John Ostrander: Star Wars – The Trouble with Quibbles

John Ostrander

John Ostrander started his career as a professional writer as a playwright. His best known effort, Bloody Bess, was directed by Stuart Gordon, and starred Dennis Franz, Joe Mantegna, William J. Norris, Meshach Taylor and Joe Mantegna. He has written some of the most important influential comic books of the past 25 years, including Batman, The Spectre, Manhunter, Firestorm, Hawkman, Suicide Squad, Wasteland, X-Men, and The Punisher, as well as Star Wars comics for Dark Horse. New episodes of his creator-owned series, GrimJack, which was first published by First Comics in the 1980s, appear every week on ComicMix.

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5 Responses

  1. Mastadge says:

    Here’s a quibble: patricide is less unforgivable than destroying a populated planet.
    (Also, just FYI, it was not the Coruscant system but the Hosnian system that was destroyed. I made that mistake when I first saw the movie as well, because, well, maybe it’s another quibble but if you’re going to blow up a planet you should probably give us some reason to care about it first, but, yeah. Not Coruscant.)

    • The odd thing is that they also didn’t actually give us that much reason to care about the destruction of the system afterwards. There’s no moment of mourning like Leia and Obi-Wan did for the planet Alderaan. Instead, everyone is more like “whelp, it’s us next.” That’s a real risk, but Battlestar Galactica has really shown how to handle that sort of thing without being yet another example of disaster spectacle.

  2. Mindy Newell says:

    John, I had a couple of minor quibbles, too, but nothing that stopped me from really loving the movie!

    Good points about Kylo Ren…though as far as Vader (Annakin)…well, the whole point of the original trilogy was Vader’s redemption. Although I honestly do see your point.

    My minor quibbles?

    1) Though I get that it was a plot point, I still think it should have been Han and Chewie flying the Falcon when we first saw our beloved ship swooping and soaring and flying–although I admit that is an emotional reaction. (But tell the truth…didn’t we all think it was Han and Chewie “at the wheel” when we first saw the trailer? (And by the way, I think, as I told Mike, that Rey’s ability to be able to fly the Falcon was another “hint” at her being strong with the Force.)

    2) I would have liked to have seen more interaction between Leia and Han–though I heard/understand that those scenes were shot, edited it out for the screen release, and are available on the Blu-Ray version.

    What I absolutely loved:

    The mirroring sequence on the catwalk between Kylo/Ben Ren/Solo and Han Solo, mirroring the scene on the catwalk in Empire between Luke and Vader.

  3. Gwendy says:

    I freaking loved Kylo Ren; so did a ton of people who voted him best villain. He IS a Darksider, and he IS fighting a war- you don’t have to like the side he is on, but it is what it is. I think he will get redeemed…why? Because Han sacrificed himself just for this very purpose- Harrison Ford even said so- look it up. He-after getting ran through- reached up and caressed Ben’s face in an act of forgiveness, trust and unconditional love. If Kylo does not get redeemed, Han would have died for nothing- and that just WILL NOT HAPPEN. Also, Leia deserves her son back- she’s suffered enough. As a mother, I will tell you that I would stop at nothing including sacrificing myself as well in order to have this happen if it were my son.

    Also, Ben ALLOWED Han to carress his face and was genuinely grieving. This will sit with him and resonate throughout the next two movies.

  4. Karl says:

    I wanted so much to love Episode VII but just couldn’t.

    It did what it had to do – set out the stall for further instalments, with plenty of re-heated moments from earlier films and a smattering of new stuff, most of it bland.

    And killing off Han? Ridiculous.

    I can only hope he is reborn in Episode VIII as Grim Han :)