The Weekly Muse #53

Missed Opportunities, Archives, and a Bit about Pluto

Hello, all:

Inspired by

Simon K Jones

‘s post about discussions on Notes becoming the basis for longer-form essays sent out on newsletter, I thought I’d do the same for some thoughts I had this week about The Acolyte and why it’s not unlike The Marvels; it’s either that or write lengthily about the political science of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and I’m still mulling over that one anyway.

So. I am assuming that as of this point everyone has seen up through the most recent episode of The Acolyte, the latest Star Wars show; if not and if you want to avoid spoilers, please skip on down to the Writing Update. Okay? Cool. Last Warning!

Here we go. *SPOILER AHEAD*

So, in this series we are introduced to the concept of a Wookie Jedi. In a short scene back in episode 2, we see the Wookie Jedi on his forest retreat planet just as a couple random bad guys show up; the Wookie Jedi Force-pulls their blaster from their hands and rips it in half, then chases them off.

I’m going to pause for a moment and let you gaze upon that paragraph. Consider the sheer awesomeness of a Wookie Jedi. Chewbacca with a lightsaber. My God, man, the potential.

Do we see any of that in the episode where we finally met Kelnacca? No. We do not.

What we get is one scene of the Wookie Jedi (it makes me sad to write those words now) puttering about his little forest home, then a whole bunch of scenes of the other characters going through the woods to get to Kelnacca in an Exciting Race because the Jedi have to find him before the Sith do, and when everyone gets there, quelle surprise, it’s too late because he’s already dead. We never even see him fight like we did with Master Indara at the beginning; we just find him dead, light-sabered in the chest.

Does it even make sense that a Wookie Jedi would be just cut down right like that? I went back and watched the scene in question just to be sure: as best I can tell, the living area wasn’t even damaged. There’s no fire, no sparks, no signs of struggle: the guy’s just sitting there, saber wound in his chest. What’d they do, catch him when he was having a nap? Trial run of Order 66? I mean, if I were trying to kill a Wookie I wouldn’t expect to take him by surprise at all, let alone if he were a Jedi! To borrow a phrase from Firefly, does that seem right to you?

It was so much of a waste that I was reminded of The Marvels. I had heard iffy things about that one but I had also heard some good so I started it hoping for the best. I was disappointed, shall we say. The relevant reason here is the planet Aladna. To sum up, the bad guys are stealing stuff to rebuild Hala which broke for reasons, and Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, and Monica from WandaVision are trying to stop them. For plot reasons the good guys show up on a planet called Aladna, where everyone communicates in Song Form.

Now, when I heard this, I actually got interested. I thought we were going to break the mold and have a full-on musical here. And sure, we have some songs (honestly, the dance bit was hilarious. “Yaaan, we are all in grave dangeeeer…” Then the bad guys (Dar-Benn, I’d forgotten she was calling herself the Supremor until I went back and rewatched the scene) show up and attack. A battle ensues, which the Marvels lose. Dar-Benn steals Aladna’s water and, presumably, the planet dies given that almost all of it is covered in water. Maybe they survived, I don’t know; they might’ve lasted longer than that other planet that lost its air. But anyway: what we didn’t get was a musical battle sequence. That would’ve been fun, yes?

If you’re going to do a scene on a planet that communicates in song, and the plot calls for a battle, why not have a musical battle? A dance battle, right? The Guardians would’ve done that; in fact the Guardians did that, or one of them, anyway. Why not run with it?

I don’t know: it just seems like lost potential. Just like the Wookie Jedi not getting to die in a blaze of glorious battle. Very sad.

Writing Update

Of late what I’ve been doing is trying to catch up the Archive as well as the Edison City Index (The Archive is a listing of all my posts; the Index is the Edison City-specific ones). What I’m aiming for in this is two things: 1), of course, to catch up on things, and 2) to prepare a collection of Edison City stories which I can release on Amazon KDP and/or paperback, aka The Lights of Edison City. After that, once the current Meg Atomic serial is finished, that, the Captain Happily Married serial, and Quarks of the Heart will be gathered together into a collection as well: The Power of Meg Atomic. After that, only my muse knows!

Closing Time

I read earlier that it has been almost twenty years (eighteen, specifically), since the International Astronomical Union decided that Pluto wasn’t going to be a planet anymore and kicked it down to the status of dwarf planet. In the immortal words of Nick Fury, I respect the IAU’s decision: given that it’s a stupid-*** decision, I have elected to ignore it. In my heart and on this ‘Stack, you’ll always be a planet, Pluto.

Until next time,

Michael