Latest news with #Tatooine
Geek Tyrant
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Death Star Detail in ROGUE ONE Makes Alderaan's Destruction in NEW HOPE Even More Devestating For Princess Liea — GeekTyrant
Star Wars fans are always rewatching, reanalyzing, and recontextualizing the films and shows in the franchise. Thanks to Andor and a fresh look at Rogue One , one specific connection has started to sting a little more, specifically a new perspective on Princess Leia's reaction to Alderaan's destruction in A New Hope . On Reddit, a fan recently pointed out something that many of us might not have considered, and now it's hard to unsee. Leia wasn't unfamiliar with what the Death Star could do when Tarkin ordered the obliteration of her home planet, but what she saw still shattered her. The post reads: "In A New Hope, when Leia is forced to watch Alderaan be destroyed, she reacts with horror and surprise (valid reaction).' It goes on: "But there's a second part to this I never realized until I just watched Rogue One again. She was present at Scarif. She saw the effects of the Death Star there. 'She was not present at Jedha, but I'm sure she heard of the aftermath. So in her mind, as Tarkin gives the order, she's expecting a big explosion on the surface and a lot of people to die. 'And then her entire planet just vaporizes in a second, right before her eyes. Completely subverting not just her expectations, but the Rebellion's." That's the gut punch. Leia knew it was coming, but she just didn't know how bad it was going to be. In Rogue One , Leia is nearby when Scarif is hit by the Death Star, watching the fallout from a distance just after the plans are transmitted aboard the Tantive IV. That moment, along with the wreckage at Jedha, gave the Rebellion a preview of the weapon's destructive force. But Alderaan's destruction wasn't just a tactical display, it was personal. And the weapon wasn't just killing people this time, it was wiping out Leia's past, her culture, and her entire planet in an instant. One fan also noted the stark contrast in how the destruction is shown: "It's wild to go from the drama of Rogue One showing the Death Star looming over Jedha and Scarif, people reacting from the ground, detailed, up-close destruction of the planets' crust rending apart as the music swells… to Alderaan instantly turning into a stock footage explosion that the camera only lingers on for about four seconds with almost no fanfare." Sure, some of that difference is technical limitations. A New Hope was made in 1977 and Rogue One in 2016, but the emotional difference is amplified when you watch in story order. In Rogue One , the destruction feels colossal and terrifying. By the time we get to Alderaan in A New Hope , the horror is quieter, but for Leia, now seen in a new light, it's far more devastating. With Andor recently filling in more about the construction of the Death Star and the origins of the Rebellion, this small but interesting connection just adds another layer to Leia's story.
Gizmodo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
Here's Why Rogue One's ‘Rebellions Are Built on Hope' Got Its Payoff in Andor
Cassian Andor's purpose as a messenger, as foretold by the Force healer, comes into play in one pivotal moment in this week's Andor. As Ghorman falls, the bellhop that assisted him earlier in the season, Thela (Stefon Crepon), delivers 'Rebellions are built on hope' as a core moment for him to carry and share It totally gives new meaning to its canon when Cassian says it in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), and it came about thanks to show creator Tony Gilroy's son. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the showrunner said that when it was said in Rogue One, he assumed it was just already a thing in the Star Wars lore. 'My son is a big Star Wars fan, and he often comes to the house and busts my balls at the computer about how little I know,' Gilroy admitted. 'One day he's there at the house and he's goofballing on me, and he's like, 'Well, who's going to introduce 'rebellions are built on hope?'' He continued, 'And I go, 'What do you mean?' … He goes, 'Well, in Rogue One, Diego [Luna, who plays Andor] says it. And [Felicity Jones' character] Jyn repeats it.' And I go, 'Well, isn't that from somewhere?' He goes, 'No, man, what are you talking about? You better figure that out.'' Which meant the master scribe of this Star Wars era had to think quickly, so he gave it to Thela with the Ghorman backdrop fully solidifying its purpose. 'The hotel clerk is such a groovy little character,' he said, and quipped about the Easter egg moment, 'it definitely comes from my son busting me on not having it in earlier [scripts]. I was like, 'Good catch.''
Los Angeles Times
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Did ‘Star Wars' teach us the wrong ideas about rebellion?
I'm always struck by how many extras it takes to wage a rebellion. In an early cut of 1977's 'Star Wars,' George Lucas included a shaggy, chatty 'Graffiti'-esque sequence between Luke Skywalker and one of his Tatooine pals, Biggs, who tells him, 'I'm not going to wait for the Empire to draft me into service. The Rebellion is spreading and I want to be on the right side.' Those scenes got scrapped, so Luke's first conversations about the rebel alliance would have to wait until deeper into the movie. But you can catch a glimpse of Biggs flying an X-wing in the Death Star attack. He's the one with a brown mustache who gets shot down in combat, earning respect even though the action doesn't stop to mourn him. 'Star Wars' ends with victory and medals, but the Dark Side is rarely beaten head-on. Over its nearly two-dozen films and TV shows, the battle between the formidable Empire and the scrappy resistance has become not just a metaphor for the current crisis of the day, but a moral guidebook of how and when — and when not — to fight. 'The Empire Strikes Back,' which celebrates its 45th anniversary this year and will open the TCM Classic Film Festival tomorrow night, starts with the rebel's Hoth ice base under attack. Princess Leia instantly chooses to evacuate and save its anonymous mechanics and map-makers instead of risking everyone's lives with a more spectacular, implausible showdown. A pure popcorn movie would pick fireworks over fleeing to safety, especially when the common wisdom of the time was that sequels were dreck. Lucas, who funded the film independently without studio interference, had more serious intentions — and his own choices would go on to reshape our cultural landscape for better and worse. Audiences have adored 'The Empire Strikes Back' across five decades, seven presidencies and a seismic industry change triggered in part by its own critical and financial impact. While the original 'Star Wars' is credited with hyperspacing cinema from the earthy, gritty '70s to the high-gloss blockbuster '80s, it's 'Empire' — both as a hugely successful follow-up and a business-minded pivot — that encouraged Hollywood to make more franchises. My main problem with it is its most famous quote: 'No, I am your father.' That Darth Vader revelation altered the drama from political animosity to Oedipal mythos. The Galactic Emperor's top henchman and the freedom fighter Luke Skywalker were related? Really? Vader's voice actor James Earl Jones delivers that line gentler than it clangs in my head, hitting the 'I' hard but soft-pedaling the rest, pronouncing the word 'father' so quietly that it sounds like Vader is luring a stray dog with a bone. Jones has said he assumed Vader was lying and I wish he had been. (Marcia Lucas, George Lucas' then-wife, said the idea began as a dinner party joke.) Of all the franchise's insights into revolution, this claim that Luke's inherited destiny meant he could destroy the Emperor — that this regular farm kid was, in fact, a space Jesus hunted by a space Herod — feels to me like a shoddy twist that's caused more headache than it was worth. What are the odds that Luke would randomly buy a salvaged droid that just so happened to be on the lam from his own daddy? How could an entire galaxy be so small? Luke, I am your fumble. But the big reveal was pop-culturally sticky. Not only did the series stand by it — sorry, James Earl Jones — so did Hollywood. For generations, too many blockbuster franchises have leaned on 'chosen one' heroes who were simply born special, from Harry Potter and Neo to Kung Fu Panda and Austin Powers, who discovered to his chagrin that he and the villainous Dr. Evil were secretly twin brothers. The twist went from surprise to stock. (Even the recent third season of 'The White Lotus' has a big father reveal.) By now, it's so steeped in epic storytelling that any character able to sustain a trilogy will have their DNA tested by 23andMe. After 'Empire,' Star Wars itself couldn't escape the chokehold of cliché. When the series' latest trilogy introduced a new heroic orphan, Rey (Daisy Ridley), in 2015's 'The Force Awakens,' audiences assumed that she had to be related to someone. 'The Last Jedi' filmmaker Rian Johnson tried to steer the series back to the first film's rousing egalitarianism, establishing Rey's parents as merely heavy-drinking junk traders. A vocal niche of fans was so disappointed that its follow-up, 'The Rise of Skywalker,' executed an about-face and proclaimed that Rey was no less than the daughter of the Emperor himself. Personally, I've come to hate that twist. Ordinary rebels — even ones born from boozehounds — taking down a dictator are inspirational. Waiting around for a messiah isn't. (How funny that fanboys who attempted to shoot their own version of 'The Last Jedi' referred to Johnson's take as 'blasphemy.') There's a petulant idleness implicit in the post-'Empire' fixation on saviors, a suggestion that societal change is best left for someone else more important. A decade or so ago during the dystopian YA craze, when chosen-one films like 'The Maze Runner' and 'Divergent' saturated the multiplex, that sort of passive thinking felt as pointless as buying a prayer candle of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. It's dinky and depressing and it doesn't do a thing to make the world a better place. And yet, whatever your political stripes and wherever on this planet you live, it's hard to escape the sense that lots of people are either putting their faith in all-powerful leaders or crossing their fingers that one they like will arise. Luke's magical genes are the least interesting thing about him. More moving are his relatable failures. He started 'Star Wars' as a self-absorbed teenager who refused to help Princess Leia, sputtering, 'It's not that I like the Empire — I hate it — but there's nothing I can do about it right now.' He refused to wear a halo, even when fans tried to jam one on him. An impulsive brawler, he ditched his Jedi training and immediately got his hand cut off and, by the end of his story, he'd quit the rebellion to circle right back to his comfort zone as an isolated farmer. Yet, Luke's ultimately fleeting contributions to the cause say that a fumbling step is better than staying still. The weight of all of that moral awareness seems to now rest on the actor who played him too, with Mark Hamill becoming one of social media's more outspoken voices. (Recently, Hamill posted: 'After playing a fictional member of the Resistance a long time ago, I never could have imagined it ever happening in real life, but here we are.') Elsewhere in the grand expanse of Lucas' universe, the right moves are rarely preordained. If there's a unifying truth in his galaxy, it's that heroism is messy and complex. As a child, Lucas had been thrilled by televised war footage until his older sister's fiancé died serving in Korea. He grew up to see how politics was at once powerful and petty, like when he took a job editing government documentaries of Lyndon Johnson and was ordered to never show the president's bald spot. As part of a self-described friend group of 'bearded, freako pre-hippies,' he marched against Vietnam, which he described as 'a huge psychological bomb [that] landed on United States soil.' His own smash-cut from innocence to tragedy was mirrored in 'American Graffiti,' a period-piece romp that abruptly ended in a roll call of death: One character would be killed by a drunk driver, another missing in action near An Loc. Lucas loved the idealistic adventure reels of the '30s and '40s where good and evil were divided by a fresh coat of paint. But his own life experience turned what looked like black and white into his version of gray. Part of the series' tractor-beam pull is that installments don't always end with a shamelessly audience-satiating happy climax: Characters are abducted, they lose their innocence, they die in childbirth, they die en masse. They accidentally help the darkness or they choose the darkness outright. The bad guys always strike back. Even in times of relative peace, the 'Star Wars' galaxy is moldering with economic inequality, burdensome military spending and distracted leaders who are content to maintain the status quo. At its most provocative, the franchise reflects our own dilemmas without offering any solutions, from directors tugging Rey's lineage back and forth to Lucas' own political curiosities, which matured even as copycats continued to reign on other multiplex screens. 'How does a democracy turn itself into a dictatorship?' Lucas said in a 2012 interview with the former presidential candidate Bill Bradley. 'It happened in Rome, happened in France, happened in Germany. What causes that?' He explored that question in the prequel trilogy he launched with 1999's 'The Phantom Menace,' and while his answer isn't especially cinematic, it now has a ripped-from-the-headlines resonance. In short: A politician instigates a feud over tariffs to win an election and, over three films and 13 years, claims to 'love democracy' even as he declares emergencies that allow him to consolidate power over a weakened Senate that eventually agrees he can declare himself Emperor. Children's eyes glazed over at 'The Phantom Menace's' opening crawl: 'The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.' Blaming the fall of a republic on a blockade instead of a dad-versus-son battle royale is like making the Millennium Falcon slow down for speed bumps. But it's leagues more narratively expansive and honest — and more personally galvanizing — now that I feel like a background extra in Lucas' universe. As Darth says right after the line that screwed everything up, 'Search your feelings, you know it to be true.'
Euronews
17-04-2025
- Science
- Euronews
Tatooine-like planet outside the solar system may be orbiting two failed stars
ADVERTISEMENT A new planet like Star Wars' Tatooine detected outside of our solar system may orbit two failed stars, scientists reported Wednesday. The exoplanet 120 light years away takes an unusual path around two brown dwarfs, otherwise known as failed stars. Researchers found in a new analysis, published in the journal Science Advances, that the motion of the brown dwarfs are changing which is less likely to happen if they circled each other. Related The Red Planet or bust: Can the US get humans to Mars in Donald Trump's second term? 'I wouldn't bet my life the planet exists yet' The brown dwarf pair was first spotted years ago by scientists who noted at the time that the twins eclipse each other but the planet itself hasn't been directly seen yet. So more research is needed to figure out its mass and orbit. "I wouldn't bet my life that the planet exists yet," said Simon Albrecht, an astrophysicist with Aarhus University who had no role in the new study. Scientists know of over a dozen planets that orbit two stars like the fictional 'Star Wars' scorching desert planet Tatooine with double sunsets that Luke Skywalker calls home. Related James Webb uncovers evidence that exoplanet may stink of rotten eggs Probing these wacky celestial bodies can help us understand how conditions beyond our solar system may yield planets vastly different from our own, said study author Thomas Baycroft with the University of Birmingham. Planets circling twin stars "existed in sci-fi for decades before we knew that they could even really exist in reality," he said.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Astronomers find 'Tatooine' planet orbiting two stars
The Brief Astronomers believe they've discovered a "Tatooine"-like planet orbiting two stars in a galaxy far, far away. The planet is orbiting two brown dwarfs, which are also known as failed stars. It's about 120 light years away from our solar system. If you're a "Star Wars" fan, you might be excited to learn scientists may have discovered a planet that's orbiting two stars, much like the fictional planet of "Tatooine." Dig deeper The planet is located about 120 light years away from our solar system, according to astronomers at the University of Birmingham, U.K. A light year is nearly 6 trillion miles, in case you were trying to convert the distance. The exoplanet appears to take an unusual path around two brown dwarf stars, circling at a right angle. Brown dwarfs are sometimes called failed stars because they're lighter than stars but are heavier than gas giant planets. The pair of brown dwarfs were first discovered years ago and scientists noticed that the twins eclipse each other so one is always partly blocked when seen from Earth. In a new analysis, researchers found that the brown dwarfs' motion was changing — a quirk that's less likely to happen if they circled each other on their own. The research was published in the journal Science Advances. The planet was discovered using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (LVT). Yes, there are actually several dozen planets that are orbiting two stars throughout the cosmos, scientists said. But the new planet's odd orbit sets it apart. Though it hasn't been directly spied on, scientists say more research is needed to be sure it's out there and figure out its mass and orbit. What they're saying "I wouldn't bet my life that the planet exists yet," said Simon Albrecht, an astrophysicist with Aarhus University who had no role in the new study. Probing these wacky celestial bodies can help us understand how conditions beyond our solar system may yield planets vastly different from our own, said study author Thomas Baycroft with the University of Birmingham. Planets circling twin stars "existed in sci-fi for decades before we knew that they could even really exist in reality," he said. The Source Information for this article was gathered from The Associated Press and a news release shared by the European Southern Observatory.
