offer a taste of what they are like, here are some snippets of the videos I will be talking about in this post.

A large portion of my videos are character portraits/tribute videos, and there were a number of them that I'm especially happy with the way they turned out. The Phantom Apprentice was an edit about Maul that pushed my skills and creativity to new territory, and its format kind of became a basis for my later videos. Shortly before working on that, I was messing around with the Rebels and Clone Wars soundtracks and compiling some medleys for myself to enjoy. They were character specific, and I did one for Kanan, Ezra, Hera, Maul and Thrawn, and the more I listen to them, the more I think they should be made into videos, so they became character tributes one by one, and this Maul edit was one of them. Around that time, Clone Wars season 7 was released not long ago, so the story was still quite fresh in my mind, and the ideas flowed pretty easily. The first half was sort of a montage of Maul's journey up till the end of Clone Wars, and the second half was his story in Rebels as well as a summary of his character, how his quest for revenge and power fueled his downward spiral into oblivion at the same time. The video never got much attention, but it's still a work I'm quite fond of.

General Syndulla was the last medley I converted into a video, simply because Hera was a character I find difficult to summarize. While the other main characters of Rebels like Kanan, Ezra and Sabine have clear paths of development, Hera's character was pretty much fully formed at the beginning, and her role in Rebels is more about being the constant: to be focused on the cause, the steadying element, the heart of the group, the one that pulls them all together, and her strength lies in maintaining this attitude despite everything that happens. That requires a different way to present her character, which took me a while. When I finally started, it was also good timing, because by then Bad Batch season 1 was out, and I was able to use the episodes she was in as well. In around 12 minutes, the video is an extensive account of Hera Syndulla that hopefully will take you along all of her highs and lows and let you finish with a smile on your face.

Watching Clone Wars as I got older made me gain a deeper appreciation for Padmé, and Senator Amidala was the result of that. Her quieter forms of strength and resilience as she struggled to stay afloat and hang on to her beliefs amidst war and violence made a lasting impression on me, and the bulk of my video was dedicated to that. Looking back on it, I do think the part at the end about her eventual fate and relationship with Anakin was a bit overdone, but it's still a good example of my later, more mature editing style.

Soldiers of the Republic and Heroes of the Rebellion are two similar videos that show my appreciation for these two different set of characters in a compact form. Taking the idea from the way Rex and Ahsoka honored the fallen at the end of Clone Wars, I decided to make a video about clones the same way, by remembering them for who they were, instead what they were made for. With no mention of Order 66, it is a video that highlights their brotherhood, individuality and self-determination. As for Heroes of the Rebellion, it originally started out as a video about Jyn Erso I tried to make a few years ago, but eventually gave up. After watching Andor season 1, the idea came back and expanded to include all the other heroes in that time period as well, which worked much better, as the extra material and tighter edit made the message even stronger.

Sabezra has always been my thing, but at first I was unable to articulate exactly why it appealed to me so much. As a teenager watching Rebels for the first time, I just thought it was kinda cute, and my earlier videos about them were mostly just their scenes together compiled in a way that made them look shippable. It wasn't until a few years later that I was able to look deeper at it and spot all the nuances and building blocks of this relationship, which resulted in Sabine and Ezra: Their Story. By putting their individual stories side by side and letting that speak for itself, removing my shipping goggles for a moment to focus on their natural dynamic in the show instead, it was a video that strengthened my love for these two characters and allowed me to express what made them so attractive to me. After Ahsoka came out, I did make a sequel video about them, but I was never truly happy about that, because it felt like I was going against the story at times, like deliberately omitting the infamous sister line, or editing out Sabine's use of the Force in the finale. I never liked tripping over myself to create a different message and reframe a story in another light, so that never felt completely genuine on my part. One thing I do liked is the continuity in the soundtrack I used. For the original video, I used exclusively music from Far and Away. For the sequel, I used the Ahsoka soundtrack as well as War Horse, but once Sabine and Ezra are reunited in the video, I switched back to Far and Away, so musically we're back in familiar territory with recognizable musical motifs from the first video, as a way to signify their reunion, which is something I enjoyed very much putting together.

For one of the Rebels Remembered anniversaries, I did the video Specters, Crew and Family. Using Kanan's narration from the TV special 'Star Wars Rebels: The Ultimate Guide' as a through-line, I put in snippets of Rebels Recon, the DVD featurettes, and convention panels where the cast and crew talk about their characters to create a sort of love letter to the show. I used quite a bit of Dave Filoni's commentary, and while my opinions on his ideas have changed a bit these few years, the video is a good example of what I took away from the show back then. There was a short introduction scene at the beginning that was especially fun to put together. It's basically a montage of the Ghost crew bantering and working together, with the Rebels theme as background music. It's only a bit less than a minute, but it puts you right back into the Rebels feels and always makes me smile.

Rick Riordan's books were a big part of me growing up, so I did make a few edits about them from time to time. The ones I'm quite happy with are my videos about Magnus Chase, Alex Fierro, Piper and Jason, and Hazel and Frank. They're basically made the same way as my Star Wars videos, except with the audiobook narration as dialogue and fanart for footage. Sometimes it works, and sometimes not so much, since audiobooks are not as performative as acting, so a lot of the emotional content and drama is carried by the music.

One type of edit I used to do back in the day is flashback videos. Basically, I take a scene where I can imagine a character going down memory lane, then I put in old footage and some sappy music over it. An example of that is Ezra's Memories. It's an older video that has an overdose of transition effects and pacing problems, but I still remember how strongly I felt about it. At the time, I was watching the 2016 film adaptation of The BFG, and the ending scene became the inspiration for it. The main character, Sophie, after a bunch of adventures in the film, ends up with people who cared for her and a place to call home, and one morning she was staring out the window remembering all of that, and says good morning to the BFG, her companion in the film. Since he can hear all the secret whisperings of the world, BFG hears it in his home far away and smiles fondly. It reminded me so much of the 'goodbye Kanan' scene in Rebels that I had to make it into a video. So I took the music from that scene in the film and made an edit of Ezra thinking of moments with Kanan as he bids farewell to the wolf in A World Between Worlds. Looking back on it, it's a video with too much audio reverb and felt like I was trying to cram everything in those two minutes of music, but I still have a bit of a soft spot for it, remembering how much I felt this needed to be made.

Saw Gerrera's Memories is another flashback video that flows much better. Revolving around his scenes in Ghosts of Geonosis with inserted footage of the Onderon episodes in Clone Wars, the pacing is handled much better this time and it doesn't feel too jam-packed. Even though it's just two and a half minutes, the point is made and it's just the right length.

There are times when I make a video in response to current events, as a way to make a personal statement through the medium of various stories I like. Senator Amidala and Heroes of the Rebellion are two examples, but Star Wars: The Dark Times is much more direct and elaborate. Starting from the beginning of the Imperial era, with music from Shostakovich's symphonies to set the tone, it's a video that focuses on the tyranny and brutality inflicted on the galaxy and its people. It's quite the bleak picture of that time period, intended to be uncomfortable watching, with only a faint glimmer of hope and solace at the very end. I liked the video a lot, but what's frustrating about the process is that since the file is too large, it makes rendering very difficult. I eventually had to split it into three parts, then stitch it back together and add the sound after exporting, and even then, some of the footage has shifted so it doesn't synchronize perfectly with the audio. But since it's a miracle already that the video survived the rendering process, it's the best I could have done at that time.

So there you have it: character portraits, love letters, flashback and shipping videos, plus the occasional political statement. I rarely edit anything nowadays, although there are still a few ideas lurking in my mind. I've been wanting to make a Kanan/Hera video for a while, and maybe someday I'll get to it. If you've read this far, thank you for reading all of my ramblings, and if you've gotten any sort of joy and satisfaction from watching my videos, it means a lot!

[rebelscum218]

Rewatched A Fool's Hope and just wanted to gush about all the Sabine and Ezra interactions. From their very first scene:

To spending all their free time together:

Then dividing up duties in battle based on their strengths:

And when Ezra gets knocked down by a stormtrooper after capture, Sabine's face going from shock to concern to anger.

I love them, your honor.