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    We're Home: Fandom, Fun, and Hidden Homages in Star Wars: The Force Awakens
    We're Home: Fandom, Fun, and Hidden Homages in Star Wars: The Force Awakens
    We're Home: Fandom, Fun, and Hidden Homages in Star Wars: The Force Awakens
    Ebook122 pages1 hour

    We're Home: Fandom, Fun, and Hidden Homages in Star Wars: The Force Awakens

    By Valerie Estelle Frankel

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    About this ebook

    Star Wars: The Force Awakens is crammed with delightful references – there are stacks of easter eggs, famous cameos, nods to the Extended Universe and computer games. Here they’re all listed and described for discerning fans. There’s also summaries – not just of shows and films but of the universe’s history after Return of the Jedi covering thirty years of new canon in painstaking detail. Big questions from the film get answered, in-jokes get explained, and Star Wars love definitely gets celebrated in this book, exploring the ultimate fannish film.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherValerie Estelle Frankel
    Release dateNov 3, 2018
    ISBN9780463814222
    We're Home: Fandom, Fun, and Hidden Homages in Star Wars: The Force Awakens
    Author

    Valerie Estelle Frankel

    Valerie Estelle Frankel has won a Dream Realm Award, an Indie Excellence Award, and a USA Book News National Best Book Award for her Henry Potty parodies. She's the author of 75 books on pop culture, including Doctor Who - The What, Where, and How, History, Sherlock: Every Canon Reference You May Have Missed in BBC's Series 1-3, Homages and the Highlands: An Outlander Guide, and How Game of Thrones Will End. Many of her books focus on women's roles in fiction, from her heroine's journey guides From Girl to Goddess and Buffy and the Heroine's Journey to books like Women in Game of Thrones and The Many Faces of Katniss Everdeen. Once a lecturer at San Jose State University, she's a frequent speaker at conferences. Come explore her research at www.vefrankel.com.

    Read more from Valerie Estelle Frankel

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      Book preview

      We're Home - Valerie Estelle Frankel

      We’re Home

      Fandom, Fun, and Hidden Homages in

      Star Wars

      the Force Awakens

      The Unauthorized Guide

      Valerie Estelle Frankel

      Other Works by Valerie Estelle Frankel

      Henry Potty and the Pet Rock: A Harry Potter Parody

      Henry Potty and the Deathly Paper Shortage: A Harry Potter Parody

      Buffy and the Heroine’s Journey

      From Girl to Goddess: The Heroine’s Journey in Myth and Legend

      Katniss the Cattail: The Unauthorized Guide to Name and Symbols

      The Many Faces of Katniss Everdeen: The Heroine of The Hunger Games

      Harry Potter, Still Recruiting: A Look at Harry Potter Fandom

      Teaching with Harry Potter

      An Unexpected Parody: The Spoof of The Hobbit Movie

      Teaching with Harry Potter

      Myths and Motifs in The Mortal Instruments

      Winning the Game of Thrones: The Host of Characters & their Agendas

      Winter is Coming: Symbols, Portents, and Hidden Meanings in A Game of Thrones

      Bloodsuckers on the Bayou: The Myths, Symbols, and Tales Behind HBO’s True Blood

      The Girl’s Guide to the Heroine’s Journey

      Choosing to be Insurgent or Allegiant: Symbols, Themes & Analysis of the Divergent Trilogy

      Doctor Who and the Hero’s Journey: The Doctor and Companions as Chosen Ones

      Doctor Who: The What Where and How

      Sherlock: Every Canon Reference You May Have Missed in BBC’s Series

      Symbols in Game of Thrones

      How Game of Thrones Will End

      Joss Whedon’s Names

      Pop Culture in the Whedonverse

      Women in Game of Thrones: Power, Conformity, and Resistance

      History, Homages and the Highlands: An Outlander Guide

      The Catch-Up Guide to Doctor Who

      Remember All Their Faces: A Deeper Look at Character, Gender and the Prison World of Orange Is The New Black

      Everything I Learned in Life I Know from Joss Whedon

      Empowered: The Symbolism, Feminism, & Superheroism of Wonder Woman

      The Avengers Face their Dark Sides

      The Comics of Joss Whedon: Critical Essays

      Mythology in Game of Thrones

      A Rey of Hope: Feminism, Symbolism and Hidden Gems in Star Wars: The Force Awakens

      This book is an unauthorized guide and commentary on Star Wars and its associated comics and books. None of the individuals or companies associated with the films, comics, television show or any merchandise based on this series has in any way sponsored, approved, endorsed, or authorized this book.

      Copyright © 2016 Valerie Estelle Frankel

      All rights reserved.

      ISBN-13: 978-0692613849 (LitCrit Press) 

      ISBN-10: 0692613846

      With thanks to Sandy Saidak for her great title!

      Contents

      Introduction

      Fans Among the Stars

      The Story So Far…

      Film Summaries and More

      Continuity Reboot

      Countdown to The Force Awakens Books

      New Canon History of the Universe

      Criticisms

      Commercialism

      Rey as Mary Sue

      Rehash

      Lingering Questions

      Easter Eggs

      Running Gags

      Guest Stars

      Behind the Scenes

      Expanded Universe

      Callbacks in the Books

      Call-forwards in the Books

      Classic Star Wars

      Character Parallels

      Classic Star Wars: Small Nods

      J.J. Abrams Jokes

      Other Franchises

      Works Cited

      About the Author

      Introduction

      Luke Skywalker has vanished.

      In his absence, the sinister

      FIRST ORDER has risen

      from the ashes of the Empire

      and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi,

      has been destroyed.

      With the support of the REPUBLIC,

      General Leia Organa leads a brave RESISTANCE.

      She is desperate to find her

      brother Luke and gain his

      help in restoring peace and

      justice to the galaxy.

      Leia has sent her most daring

      pilot on a secret mission

      to Jakku, where an old ally

      has discovered a clue to

      Luke’s whereabouts . . .

      Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a record-breaking hit, raking in $247 million in its opening weekend. For another record, it hit one billion dollars on day twelve – the fastest in history.

      Joined by Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt on script, J.J. Abrams has written a triumph. The film stars new heroes played by John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Daisy Ridley, Max von Sydow, Andy Serkis, Lupita Nyong’o, Gwendoline Christie, Domhnall Gleeson, Adam Driver, and Greg Gunberg. Beside them, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, and Warwick Davis from the Original Trilogy also appear, alongside longtime friends, family, and Hollywood stars doing cameos.

      The movie also has numerous tie-ins, including The Journey to The Force Awakens tie-in books, comics, computer games, and toys, which fill in the 32-year gap between Return of the Jedi and the film.

      This book uses all of these along with a close viewing of the film to discover what it’s created in all its nuances. What questions still remain and what are the answers? With summaries of all that’s led us here, and plenty of interviews from the actors and creators, the book offers hundreds of easter eggs and secret surprises for eager fans. Above all, this movie is about the shared Star Wars heritage, presented with a new generation of heroes.

      The very first discussions we had were about feeling, Abrams told io9. What did we want to feel in this film? What did we want the audience to experience and feel? …Why are we telling the story at all? If we wanna feel that way, how do we do it? Who are these new characters? ‘Cause this had to be a new story about new people. And that was all gonna be about trying to serve that feeling. (Lussier, J.J. Abrams)

      Fans Among the Stars

      Certainly, Star Wars has an enormous fan following – so much so that many popular actors like Daniel Craig requested cameos (he’s the Stormtrooper Rey controls with the Force). Many of the new actors are big fans, and there’s also the actor set like Anthony Daniels (C3PO) and Carrie Fisher, whose lives were transformed by their time in the film. In a further layer, Rey, Finn, and Poe are all fans of the heroes who destroyed the Empire and starred in the first trilogy, connecting them with all their audience in the movie theater.

      Of course, Kylo Ren may be the greatest fan of all, with his entire existence devoted to becoming Darth Vader. He prays to the melted helmet and skull, he costumes as Vader down to the breathing apparatus, he helps build a greater Death Star. His only ambition is to become a new Dark Lord.

      Meanwhile, in the prequel book Before the Awakening, Poe is stunned when he meets General Leia Organa and she sends him on a mission. She smilingly notes, You should see your expression (176). When she compares him to Luke, he’s surprised and flattered at once (178). His parents both fought for the Rebellion, and all his life, he grew up on the stories.

      Poe also thinks in Before the Awakening, that he is

      …one of the hundreds of millions – if not billions—of sentients who had been conceived in response to the Empire’s fall. Poe wondered sometimes how many beings had chosen not to have children while Palpatine lived, how many had thought bringing a child into the Emperor’s galaxy would be not a blessing, but a curse. (154)

      Thus he owes his existence to the Rebels’ better world, while Rey may

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