Star Wars, Episode IX: Chapter 9- The Mortis

**for previous chapters, please refer to the Table of Contents**

        Daytime, glimmering, with trees of gold and sparkling waterfalls of crystal, filling pools of limitless depth.

        Nighttime, filled with burning rain, howling wind, and grand, jagged bolts of lightning that set fire to everything they touched.

        Days and nights, one after the other, flashing by, years upon years of time piling into moments that disappeared instantly.

        Flat planes of waving grass. Peaks of rock, reaching staggering heights. Dense, lush forests. Deserts of suffocating dryness. Animals and life forms of every shape and kind imaginable, appearing out of the mists, forming and re-forming, their shapes never seeming to hold for more than an instant.

        Rey could not say how long she had been here. She was sure she had not moved her feet once since activating the beacon (no, she couldn't have) and yet her heart pounded and her blood raced as if she had darted halfway across the galaxy herself. And still the landscape before shifted and moved, filling her eyes and overwhelming her senses with a palate of colors and sights and images beyond anything she had ever dreams of. It felt as if the entire universe was rushing along before her, and she was a mere stone caught in the torrent of the stream.

        And through it all, the Force. It streamed through her body even more completely and thoroughly than her own blood and nerves. Évery inch of it this place was alive with it, overflowing. She felt thrilled, exhilerated, and....strangely, not afraid. She had not forgotten her friends. She was fully aware of the mission, of the battle that must surely be raging over Coruscant right now (or was, perhaps, long over). They must be worried. But Rey was not.

        She couldn't explain why. She only knew that she must be here for a reason. She opened her mouth for the first time, surprised a bit at the action, as if she had forgotten her own ability to speak. Not knowing who or what might possibly be listening, her voice finally asserted itself against the muffled silence around her:

        "Where.....am I?"

        "In a placed called the Mortis," a grave, familiar voice responded. Her heart filling with joy, Rey turned around to behold the sight of her master, Luke Skywalker, his ghostly form moving towards her.

        "Luke," she smiled, so relieved to see him that she forgot any irritation she'd felt before at his absences.

        "Hey kid," he responded, his face cracking into that lopsided grin she'd missed so much.

        "So...what is this place? I...was on Coruscant...I should be there..." she glanced around as the light around her faded once more into darkness, and the golden chirping of day gave way once more to an angry dusk. "...how did I get here? The Beacon? The Force?"

        "Yes," Luke responded, looking around her at the shifting scenery. "The Mortis is a strange place that the Jedi of old had heard of, but never found. It is the nexus of the Force. Everything in the universe flows from it, and back to it. Including," and here he gestured to himself, "the souls of Jedi who manage to unite with the Force upon death."

        Taking all this in, Rey tried to calm her racing heart, to allow herself to think a little more clearly. "And time? If I'm on the Mortis, when am I here? My friends might need me in the battle. What if the First Order wins again because I'm stuck here?"

        "A Jedi does not worry about that which they cannot control," a new voice, older, more formal, more clipped than Luke's, suddenly sounded out, as another figure in Jedi robes materialized beside Luke. Rey had never actually seen him before, but after hearing the stories from Luke and Leia, there was only one person it could be.

        "Master....Kenobi??" she said quietly.

        The elderly, bearded figure smiled gently at her, then bowed slightly, "One and the same. It is an honor to finally meet you, young Rey."

        Rey bowed reverently back.

        Master Kenobi continued, "Time within the Mortis is not like what you are used to. Like the Force, it is an endless mystery, always in flow. You were brought here for a purpose, and if you can open yourself up to it, it will guide you back to the place and time where you need to be."

        Rey considered this for a moment, her concerns diminishing noticeably. "Am I here to train, then? Can you and Luke continue my instruction here?"

        "No more training, do you require," came yet another voice, gravely and even more ancient-sounding. Rey spun around to see a tiny, bent, green figure hobbling towards her, a gnarled walking staff in its hand. "Surpassed us Masters, you already have. Nothing left to teach you, there is."

        Rey had thought she'd already seen so much here that nothing else could shock her. Clearly, she was wrong. "I can't believe it," she said quietly, gazing at the figure before her. "...Yoda?"

        At that the figure laughed, a staccato sound that, notwithstanding its rough tone, was filled with mirth. "Quite sharp, you are. Far less time than young Luke, you needed," and with that Yoda began laughing anew, Luke chuckling as well and Kenobi smiling amicably.

        Yoda then looked into Rey's eyes, his own shining with age and wisdom. "On equal footing, we stand. Walk with you now, we can. Advice, we can offer. But certain knowledge of what you must do and what is to come, none of us have."

        Yoda turned and gazed at the ever-shifting landscape around them. "Ever-shifting, the future is. Great, the dangers you face are, yes. But equally great, hm, the possibilities."

        Rey reflected for a moment on the swirl of ideas and worries that had been eating away at her for months. "I've been trying so hard to imagine what the right balance will be, Masters. But I still can't see a way."

        "Be careful with that word, 'balance,'" a fourth voice, filled with powerful depth, reached her ears. Behind the images of the other Jedi came the form of a human with curly, shoulder-length hair and a scar over one eye. Rey couldn't quite place it, but his face struck her as incredibly familiar.

        This new figure now stood between Luke and Kenobi, with Yoda immediately before him. Noting the puzzled expression on her face, the figure spoke up again. "I, too, am happy to meet you, Rey. My name is Anakin Skywalker."

        Understanding at why he had struck her as familiar rushed through Rey. "Anakin...so....you were.."

        "Luke's father, yes, and Ben's grandfather. And..." here Anakin's voice became soft and sad,"...Darth Vader. As a child I was told I was prophesied to bring balance to the Force. But like the Jedi of my time, I became stuck in set ideas about what balance, the Force, and my duty to both meant. Through fear, and pride, and stubborness, I was nearly lost forever. In the end, thanks to Luke, I was able to help bring balance. But by first trying to make the Force shape itself to my ends, I corrupted it, and myself, and caused unimaginable harm."

        The figure of Anakin moved closer to Rey. "Ben believes he is fulfilling my legacy, but he is stuck in thinking that my legacy consists of the darkness of Vader, rather than the light that the Skywalkers should have meant to the galaxy. Rey," his voice rose again, gaining in strength, "the galaxy can't afford another Skywalker to fail like we have. Not again. Whatever path you choose, it will go through my grandson."

        Rey struggled with this for a moment. This was exactly one of the quandaries that had been eating away at her insides for weeks now. She had flown off in the midst of a battle, ended her training with Master Luke, in the fervent belief that Ben Skywalker was still there, that Kylo Ren could be defeated through love and not the saber, like Luke had managed to do with Anakin. It hadn't worked, and the Rebellion was still feeling the damage done as a result. She was still feeling it, a shame and sense of failure greater than just about anything else she had ever experienced before.

        "Master Skywalker..."she said in a pained voice, "you believed yourself lost and were still saved. Do you really believe the same can't happen with Ben?" She turned to look at the other old masters as well, all remaining quite still in a semi-circle around her. "If I kill Ben Skywalker, how am I better than a Sith?"

        "That, too, none of us can say, young one," yet another voice reached Rey's ears from behind. Seeing the eyes of the others shift to behind her, she turned around to see yet another robe-clad figure, one with long, brown hair streaked with gray and a sharply-trimmed goatee. "You will know how to deal with Kylo Ren when the time comes."

        Seeing the confusion in her eyes at his appearance, this newest apparition smiled, filled with as much warmth as Yoda's. "Oh! Forgive me, you probably don't know who I am. I admit, my fame in life did not match those of my more illustrious colleagues." At this he bowed reverently to her, "My name is Qui-Gon Jinn. I was a member of the old Jedi, the one who discovered Anakin on Tatooine and first trained him. Though far more credit for his development must go to by other dear Padawan, Obi-Wan."

        At this, Obi-Wan chuckled, a sound as deep and comforting at Yoda's. "Oh, don't be so modest, Qui-Gon. You never were in life, after all." Obi-Wan driften into Rey's line of sight as she turned to him. "You should know, Rey, that Qui-Gon was the first of us to discover a way to bind the self to the Force after death. Even I hadn't suspected he'd managed it until Yoda told me."

        "Taught us the secret, Qui-Gon did." Yoda had now sat himself on a small patch of stone protruding from the ground around Rey. "So that remain, something of the old Jedi could."

        "To be there and help guide the next generation." Now Anakin was speaking again. "The greatest irony of my own life; I joined the Sith in a search for immortality for myself and my greatest love. Yet the Sith way, embracing and glorifying the self, only leads to your own disappearance in the end. It was only after Luke reopened my eyes to the light that the door was finally opened for me."

        For a moment, silence descended. Around them, the Mortis shone in the full glory of a summer's day, plants lush and colorful and sunlight like a thousand crystal gems.

        "Masters..." Rey struggled to finally find the words to convey all that was rushing through her head. "Thank you. All of you. For being with me. It means more than I can say. So...." she took a deep, calming breath, "what can I do now?"

        Qui-Gon spoke first. "For now, simply open yourself up to the living Force. You are here at the center of it all. Let the stream carry you, and see where it leads."

        "And remember, you're not alone," Luke was now speaking behind her. Rey turned, and saw his eyes shining with pride and encouragement. "Like the Force, we are with you, always."

        Rey stood for a moment, the last remaining Jedi in a circle of the old masters. Around them, the Mortis continued to swirl through rapid cycles of night and day, light and dark, years and eons stretching by as grand landscapes rose and fell. But in the small grover within which the Jedi stood, a quiet peace abounded.

        A swell of strength and determination welled up within her. Nodding to the masters, she sat down cross-legged on the grass, closing her eyes and opening every bit of her being up to the glorious Force around her.

        Breath, she thought to herself, centering herself within the vortex around her. Just breath. She opened her eyes.

        At first, she seemed to be looking into a mirror image, that of her sitting form, surrounded by the ghosts of a handful of past Jedi. She felt two great weights pressing on either side of her head. To the right, the ages to come, glimpses of possible futures. To the left, the ages past, all the generations of Jedi and other Force-users that had gone before her. She could choose, in this moment, in which direction she wanted to look.

        Slowly, she turned her head slightly to the left, and the image before her dissolved, carried away as if she were gazing into a rushing stream, and Rey found herself being swept back in the currents of time. She saw herself in her time training with Luke. She saw images, ones that she only partially understood, of Luke's life in reverse; his struggles with Ben, his fight against his father and Palpatine, his own training with Masters Kenobi and Yoda. Then further; the galaxy cast under the darkness of the emperor, legions of older Jedi battling hordes of soldiers that all seemed to have the same face. Here she recognized Yoda, and having now met them, Anakin and Qui-Gon, but the others were unfamiliar to her. And yet, she could feel her connection to them through the Force. These were the Jedi of the past, of the Clone Wars and earlier crisis that had led to the Empire.

        And time ran still further backward, and she saw governments rise and fall and the Jedi and Sith fight for supremacy the whole while, a grand cycle of light and dark.

        Eventually, she seemed to be gazing at visions of a past before any of the Republics, or any of the empires of the Sith. In fact, she seemed to be before the Sith or Jedi as she knew them existed. Instead, her vision seemed to draw itself and slow into an image of the entire known galaxy, before moving towards planets deep in the Core. Coming in, she saw the first races that began to form complex civilizations simultaneously seeming to attain their first awareness of the Force. No Orders yet, no formal doctrines; just the first explorations of a universe beyond the normal senses of biological life.

        Curious at this, Rey focused with her mind, and the rush of images slowed down, and she felt herself suspended in a time deeper in the past than she'd ever imagined. Looking at the figures before her- humans, Wookies, Noghri, Sullustans, Bothans, and a host of other races- she watched as the settled into a meditation to draw in the Force....and to Rey's shock, proceeded to draw on both the light and the dark side in equal measure. Instead of only focusing on one aspect of the Force or another, she watched as the first generations of Force-users trained themselves to balance both sides within themselves, a careful cultivation of the whole spectrum of emotions, rather than allowing one part or another to seek domination or control over the other. When calm judgment was needed, the peace and clarity of the Light. When danger threatened and violence was needed, the rushing passion and fighting fury of the Dark. And in between, a constant, active striving for balance.

        It was as if a clear, cold breath of air was entering her lungs for the first time after an eternity underwater. Cold shock flooded Rey's senses, and she drew back to herself, the universe before her rushing back to the present, and she once again found herself in the quiet glade, surrounded by the old masters.

        Breathing deeply, her heart racing, Rey opened her eyes. The masters watched her with patient expressions while she tried to gather her thoughts. "I saw....well...they weren't Jedi, not yet. The first users of the Force. I saw how they engaged both the light and dark side. They balanced it within themselves first, then balanced the world around them. Could," she looked up at Luke first, "could that be the new way for the Jedi? The one I've been looking for?"

        Luke was silent for a moment, contemplative. "When you first came to me, I was terrified at how quickly you drew both sides of the Force into yourself, without hesitation. It reminded me of what first made me worry about Ben. The same fear that led to my failure with him and the other Jedi I trained."

        "Too rigid, the old Jedi became," Yoda spoke up now, still sitting. "Too quick to divide all into light or dark, black or white. Blinded us, this did."

        Then Luke spoke again, "I tried to change some things about the Order. How we trained, how we were organized. But I now see that, in the end, I was still haunted by the same fears, the same limitations."

        Now Qui-Gon spoke. "We told you, when you first came here, that we now stand together as equals. You have the examples of how we fell short, and you now see what came before us. The arts of the first Force-users have been lost over millenia, but what is lost can always be found again, with enough dedication."

        "The Force showed you this history for a reason, young Rey." Kenobi stepped forward, standing alongside Anakin. "Nothing is ever guaranteed, but if a path through all aspects of the Force, not just the Light, is the way you think is best, we know you are more than capable of finding it."

        Rey felt a warm confidence bubble up in her. All the doubts and worries that had been eating away at her insides for months now finally seemed to be melting away. She may not have ever known her parents. Her time with Luke might have been cut short. Maybe Ben could not be brought back to the Light. But if her fellow Jedi could believe in her like this, then, one way or another, she would find her path.

        She knew that now, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Star Wars, Episode IX: Chapter 8- The Breakout

 **For previous chapters, please refer to the Table of Contents**

               Po took a moment to surveigh the spread of ships before him, encompassing everything the Rebellion had left in fighting shape and with enough people to crew. It wasn't an encouraging sight. Given the losses they'd suffered- in part, through his own rashness- on the flight to and battle at Crait, it was certainly impressive they'd managed to gather what ships they did have. It just wasn't enough.

               It's all on the mission, Po thought, either they get to the Beacon and the galaxy responds, or...

               Well, he always figured when his time came, he'd go out in his ship, fighting the good fight.

               Stop it, man, he thought to himself sharply, catching the depressing downspiral his thoughts had started into, that's bantha shit. Of course they'd get to the beacon. The message would get out. And the free races of the galaxy would respond. Po had to believe that. He couldn't let himself believe otherwise. Not now.

               He felt another fleeting moment of regret over the fact that he wasn't on the ground on Coruscant with the gang, right now. He understood and accepted General Leia's decision, but he couldn't help but feel like he was letting his friends down by not being there.

               He'd gave them each a hug as they departed the ship after he landed, and he'd also taken a moment to rub BB8's head and remind him to pay extra careful attention to the others. As he lifted off, he couldn't help but watch them through the rear vid feed on the ship until they'd turned the corner out of the hanger bay.

               At least he'd had R2 for company on the way back. The old companion of Luke and Leia could be every bit the chatterbox BB8 was when it was in the mood. On cue, a wheedling sound came through the system as they drew closer to General Leia's flagship, where they'd dock and join the others on the bridge to wait until the signal came.

               "They'll make it, buddy," he responded, tamping down his own worries at the same time, "We do our jobs right and you'll be the first one out to greet Rey when she gets back, guaranteed."

               Before R2 could respond, his comm unit crackled to life and began to reverberate with Lando's warm baritone, "You get out alright, soldier?"

               "Yes sir," Po responded, slowing his ship down to prepare for entry into the opening to the ship's docking station. "Got them onworld without a hitch. Now we wait."

               "Good to hear. Get up to the bridge as soon as you can. Leia will go through the rest of the plan with us then."

***

               As Po approached the bridge of Leia's new flagship, the Star Cruiser Ackbar, he heard the raised voices of Chewie and Lando through the open doorway. Upon passing into the gleaming command center, he was able to make out enough that they were apparently arguing over who would take the lead in flying the Falcon in the upcoming fight. Smiling a bit inwardly, he turned to the left set of consoles, where Leia was looking over the shoulders of attendants doing a series of diagnistic tests.

               "General," he said loosely, sliding up behind her, "Lando said you wanted to go over the plan with me?"

               "Po, yes," she looked over, smiling warmly, "Though really there's not much to plan out yet. We don't even know how many ships we'll have."

               "Fair enough." He scratched his chin impatiently, wondering for the thousandth time what exactly would happen once the message went out. "Mind if I wait with you here?"

               "Sure. Just don't shoot anything." The fact that she could not only crack a joke like that, but accompany it with a wink and that sly grin of hers, caused much of the compressed coils of stress inside Po to fade away. She may just be putting up a front for the other soldiers- maybe she was even more worried about failure than Po was- but still, she'd always had a way of making everyone she spoke with believe in themselves.

***

               After an (in Po's mind) absolutely interminable wait, the prepared message had finally gone out, overriding every communications systems on the ships with the call for help from Leia, the naming of Coruscant as the place to gather, and the channels with which to contact the Resistance forces. It had been a moment a true joy and triumph throughout the fleet, since it meant Rey, Finn, and Rose were alive and had carried out the mission after all.

               Unfortunately, it had been promptly followed by more waiting, now stretching out to over an hour, as the communications officers keeping watch for some response, any response.

               Po, sitting off to the side at a small desk with Lando waiting with everyone else, was rubbing his temples so much he was amazed he hadn't bored down to his brain yet. Chewie, who'd been standing right behind him and rumbling in a low-key voice for over ten minutes now, was not helping matters.

               He glanced over at Lando, who somehow seemed as collected as ever, and arched his eyebrows. "What do you say, General? Think we'll get stuck holding the bag again?"

               Lando smiled, but it didn't extend to his eyes, one of the few telltale signs that he wasn't quite as calm as he appeared. "Galaxy's a big place. Even if every inhabited planet jumped into the nearest cockpit, it'd take a bit to coordinate coming all the way to the Core."

               "I suppose," Po turned back towards the far side of the bridge, where Leia was once again bent over the comm officers at their desks, though whatever they were looking at was obscured. "I don't want to worry too much, but..."

               Right at that moment, even at a distance, Po noticed rows of lights at the comm desk lighting up, the system warbling out the receipt of one incoming message after another. Leia remained still for a moment, staring intently at the information that was now suddenly rushing across the recently-empty screens. For a moment, Po couldn't bring himself to believe it.

               Then, her shoulders rising as if she were filling up with the galaxy itself, Leia looked up at Po and Lando, breaking out in the biggest, most sincere grin, he'd ever seen.

               The anticipation that had been building inside him this entire time coiled together in a ball of clear-eyed focus. Now was what he'd been waiting his whole life for.

               It was on.

***

               "How many?" Hux snapped at the comms officer who'd just spoken, hardly able to believe it.

               "T...twenty, sir," he muttered back, pointing to a display where a visual feed had just propped up. "Twenty ships incoming. All with known rebel signatures, but only one heavy cruiser among them."

               Hux took a moment to let his own eyes confirm what the datascrolls said. Yes. Unbelievable. After all the consternation and fury and even panic that had broken out within High Command when, against every precaution they'd taken, that damn signal had gotten out, after recriminations and endless worry that the careful edifice they'd constructed was about to come crashing down, after all the waiting, the rebels had finally arrived....

               ....bringing barely enough firepower to trouble one large Star Destroyer, let alone the entire Core Fleet. And with that damned fool Kylo Ren still off who knows where, that meant that final victory would belong to Hux, and Hux alone. How supremely delicious.

               Turning over to the dias managing communication with the planet forces, he spoke to the managing officer; "Has Captain Nilson located the source of the broadcast yet?"

               "Yes sir," the young woman replied immediately, "it appears to have come from within the Jedi Temple. He has already ordered all forces in the area to converge and flush out the team that did it."

               The Jedi Temple. Interesting. Hux though to himself for a moment, then responded, "Excellent. I expect an immediate report once he has results."

               "And," he added as he turned consider the coming battle, "remind him to keep a close eye on the Knights. It wouldn't do to let the Supreme Leader's pets go too far off the rails."

               Oh, how he was already anticipating the reckoning to come with this beloved, MIA Leader of theirs.

               Back on the forward part of the bridge, he opened a communications channels between the bridges of all the capital ships of the First Order in the area, each of which was now converging on the tiny batch of pitiful rebellion ships approaching the planet.

               Before he could so much as greet them, though, proximity sensors on his own ship began to light up at a rate that indicated forces beyond either his own or the rebel pickings within his view.

               "What's happening? What is that?" He barked at the comms officer, who, somehow, seemed even more out of sorts than before.

               "It's....sir, there's dozens of them. Capital ships incoming from the Corellian system, Kuat, even Bilbringi."

               Before his mind could process this, Commander Dartly of the Nexus spoke up, "General Hux! I suddenly have ten Wookie frigates incoming, each of them sending out a dozen Owool fighters."

               "General Hux," another commander chimed in, "My fighters have just engaged two squads of Mon Calamari Star Cruisers. They came out of nowhere, sir..."

               More voices, from both his own bridge and the other ships, started coming in as well, but at this point they were merely blending into a single wall of sound surrounding Hux, as a terrible, terrible feeling began to build in the pit of his stomach. This feeling only solidified when he glanced up at the massive visual display before him and he watched as the promised dozens of frigates and dreadnoughts from Correlia and the shipyards of Kuat and Bilbringi flickered into view, giant shapes suddenly appearing out of hyperspace and filling his field of vision with the promise of danger.

               Oh. For a moment, Hux found himself completely unable to think. Oh dear.

***

               Cautiously, Finn peered around the corner of a doorway, taking long looks in both directions before beckoning with a rapid hand gesture behind him towards Rose and BB8.

               "This way, come on." He moved out quickly, jogging lightly down the lefthand way, this part of the Temple lit only by the dimmest of glow strips along the upper edges of the facade.

               Rose, huffing slightly from all the sudden turns Finn had led them on, paused slightly upon rounding the corner to stare at Finn's receding back in perplexed frustration. "How do you know we're going the right way??"

               "SSSHHHHHH!!!" Finn turned back to her briefly, furiously shaking his finger in front of his lips.

               "Finn, what..." she tried responding, but he but her off again; "Just follow me! I'm pretty sure this is the way!"

               "Pretty damn sure..." Rose muttered to herself, as she and BB8 picked up the pace to catch up to Finn.

               After Rey had disappeared, she and Finn had felt several moments of utter terror trying to figure out what could have happened to their friend. At a loss, they decided to at least try and find their way back out of the Temple, hoping that, whatever sort of strange fate had befallen her, Rey might still be on Coruscant somewhere. Going slowly, so as to try and avoid getting lost in the endless maze that was the Temple halls, they'd made at least some progress until Finn suddenly got that strange look in his eye again, reaching out to grab Rose's arm just as she was about to turn a corner.

               "Hang on!" He'd whispered urgently, pulling her to the ground and peeking around the edge of the wall.

               "What..." Rose started to say in bewilderment, but then she saw something moving down the other end of the corridor that stopped her words in her throat. A row of fully-armed stormtroopers, led by a black-clad figure weilding a hideously large ax.

               The First Order had figured out they were in the Temple, and a Knight was leading the search for them.

               Wondering at how Finn noticed this, she turned to whisper to him, but before she could say anything, he'd quickly muttered. "We gotta get out of here. This way!" Before breaking off down the other end of the corridor, leaving her to sputter uselessly and hurry along in his wake.

               It had been one twist or turn after another since then, and she still had no sense of whether they were any closer to getting out of the trap that was clearly starting to close around them. Ahead, she saw Finn stop at an intersection where three other pathways crossed. Catching up to him at last, his face seem clouded and worried, his eyes still filled with that strange distance she'd been seeing more and more lately.

               "Finn," she said, taking breaths to settle her racing pulse, "What's going on? What is it you're not telling me?"

               Finn looked at her with a measure of surprise in his eyes. "The...First Order's trying to capture us and we've lost Rey.." he sounded a bit befuddled, as if he wasn't sure why he needed to say that.

               She shook her head fiercely in exapseration, "That's not what I'm talking about, Finn. I'm talking about you. What's happening? You sensed those guards before we could see them. You're leading us down parts of the Temple we weren't in before as if you know where to go. What's. Going. On." She punctuated each of the last three words with sharp pokes to Finn's chest, forcing him to take a step back.

               "I...." Finn began, but before he could say anything else, his eyes darted up towards the end of the corridor behind Rose. Filled with a sudden dread, she turned to see the dark figure of the Knight from earlier standing at a bend about 20 meters away, silently staring at them. From behind them, down the same hallway they'd just come down, the sound of marching boots suddenly began to build.

               Sithspawn, Rose thought. This isn't good.

***

               A wave of laser bolts passed over the canopy, but Poe didn't even need to look to know his opponent had overshot. Gripping his joystick in anticipation, he began to slowly drift left in a feinting move, then kicked the engine into overdrive to shoot to the right. Switching from back to forward propulsers, he then spun around in a rapid 180-degree move, the index finger on his right hand patiently sitting atop the firing button. Upon completing the turn, he saw to his satisfaction that the other pilot had taken the bait and was only now turning back towards the direction he'd jetted off in. The pilot probably got a good two seconds of visual to realize his mistake before Poe's shots blew him into the vacuum of space, where the detritus of capital ships, small fighters, defense platforms, and bodies was already starting to form an undulating cloud of devastation.

               "Nice move there, hotshot," Lando's voice crackled over the comms line as, to his right, Poe saw the Falcon execute a nifty flip of its own that allowed both the upper and lower cannons to shoot two TIE-fighters out of the sky simultaneously. "Maybe one day you"ll even be able to top me."

               "Gotta stay alive until then, General," Poe grinned, glad to have some decent banter to keep him focused on the battle at hand.

               A short warble from R2 reminded him to double-check his fuel supplies, but a short glance was more than enough to assure him that he had plenty left in the tank to keep up the fight as long as necessary.

               With no fighters approaching him for a few seconds, he spared a glance out at the battlespace sprawled over the great mass of Coruscant below. One Star Destroyer was already in free-fall, its slow descent into the planetary shields slowly causing the massive structure to break up into chunks that would mostly dissipate within the planet's atmosphere, thus avoiding too much serious damage or loss of life to the planet itself. Hopefully.

               The rest of the First Order fleet, though, was still up and still fighting despite several of their major ships getting hammered on all sides from the widest array of battle ships Poe had ever had the fortune to witness. This sure wasn't going to end anytime soon, but the fight was evenly matched as they could have hoped for. This is what Crait should have been, could have been, but it was happening now, and the wait had been worth it.

               His reflection was broken up by his comm unit crackling back to life, from which General Leia's voice soon emerged.

               "Still got both wings on flyboy?"

               "Yes ma'am," he responded, "and may I say, the view from here is pretty good."

               "Yeah, well, don't get complacent. We've got a lot of hard fighting to go. I need you and Lando over to our side of the battlefield; we've got a bead on Hux's flagship and I'd rather not give him the chance to pass up on a personal interview with me after this is over."

               "Roger that, m'lady," Lando intoned, followed by a roar of affirmation from Chewie next to him.

               "Ay-yay." Poe added, "Let's finish this." He turned the throttle and followed the Falcon in a loose turn left towards the far end of the battlespace, where he could just make out Leia's command cruiser and a Correllian frigate, each dodging and exchanging fire with the largest Star Destroyer left in the First Order's fleet.

               Yes, Poe thought with renewed determination as he slowly increased his speed. One way or another, this ends now.

***

               In a wayward part of space sat a lonely planet, shrouded in clouds of the deepest reds.

               Beneath the clouds lay a broken and dead landscape, pitted with canyons ringed with jagged blades of stone.

               On a plateau overlooking one of these tectonic gashes, a single fighter sat alone and empty.

               Within the ship, a blinking light indicated urgent incoming messages kept going off and on, throwing brief waves of blue light against the shadows.

               The ship was too far away and the light of the activated signal far too faint to reach across the clearing to the temple ruin that it faced.

               Within the temple, all was utter darkness.

               Above the temple, stormclouds of an even starker shade of red swirled faster and faster in agitation, as lighting forked out of the broken roof into the sky above, blinding in its intensity and its fury.

               The light blinked on, but there was no one there to answer.

Review: Bombay Rose

Bombay Rose (2021): Written and directed by Gitanjali Rao. Starring: Cyli Khare, Amit Deondi, Anurag Kashyap and Makrand Deshpande. Running Time: 97 minutes.  

Rating: 3/4 

Anyone who knows me knows that I will go to my grave arguing that animation is a fundamentally better avenue for visual storytelling than anything "live-action."  I think the primary reason for this is that animating a story requiring a far greater concentration to the details on the screen; since it is all being artificially created, the best filmmakers in this field know they have to make careful decisions about what, exactly, they put their efforts into.  And the end result is that the story is then shown in its full essence, elevating it beyond what it might otherwise be. 

Bombay Rose, by Gitanjali Rao, is a prime example of this. The story itself is very sparse and downplayed, with large segments played out with almost no dialogue. But the soft color pallete used and the gentle, very artificial ways characters move across the screen creates a dreamlike, meditative feel that creates a vibe all its own.  It is, essentially, a Romeo & Juliet, star-crossed lovers tale, with a few twists of its own.  Kamala is a young Hindu woman, roped by circumstances into basically being the caretaker of her invalid grandfather and younger sister. Day after day, she sits on the street by their house, making decorations out of jasmine petals to sell to those passing by.  Salim is a Muslim refugee from Kashmir, who works on the other side of the street selling bouquets of flowers to whoever will buy them.  

They soon each notice the other looking at them from across the street and it is clear that they are falling for each other, but it actually takes quite awhile before they ever actually exchange a single word.  These moments, done slowly and with care, are wonderful moments of visual storytelling and make it all the more powerful when they are finally able to touch and speak with each other.  

It's obviously not going to be easy or simple for them.  The religious differences is one major issue, but we also learn that Kamala has a handler arranging to sell her off to a Dubai prince as a wife, which would theoretically provide enough cash for her to leave her grandfather and sister provided for.  Though she has to work the streets, she insists that her sister continues school and spends every afternoon in the company of a charming elderly lady who teaches her English and takes her on walks to the nearby cemetary.  Kamala herself had hoped to finish university, and her frustrations with her situation are often depicted via the flights of fancy she often goes into in her mind, remarkable sequences that intersect with her daily reality in interesting ways.  

The movie never goes for great heights with its storytelling and avoids flashy moments, even where there is an actual chase going on during the climax, but I found that to be a major strength.  The movie comes and allows us to exist in its world, for just a bit, and it is a lovely place to think about the nature of life, aging, death, and the importance of having family and friends close by.  This movie technically came out two years ago but is only now available on Netflix.  Definitely give it a chance.  

-Noah Franc 

Review: The Most Beautiful Boy in the World

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World (2021): Written and directed by Kristian Petri and Kristina Lindström. Starring: Björn Anderson, Annike Andresen, Ann Lagerström. Running Time: 93 minutes.

Rating: 3.5/4

               Fame. Recognition. Adoration. Deep down, we all crave it to one extent or another. Some of us are willing to entertain the hope for a moment or so before letting it pass us by. Others are willing to do sacrifice anything to obtain it, even for a second. In the end, though, few of us are capable of grasping beforehand the costs that can come with fame, the degree to which it can so easily confiscate our humanity as the price for its presence. This, despite the fact that recent decades have provided us with a deluge of examples of how the simple fact of being famous, no matter its cause, can lead to unimaginable tragedy. Björn Anderson's story is one such example.

               On the surface, it's exactly the sort of right lace/right time fortune so many of us dream of. Anderson wasn't even interested in fame or acting when his grandmother dragged him to an audition with legendary director Luchino Visconti for his soon-to-be-classic film adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella, Death in Venice. The director instantly saw stars and cast Anderson as Tadzio, a boy meant to embody the epitome of youthful beauty to such a degree that the story's main character, an older male writer, eventually becomes consumed with obsession over him (when I put it that way, it's probably best no has tried to re-adapt this particular story anytime recently).

               Tadzio's face was, obviously, a huge part of the film's marketing, and over the course of interviews and premiere tours, Visconti increasingly lauded Anderson as "the most beautiful boy in the world." It was, sadly, not immediately apparent to Anderson just what sort of price the attention this all brought to a naive teenager would eventually exact.

               If there is one fatal flaw that tends to hound this more tragic style of documentary, it's the impulse to be too detailed, or at least too overly focused on, the gory specifics of what the film's subject (or subjects) suffered through. The frank and unvarnished truth is often very unnecessary, even if it's merely being described and not shown, but there is a morbid side to us that can rear it's head and make us lose the forest for the proverbial trees. The best documentaries thread this needle well enough to tell us everything we need to know without letting us drown in the pain, losing sight of the protagonists and the scars they bear. This movie performs especially well in this regard, leaving little doubt as to the "nature" of the exploitation Anderson eventually suffered via his being labeled "the most beautiful boy in the world," but it's the ways and areas where it chooses to pull back and not lift every curtain that make it especially effective. I was reminded of another recent documentary, Netflix's Tell Me Who I Am, which I also found balanced itself remarkably well.

               There are still parts that I would love to see fleshed out more; specifically, we get bits and pieces of the bizarre obsession Anderson encountered as a young adult when he moved to Japan for a time, with clips of crowds that forcefully reminded me of Beatlemania in the US. I have a hunch there is enough material there for a whole other film. The focus, though, remains on Anderson as he is now, and while certainly not shying away from the wounds he still carries with him, there are glimpses, especially of him with his daughter, that provide some comfort that he can still find happiness in this world. And, it must be added, though he has obviously left youth and the cage of his previous appearance far behind him, he absolutely rocks his current wizened, Saruman-esque visage. Beauty is most certainly not only the providence of the young.

               More than anything, though, this film struck me as one of the better films of recent years to throw into relief just how much pain almost always results from our world's obsession with fleeting notions of fame and beauty. I yearn for that light, yes- for Christ's sake, I'm an amateur film critic on the internet, I'm certainly not pursuing this for my health- but I do fear, sometimes, what awaits me should it ever actually reach my shores.

-Noah Franc

Review: I Care A Lot

I Care A Lot (2021): Written and directed by J Blakeson. Starring: Rosamund Pike, Peter Dinklage, Eiza Gonzalez, Chris Messina, and Dianne Wiest. Running Time: 118 minutes.

Rating: 3/4

               I couldn't help but be repeatedly reminded of Gone Girl while watching Rosamund Pike's character be pulled ever-deeper into a web of conspiracy, deviance, and amoral depravity as she tries to keep her life of scams afloat. In all other respects these two films are barely comparable, but Pike's performance in both are mirror images of each other as she yanks the viewer into the tangled machinations of a complete and utter sociopath. Unlike in Gone Girl, however, where she shares lead billing with Ben Affleck, here she's working opposite Peter Dinklage, which for my money is a significant upgrade.

               Inspired by a smattering of real-life stories, Marla Grayson heads a small yet massively corrupt circle of doctors and retirement home managers who regularly conspire to get Marla legal guardianship of the old and mentally ill so as to slowly leech them of all their material wealth before they croak. It is brutal, shockingly cold-blooded and wholly amoral. Therefore, it is the perfect distillment of 21st-century American capitalism. We have all this set up for us in a remarkably economic opening, one that uses sharp contrasts between the earnest, heartfelt tones Marla applies in the courtroom to gain custody over people with a literal Victims Wall in her office, where headshots of her "wards" are added and removed like hunting targets.

               The delicate balancing act that allows her and her colleagues-in-crime to skirt just around the right side of the law is very, very brutally blasted apart when she finally picks the wrong target. In her search for a "cherry," she discovers an elderly woman who seems remarkably wealthy, but with no clear friends of family around to care about an inheritance once she's gone. She soons find out that this identity is nothing more than a front, and soon the goons of one Roman Lunyov, Peter Dinklage's reclusive crime boss and the apparent son of the disappeared lady, start hounding her, her girlfriend, and everyone she's ever worked with, determined to force her to give up custodianship of the woman or literally kill her trying.

               As is to be expected, Pike is absolutely amazing in her role, shining even in some later scenes where the script suddenly starts giving her less to work with. The movie comes up very close to the edge of glorifying, or at least being an apologist for, the ego-driven cruelty that drives Marla, but there are a few key moments that reassured me the movie wasn't quite that nihilistic. Still, this is a hell of a ride, and even when the plot starts to jump the shark a bit in the final act and breaks away from the frightening realism that makes the first half of the movie so guttingly effective, it remains incredibly entertaining right up to the end.

               As great as she is, though, Dinklage matches her in every scene and brings the lumber portraying a former mob boss who is trying, maybe, to leave the life behind and just live in peace. There is a quiet hilarity in how increasingly furious he gets that this knucke-headed care worker won't just take a wad of money offered to her, give him his mother back, and leave them all the fuck alone. Even as the wire this is all balancing on starts to fray towards the end, both of these characters remain entertaining enough to want to stick around and see what happens.

               All in all, this is a finely-acted and mostly well-made thriller, albeit one that will not blow the mind of any aficionados of this particular genre. If nothing else, it left me all the more determined to keep care of my parents within the family when the time comes.

-Noah 

My Top Ten Films of 2020

Well. It's been a year.

Since the "Death of Cinema" has been so big a theme amongst the cultural intelligentsia for so long, I am not yet convinced that 2020 will actually be the literal death of movie theaters as we know it. Nonetheless, this was an absolutely shitty year that is definitely going to have massive ramifications for global cinema in the years to come. Which made it all the more heartening to see that, in spite of this, there was still some really awesome stuff that managed, one way or another, to come out and remind us of the good stuff people are capable of.

Given, well, EVERYTHING that seemed determined to drown us in misery over the past 12 months, it is wholly understandable if any (or all) of the films I'm about to beat the drum for passed you by. Hopefully this year will allow us all to catch our breaths and catch up on what we missed out while we were trying to stave off the literal death of democracy and human decency.

Now let's get this out of the way so I never have to contemplate 2020 ever again.

Honorable Mentions: Tenet, A Whisker Away, The Invisible Man, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Dancing Mary

10. Birds of Prey (and the Fabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), dir. Cathy Yan

This was the last major film to come out before shit really started hitting the fan, prompting quite a few people to joke that this would be the only film eligible for any Oscars, and thus win everything. It won't quite pan out that way, obviously, but this was still a damn good film that way too many people slept on. Margot Robbie continues to define her own world and shows off just how potent her star power can be with one of her most fun, committed performances to date. I know, it's still in fashion to hate on DC movies, but this sleeper had me convinced there was life to be found on this particular planet.

9. Soul, dir Pete Doctor

The marketing had me worried that this would mostly be a retread of Inside Out, but thankfully I was quite wrong on that account. It is refreshing to see that Pixar is still capable of taking its animation in new directions, particularly in regards to how it portrays the afterlife and the otherworldly beings that occupy it. Pixar may not be the industry-defining trend-setter it once was, but it can still astound and amaze.

8. Makuko, dr. Keiko Tsuruoka

Getting only a limited release via this year's digital Nippon Connection film festival in Frankfurt, Makuko tells the story of a boy about to hit puberty whose maturation is, in part, sparked by the arrival of a strange girl in his village who might be an alien, or maybe just super strange. This is one of the few films I've encountered that is able to really tackle some of the more awkward physical aspects of growing up, specifically as it relates to boys, without ever oversimplifyng or downplaying anything. It is remarkable well-balanced in this regard, and it made a deep impression on me as a result.

7. Matthias & Maxime, dir. Xavier Dolan

This film was my introduction to the world of Xavier Dolan, and I am better for it. A story of long-hidden love between two lifelong friends, this movie effortlessly captures so much of what it feels like to reach that point in your life where you are directly straddling between carefree youth and the weight and responsibilities of adulthood. There are some powerful emotions wrapped up in this part of one's life, a yearning for what was and an uncertainty about what's to come, and the journey the two main characters take mirrors this perfectly.

6. Emma., dir. Autumn de Wilde

Before Anya Taylor-Joy captivated the world with her leading role in The Queen's Gambit, she was supposed to have captivated us with her leading role in de Wilde's gloriously-costumed adaptation of this Jane Austin novel. Sadly, while Birds of Prey managed to land in theaters in the nick of time, this film's release was wholly upended by the onset of the pandemic, and it took awhile before it was generally accessible via streaming.

It was worth the wait though; once I was finally able to see it, I loved it every bit as much as I assumed I would when I first saw the trailer. Taylor-Joy is note-perfect as the effortlessly arrogant/clueless rich girl getting a kick out of messing up everyone else's love lives, only to have to forcefully reckon with her actions by the end of the film. The colors and vibrancy of the film's visuals are a treat to behold, but the film doesn't stop there; the cinematography and editing are used to provide lots of little instances where the background servants are shown silently commenting on what they really think of the petty dramas their employers fill their days with.

5. The Assistant, dir. Kitty Green

It's hard- really, really hard- to effectively use the language of cinema to convey the many, thousand intangible factors that enable climates of abuse. It's far easier to go the direct route and depict a rape, or real physical abuse, using the extreme to make a point. This makes The Assistant all the more potent and notable for how it avoids any and all direct depictions, or even direct mentions, of the actual acts of sexual abuse that are so heavily implied during the film's short (yet astoundingly economic) runtime. You have to look and listen very closely to pick up all the information the film lays out for you, but if you stick with it, it is an incredibly thought-provoking experience. More than anything, this movie is able to make it painfully clear how institutions and companies and even whole societies manage, one way or another, to coopt everyone involved in letting things slide and not challenging the structures of power, even when things beneath the surface are so clearly, awfully wrong.

4. Ainu Mosir, dir. Takeshi Fukunaga

A quiet and meditative film on the struggles of growing up as the member of a forgotten minority, this Japanese-Netflix production explores the challenges of balancing conflicting identities through the eyes of a young Ainu boy who is having a hard time coming to terms with his father's recent passing. While he does find solace in some of the traditions of his people, the film also engages thoughtfully with the very real conflicts indiginous communities face in having to balance their desires to preserve tradition with the very real economic need that can force either the abandonment or commodification of things that were meant to be personal.

3. Totally Under Control, dir. Alex Gidney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, and Suzanne Hillinger

In a time defined by the global pandemic, there is no story from 2020 more horrifying and sickening than the wholesale abandonment of any effort or responsibility on the part of the Republican Party to do even the bare minimum to protect human life. There is simply no other comparison from the past 12 months of a government so completely abandoning its own citizens to suffer and die without remittance. It is an albatross of shame to be hung around the neck of every member of the GOP from now until they die.

In a remarkable bit of filmmaking, the team behind this film were able to gather crucial testimony as to how, exactly, the US government systematically failed at every step to prepare and respond to the coming deluge. There will be a lot of movies about this year to come out, but this one will remain essential viewing for years to come.

2. Corpus Christi, dir. Jan Komasa

I was raised as both a Catholic and a liberal, making my own personal thoughts on faith and spiritually particularly unique. As such, it takes a very specific combination of things for a film about faith, particularly Christian faith, to strike a chord with me. This Polish film about a passionately religious convict who basically stumbles into becoming the parish priest of a small town, hits all the right notes for me in how it examines the nature of faith, especially within a community setting, and challenges more "typical" notions of what roles faith, religion, and figures like priests should fill. The climax this all builds to is absolutely unforgettable.

1. Hamilton (live, original cast recording on Disney+)

Yeah yeah yeah, I hear you all bitching about how this isn't a "real film" and how this is cheating, and how dare I put this over a modern masterpiece like Corpus Christi?

Well, I guess what; I don't give a FUCK, because 2020 was HORRIBLE from start to finish, it's my list, and I will put whatever I damn well please in my Numer One Spot. I spent most of the year feeling utterly dead inside and convinced that humanity pretty much had no reason to continue existing. Then the live recording of the original cast of Hamilton was released on Disney+, I watched it with some family, and felt alive like I hadn't in fucking MONTHS. I remembered what it felt like to have joy in my heart and not just cold hatred, every reason I have devoted so much of my life to the theater came rushing back at once, and after months of feeling drier than the Sahara I was able to CRY. Honest, actual tears came out of the stone mask that had become my face. In the midst of all that had happened, that did happen, and that is still happening, that moment was more precious and more life-saving than I can begin to quantify.

Plus, I would honestly fight anyone who claims that there is nothing "cinematic" about a live recording of a Broadway show, because I honestly found the filming and editing choices used for this to be extremely effective at not only capturing the energy and emotion of a live theater performance, but even elevating it, since most seats in a theater are not able to get you as close to the action as the camera could in a few pivotal moments. Is it a "movie" in the strictest sense of the term? No, of course not. But it was exactly what I needed at one of my lowest points of one of the lowest years ever, and for that, this recording deserves to be etched onto eternity itself.

And that's it. I did it. I managed to squeeze a Top Ten list out of 2020. Now let's all do a Kylo Ren and let the past truly, finally die.

Death to Fascism.

-Noah Franc