Some interesting development on the Episode IX shooting front.
Yesterday John posted this pic on his Instragram of him flying somewhere
and today he posted a video of a prayer call from a mosque, here a screencap of the video.
Now a quick bit of Googlemancy have led me to believe that that is the Abu Dawoud mosque in Aqaba, Jordan.
Why is this at all interesting?
Because Aqaba is the closest large city to the Wadi Rum desert where the IX team started shooting about a week and a half ago as reported by Making Star Wars. The person who initially noticed the IX set being set up in Wadi Rum said he thought he saw Daisy Ridley being given a tour, but he only saw her at a distance and in a brief glimpse, and frankly given the number of youngish, white brunettes in Star Wars there are others it could have been: Daisy’ stunt double or Keri Russle just to name two we know are involved in IX.
But if Daisy it was it is just confirmation of what we already knew, that Finn and Rey will spend a good deal of time together in IX.
What’s interesting to me is where this is supposed to be. Speculation have gone into it as the Making Star Wars page shows, personally I find the most compelling theory to be Jakku if it is a repeat location and not somewhere entirely new.
I could see Rey go back to Jakku to find answers about her family that aren’t told to her by a Dark sider known to be lying through his teeth.
For Finn there’s another thing entirely. For one thing emotional closure over what happened at Tuanul, there was nothing he could have done to prevent what happened but that massacre left a profound impact on him and he might feel a need now that time have passed to face the location again. For another there is on Jakku an old Imperial base, in fact it’s the base where the First Order was born so to speak, when Rae Sloane killed Gallius Rax and took the Imperial remnant with her to the secret location discovered by the late Emperor where the Empire could be reborn. And finally that base is also where Brendol Hux, father of Armitage Hux, first created what later became known as Operation resurrection, the First Order’s code name for the Stormtrooper program.
Yes there is indeed many interesting plots that could be spawned by a revisit to Jakky for Finn and Rey both.
~Mod Mara
A Star Wars sequel movie? Do actual worldbuilding and follow through on its own and EU materials’ plot threads? Dare I hope? Jakku on TFA was filmed at Rub’ al Khali desert, Abu Dhabi, but there’s precedent for location changes on the same planet. The Tatooine scenes in ANH were filmed around Tunisia but the ones in RotJ were filmed in U.S. locations, for instance.
A potential point of interest is that Rub’ al Khali is a sand desert, the largest continuous sand desert (erg) in the world, while Wadi Rum is a valley, the largest in Jordan. Rub’ al Khali was perfect for shooting things like the trackless desert that Finn wandered through, while Wadi Rum would be great for showing dramatic crag formations–like the Jakku Observatory located under the Plaintive Hand Plateau, perhaps, which Rax was originally guarding?
(Wadi Rum, btw, evidently means “the valley of light/airborne sand.” I’m guessing we won’t see Anakin’s Force ghost there.)
Tuanul was also a religious community, and the Church of the Force could tie into a larger plot about the Force. The Lor San Tekka character was set up to be a seeker after the ways of the Force much like Maz and Chirrut. He was a Church member too, since the days of the Empire when it was illegal in fact, so it’s easy to see why he would have been with them when he was on an inhospitable world. But what was he doing there? Was he on a religious retreat, or visiting with his religious brethren? Or was he a guest while on other business? If so, what was he trying to discover?
It would be perfect if Finn and Rey could revisit the sites of their trauma amid all this plot and worldbuilding as well. Finn could go to the ruins of Tuanul, perhaps to look for clues, and Rey could see the devastation for herself and see what Finn was talking about when he said he made a choice. Rey could visit Niima outpost, or its remains if it was destroyed. At minimum I want an answer what the ship she saw flying away was about. Finn and Rey could support each other and talk, something they didn’t get to do in TLJ or even TFA.
Do I ever! Well, not right now because I don’t have a group, but yes.
I pretty much learned to read from those Sword & Sorcery – Choose Your Own Adventure books that came out back in the 80s and I learned English before I ever had it in school from a combination of AD&D manuals, two fantasy D&Dish pc games and my parent’s huge dictionary.
I was a geek from a young age.
I think I’ve tried nearly every table top RPG published from the late 80s and up till today. I keep going back to D&D though, it’s a nostalgia thing, though the West End Games’ Star Wars rules (made for the early era old EU) are my favorites.
What about you? What’s you’re favorites and do you play currently?
Lmao I met my husband through roleplaying games! (I am far from the only one–the roleplaying community I’m part of has produced at least six couples and four children that I know of.) My gateway drug was D&D Classic, the red book with the dragon, and then AD&D, 7th Sea, GURPS, Savage Worlds, and a bunch of indie titles–My Life with Master, FATE, Risus, Primetime Adventures, Trollbabes, The Shadow of Yesterday, Dresden Files, Polaris, In a Wicked Age… I haven’t been keeping up with new rules for the last few years, but this shit was my lifeblood back in the day.
My longest complete campaign was actually Star Wars, where I slightly modified Dogs in the Vineyard to play a group of Jedi in the Old Republic–and I do mean old, post-Exar Kun. I even ran a fleet battle with those rules and had a few spinoff sessions with a different group, too. That campaign went on for a year and a half before reaching a pretty epic ending, so I still remember it fondly. I’ve been reminiscing about it recently and kinda been jonesing to get another game going.
I know this idea isn’t new, but it’s one that I get obsessed with every now and again: Finnastasia and Dimitrey. I love the idea of Finn being missing royalty and Rey being an orphan pressed into a life that’s not quite law-abiding, but who has a heart a gold and a memory of saving a young prince when his family’s palace was attacked …
Done by @nightfell, who was a delight to work with, on commission. Thank you!
Hey anon, mod Em here. Sorry, I meant to post this earlier and got sidetracked.
Thanks for the note! I gathered a list of some of my favorite metas. A few I’ve had in my favorites for awhile. Some are TFA-era, but since they deal with Finnrey overall, I’ve included them. As always, people are welcome to contribute to the list!
Why Finnrey works from top to bottom and that other ship … doesn’t. [x]
Where was Rey going when she rejected the hero’s call on Takodana? [x]
Rey and Finn as the reincarnated version of Anakin and Padme. [x]
A second POV on the Anidala reincarnation theory [x]
How Finn and Rey saved each other again in TLJ [x]
Morality, Trust, and the Force–toward a new model of Force instruction
What went so fatally wrong with the Jedi Order?
It’s a recurring and fundamental question. Through the prequel, original, and now sequel trilogies we’ve watched the Jedi Order fall, rise, and then fall again. Unless they can end this cycle the end of Episode IX won’t be an end, but rather a prelude to a new tragedy.
I believe the old Jedi Order’s reliance on inborn Force power became warped into blood worship in Luke’s new Jedi Order, and Kylo Ren was a product of this repugnant and ahistorical belief. To overcome the mistakes of the old and new Orders, a new model of Force instruction must arise: One that does not rely on inborn talent and certainly not on the nonsensical idea that a lineage confers a special destiny or rights. Rather the new model must recognize and nurture the Force powers inherent in everyone, and instruction itself should be a horizontal process where the students teach each other.
Below I will lay out these ideas in more detail. First I will explain the progression from the old Jedi Order to the new one, and how discontinuity in history led to Luke’s mistakes and Kylo Ren. Then I will lay out the new model that I believe must take the Jedi’s place in order to prevent new Kylo Rens from arising, or at least minimize their damage, while also avoiding the mistakes of the old Jedi Order.
The TLJ novelization seems to validate part of what I said here about Luke’s role. From Snoke’s point of view:
Luke, in other words, knew that the Jedi were flawed and he needed to turn to sources older than the Jedi to understand the Force and perhaps seek other ways to organize around it. Snoke saw this path Luke was on as such a threat that he used his knowledge and a young Ben Solo to manipulate Luke into rebuilding the Jedi.
Much like the history of the Jedi itself, Luke’s attempt to rebuild the Order was defined by fear and temptation, not faith–fear of his nephew falling to the Dark Side, and the lure of power. In doing so Luke seems to have abandoned his earlier attempts to seek the origins of the Force faith that Snoke found so threatening. History repeated itself, and the Jedi came down again in blood and fire.
Luke did take another apprentice, however, who received barely any instruction from him other than the basics of the Force, the roots that Luke had been seeking before Snoke’s interference and sought out again when Kylo Ren destroyed his fledgling Academy. In addition to these basics, Rey also has the first Jedi texts which Finn discovered in the Millennium Falcon. It seems the stage is set to realize Luke’s original vision for a new/old way of Force instruction, the one he was groping toward before Snoke distracted him.
I’ve been saving this for this theme! A while ago, Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman were in a movie version of The Avengers (not to be confused with those other Avengers), based on the 60s TV show about British spies. The movie is really, really bad, but I like the aesthetics. So here we have Rey as Ms. Emma Peel and Finn as Major John Steed. Done on commission by the wonderful @persehpone.
L.J.'s Obsessions 