The Greatest Casting in Star Wars

​A long time ago, in the mid-1990’s, a Lucasfilm executive had the very consequential idea to “engage Star Wars fans online.” After all, the Gen X fans were young and computer savvy. They used the Internet and discussed the movies in message boards and in chats. What was the worst that could happen?

For The Phantom Menace, what happened was that between the time the movie was released in theaters and months later when it came out on home video, disgruntled "fans" congealed into a kind of online hate campaign directed against the film. This very successfully changed people’s impressions of the movie from a well-reviewed box office hit and pop cultural milestone to an embarrassing turkey which could never be referenced online without reflexively making a snide comment. We often talk about people having “derangement syndrome” about different topics but Prequel Derangement Syndrome was a real thing. To paraphrase the Grand Inquisitor: It was like an itch. They couldn't help it. This colored people's perceptions of this movie and its subsequent prequels for years.

We see stuff like this all the time now both in pop culture and, sadly, in our political life. Whether it’s the all-female Ghostbusters movie to Captain Marvel or The Acolyte, projects are routinely lambasted and trashed online often before they are even released and usually there is some regressive political/social agenda at work. Sites like Rotten Tomatoes have facilitated this as has the ability of any goober with an opinion to leave a review. The Phantom Menace was ground zero for this phenomenon.

As hard as it was to be a reasonable Star Wars fan during the prequels, I can only imagine how hard it must have been for the people making them. The nasty backlash to these movies is partially what drove Lucas to sell the rights to Disney. But the brunt of the hate landed squarely on people in front of the camera such as Jake Lloyd, Hayden Christensen and especially Ahmed Best, the actor who performed Jar-Jar Binks. This character was a lightning rod for prequel hate.

Best has been very gracious and open about discussing the psychological toll of this toxicity on his life. His origin story with Star Wars has all the makings of a Greek tragedy. Imagine you get the thing you want more than anything and it turns to poison in your hand.

Picture it: You are a young actor in your early twenties. You were a kid who grew up loving comic books and Star Wars.You are a theater kid just getting started in your career, doing a production of Stomp in San Francisco. Someone sees your show and offers you a role in the new Star Wars movie. You get discovered, like in some old movie.

It's hard to believe that computers in the 1990's had the power to turn this man into Star Wars most unfuckable character.

Ahmed Best and I are about the same age and I was in theater school at the time he was recruited for Episode I. I probably had many of the same dreams and aspirations he had. I can imagine how big of an opportunity it was for him. To go to England and be in the new movie and work with Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, Natalie Portman and Ewan MacGregor and George Lucas. To be a pioneer of a brand new style of performance? (Andy Serkis owes this man a fancy dinner at the very minimum.) I know that if I had been in his position, I would have lost my damn mind. 

That’s why out of all the lovely and fascinating people involved with Star Wars over the years (and there seem to be many), Ahmed Best’s story has always resonated with me. His relationship with the franchise is fascinating and complex and full of amazing highs and terrible lows.

Obviously, the man has worked through the trauma and is in a good place. He’s been open and kind enough to talk about all that in some detail, in the interests of helping others. He’s got a life and a family and a career outside of that experience. But something like that has to have left a mark.

Fast forward to the 2010’s. People’s attitudes about those moves rapidly changed and they were seen not just for their flaws but for their brilliance as well. The people who grew up with the prequels had kids of their own. Ahmed began dipping his toes back into Star Wars and hosted a kids show called Jedi Temple Challenge as the new Jedi character Kelleran Beq.

Meanwhile The Mandalorian became a big hit on Disney Plus. Grogu, or Baby Yoda, became a pop culture icon and the show began doling out the backstory of his rescue from the Jedi Temple during Order 66. People were wildly speculating about who rescued Baby Yoda from the temple. Was it Quinlon Voss? Was it a one-armed Mace Windu? It was finally revealed in season three and thankfully it was not spoiled in advance because when the elevator door slid open and it was Ahmed Fucking Best to the rescue.

Kudos to the people who make The Mandalorian for pulling off what is Star Wars’ finest casting coup. It was a complete surprise because if you had asked me, I would have said I wanted to see maybe Mace Windu or some juicy cameo pulled from Star Wars lore. That’s what I wanted. Seeing Ahmed Best it turns out what’s what I needed. It was strangely therapeutic and redemptive. I got emotional about I’m not gonna lie.

For Best it was an opportunity to show another side of himself as a performer and also to put to use some of the movement and martial arts training that helped him get cast in the first place, now as a badass Jedi Master who steps up to protect a kid who is in danger. For those of use who experienced the prequel releases and saw the negativity and abuse heaped upon him and understood the context, it was a beautiful moment. His return to Star Wars has been a real gift to the fans.

I was at Star Wars Celebration last year and could only really justify one autograph (they are super expensive) and I made sure to see Ahmed and he was as kind and gracious as you would hope. He told me the story about his tattoos which inspired the detail on his Jedi robes. Even more gratifying was seeing the adoring reception he received from the crowd. He’s become a beloved elder statesman of Star Wars fandom and that’s a beautiful thing.

Now, Hasbro, please explain to me why I have not been able to buy a Kelleran Beq Black Series action figure.

Patrick Garone

The Mandalorian, Season 3

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To paraphrase Shmi Skywalker, “you can’t stop Star Wars fans from hating Star Wars, anymore than you can stop the suns from setting.” After two shockingly well-regarded seasons of The Mandalorian, Star Wars fans reverted back to their feral state and turned on the show. Among a vocal and persistent swath of the fandom season three of the show is considered a turning point for both the show and really the whole Disney+ era and from here on in the response to new Star Wars projects has been mostly hysterically negative (The Acolyte) or apathetic (Skeleton Crew, The Bad Batch, Visions, Ahsoka) or in the case of Andor, hysterically positive. As we await imminent theatrical return of Star Wars on the big screen, the Disney+ experiment seems to be over.

Now that's not to say that the season is not without its flaws. Even for a show that has been notable from the beginning for its herky-jerky pacing and emphasis on weird side-quests, season three of The Mandalorian takes a lot of unexpected detours. Some of this is to do the heavy work to establish some important plot points for the overarching New Republic storyline shared by the other Mandoverse shows. This show is from the director of Iron Man 2, after all. And some of the other excursions are just…weird. But Star Wars should be weird, so that’s okay.

Some have complained about the ascension of Bo Katan as almost a co-lead this season. I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. I have always been of the opinion that the Mandalorian monicker does not exclusively refer to Din Djarin. I enjoy Bo Katan’s relationship with Mando and Grogu and the way the three seem to be forming a family unit in this season. Besides, Bo Katan is also an important character to help tell the larger story of the reunion of the Mandalorian people, a story she has been involved with since The Clone Wars and Rebels. And this larger story of the Mandalorian people is a major focus of season three. 

This show was clearly never going to be about Din Djarin becoming the Mand'alore but there is a certain segment of men online who project their insecurity onto fictional characters and view Mando’s support of Bo Katan and disinterest in ruling as some kind of weakness. For some men, a male character who is not a total dick, is somehow a “cuck” or a victim of “wokeness.” Sigh.

While season three may lack the simplicity and focus on the prior seasons, it is stuffed to the gills with awesome Star Wars and brings the first phase of the story of the Mandalorian to a satisfying close. Also there are lots of cool connections to the wider Mandoverse and Star Wars lore in general and also does a lot to characterize the reality of the New Republic, the government established by the Rebel Alliance after the war. The season features some interesting references to the Sequel Trilogy and helps to lay some much needed groundwork for those later movies. There are awesome new creatures, troopers, and other characters. There is even what is perhaps the greatest and most meaningful cameo in the history of Star Wars. More on that here.

We start off with the Children of the Watch who have replenished their numbers and moved to what is essentially Space Australia—beautiful oceanfront property that is riddled with deadly prehistoric fauna. Din has located the community but because he had previously removed his helmet, he is considered an “apostate” and is tasked to bathe in the waters of the mines of Mandalore to redeem himself, a difficult proposition since that planet has been bombed into oblivion and believed to be uninhabitable. 

In order to do this, Mando decides he need a droid to help him navigate the ruins and he returns to Nevarro with the idea to restore IG-11 the bounty-hunter turned nanny who sacrificed himself to save Din and company at the end of season one. The Mandalorian famously dislikes droids, so this was an important relationship for him. En route and in hyperspace, Grogu notices a pod of Purrgils—hyperspace capable whale-like creatures—which figure prominently into both Rebels and Ahsoka. Indeed, it’s possibly the same set of Purrgils that Ahsoka rides to Peridia in the first season of her show.

Once on Nevarro we see how much the location has changed since its gritty introduction in season one. Nevarro has been a hub of the series from the beginning, in the same way Tatooine is in the Skywalker saga. Here Grief Carga (the dearly-missed Carl Weathers) has led the town into a new prosperity and respectability, despite pirates hovering around on the periphery. Mando is told by the local tiny Anzellan droidsmiths (think Rise of Skywalker’s Babu Frik) that he would need to find a new memory board to restore IG-11 and they are very rare. Side quest granted.

Mando then visits Bo Katan to join her on an expedition to Mandalore only to find her alone and embittered after her forces left her when she failed to acquire the Darksaber, which Mando still carries. Remember for a certain sect of Mandalorians, possession of the Darksaber is seen as a designation of leadership and it can only be won by combat. Ironically, among Din’s community neither bloodlines or possession of the Darksaber are valued, only faithful observation of The Creed. Indeed, most of them are not even connected to Mandalore. This season is very much an exploration of what it means to be a Mandalorian. Alone and defeated, Bo Katan sends Din on his way.

Their quest for a droid takes them back to Tattooine and frequent ally/babysitter Pelli Motto. It is Boonta Eve in Mos Eisley and Pelli gives Mando a deal on a new droid, none other than R5-D4, the droid Owen Lars almost bought instead of R2D2 in A New Hope. R5 has a storied history in the old Expanded Universe, a various times having been a Rebel asset who blew his motivator on purpose to ensure R2 got to Luke or even "Skippy the Jedi Droid." The EU was certainly a vibe.

Mando, R5, and Grogu head to Mandalore to begin their search for the Living Waters but Mando is trapped and captured by a truly gnarly creature, a gross cyborg who traps him and begins to drain his blood. Grogu makes his way back to the ship and heads off to get Bo Katan. Let's talk about this awesome creature for a second. It is Star Wars in the best possible way in that it is weird and beautifully designed and leaves you asking more questions than it answers. A truly good Star Wars design should leave you speculating and leave your imagination spinning off wild back stories. It should be provocative and imaginative enough so that people are writing comics about it years later. I think this design is that cool.

Bo Katan and Grogu return to Mandalore and rescue Din Djarin, with Bo Katan expertly wielding the Darksaber which the cyborg had removed from Mando. Mando's faith and earnestness begins to pull Bo Katan from her funk and she agrees to help him find the mines. They make their way to the there and both descend into its waters with Bo Katan getting a glimpse of the legendary Mythosaur, seen as a symbol of the Mandalorian people and their rebirth. 

They return to the Mandalorian culvert in Space Australia and Bo Katan joins them after the Empire destroys her castle. She spends some time with these Mandalorians and learns their ways...which are weird and involve a lot of shooting their guns into the water for no reason. For example, we learn that these fundamentalist Mandos cannot even eat in front of one another. Their rules seem super arbitrary and impractical. Like can married couples see each other unhelmeted? Do they wear their helmets during sex? Make it stop. It's so dumb.

Meanwhile the aforementioned pirates have invaded Nevarro and Grief Carga petitions the New Republic for help. However, the show makes it clear that the New Republic suuuucks. This is some decent table setting for the sequel trilogy, in which the New Republic's failures have allowed it to fall prey to the First Order. We spend a decent amount of time on Corscant this season. First following the cloner Dr. Pershing in the New Republic amnesty program, which shows us that the grinding bureaucracy of the New Republic is not that much better than that of the Empire. 

These sequences have some ominous THX-1138 vibes and Pershing is subjected to dehumanizing droid-led "counseling sessions" and eventually torture after he is framed by another reformed Imperial who is secretly working for the remnant.  Later, X-Wing pilot Carson Teva attempts to rally New Republic forces to assist Nevarro and he is rebuffed partially by the same Imperial agent who has infiltrated the New Republic military.

Teva then turns to the Mandalorians, who defeat the pirates and liberate Nevarro in a thrilling sequence. It is awesome to see so many Mandos in action kicking pirate ass. Despite being granted land to live openly on Nevarro, the Armorer-who is the spiritual leader of the Children of the Watch-decides that it is time to retake Mandalore and unite the Mandalorian people. She grants Bo Katan the freedom to remove her helmet, stating that she "walks both paths" and can "unite the Mandalorian people." Um...okay. Can she make it so that everyone can take off their helmets? Cause the helmet rule is super dumb.

In the weirdest episode of the season-and the one that some people refer to as proof that the show lost its way this season-Mando and Bo Katan track her former Mandalorian followers to a planet called Plazir-15 and a city that looks like Epcot Center concept art. It is a utopian city and as we are reminded several times, a "direct democracy." 

This episode is so quirky that I think it was secretly directed by George Lucas. It is so weird that its opening scene ends with a Quarren and a Mon Calamari making out. It's so weird it has a reverse Mos Eisley Cantina. It's so weird it ends with Christopher Lloyd ranting about Count Dooku.

It has bizarre cameos from Jack Black and Lizzo. Jack Black plays an ex-Imperial called Colonel Bombardier (a George Lucas character name if there ever was one.) In order to be given access to the Mandalorians that are working on the planet as security, Din and Bo Katan are given the side quest to investigate a series of droid-related crimes on the planet which they do in full television procedural style complete with a consultation with a "medical examiner." It also has echoes of the detective subplot in Attack of the Clones. I kinda love it because it's weird, unexpected and prequel-ly. I also love when Star Wars plays around with different genres.

Bo-Katan and Din Djarin meet up with and recruit the lost Mandalorians. She defeats Axe Woves in combat. Din also reveals to the Mandos that Bo Katan is actually the rightful owner of the Darksaber since she slew his cyborg captor in the mines of Mandalore. In the characterizations of Mando and Bo Katan the show has wisely avoided expectations in how these two would interact in a third season of the show. The easy and predictable dynamic might have been one which pitted the two against each other for the Darkaber or depicted Bo Katan as some kind of lazy "vengeful woman" trope. Instead the show takes the more interesting route of them being mature human beings who have a mutual respect and affection which outweighs any ambitions for power they might have. It's actually refreshing to see that Favreau and the writers have avoided a stupider version of this season based on dumb and easy conflict.

The united Mandalorians-an uneasy mix of the Armorer's "zealot" followers and Bo Katan's more cosmopolitan Mandos invade Mandalore and discover two things: first the planet can sustain life and survivors hide in the wasteland and, second, Moff Gideon has escaped from New Republic custody and has made a base there complete with beskar-armored commandos and a pair of Praetorian guards (a squad to these red-armored warriors were famously in The Last Jedi) that he has petitioned from the Imperial Remnant council. The idea of Mandalorian "Super Commandos" goes back to the ideas that Lucas had when he created Boba Fett who was originally envisioned as a kind of super Stormtrooper. 

We learn that the remnant is fractured and working on different projects and some are awaiting the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn, lost in Rebels prior to A New Hope  and others, the eventual First Order faction, are working to clone Palpatine. The show is doing some legwork to provide the "somehow" of Palpatine's survival.  Thrawn is also who Ahsoka is currently tracking in her own show concurrently with this season. Gideon however has been working this whole time to create force-enhanced clones of himself and we see him show up wearing some sick black Mandalorian armor.

Mando, Bo Katan, and Grogu defeat him, losing the Darksaber in the process and destroy the clones. Although, it must be asked, did they actually defeat him or one of his clones? The door definitely seems open for a return. 

The Mandalorians retake their planet and reignite their sacred forge, under the political leadership of Bo Katan. It should be noted that Din Djarin and his new apprentice Din Grogu, decide to live on Nevarro where they have a homestead. IG-11 has been restored and is now serving as the Marshall of Nevarro. The vibes here are very series finale, with the Gideon story arc apparently concluded as well the longer-in-motion story of the Mandalorian diaspora told over decades and multiple projects.

Patrick Garone

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Gather around, Younglings.

A long time ago, in this galaxy, right here, people absolutely hated the Star Wars Prequels. I mean hated. If you think Star Wars fans are toxic now, it all started in the late 1990's when a Lucasfilm executive had the inspired idea to "engage fans online." It was a great idea that has in no way whatsoever lead to the decline of Western Civilization.

There was a time when anyone writing about the prequels online couldn't help but make snide comments about how terrible they were, even if they were writing about something completely uncontroversial, like their box office performance or visual effects. And these people would do it as though it were absolute fact. Prequel Derangement was like an itch. They couldn’t help themselves. This sickness drove “fans” as far as to make life miserable for prequel actors like Jake Lloyd, Ahmed Best, and Hayden Christiansen. The over-the-top backlash to the prequels was one of the contributing factors that motivated the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney.

However, by the time we got to the Disney era, attitudes had changed significantly and there grew a new appreciation for George Lucas' maligned second trilogy. Part of this was that people who were kids when the prequels released were now grown up and nostalgic for their Star Wars. Part of it was people seeing the quality that was always there alongside the flaws. And part of it was just that there was now much more Star Wars for fans to hate on so they couldn't devote all of their attention to hating on the Prequels.

It was with this new perspective that Obi-Wan Kenobi was released. It is a show that leans heavily into Prequel nostalgia in way that would have been impossible even five years earlier. It even kicks off with a pretty awesomely unapologetic prestige TV-style recap of the Prequels. I mean, Jesus, Jar-Jar is even in it (briefly.)

The show, of course, brings back Ewan MacGregor as Obi-Wan. Ewan is an actor who, like Harrison Ford and Alec Guinness before him, had mastered the near-impossible task of turning out a good performance despite working with George Lucas' writing and direction. Even people who hated the prequels praised Ewan MacGregor’s characterization, so bringing him back  was a no-brainer. More remarkable, is the return of Hayden Christiansen as Anakin/Vader, an actor who was often the target of Prequel hater's ire and who starts his continuing redemption tour with this show. 

These two actors have always had great chemistry both on and off-screen. The shared experience of making Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith together seems to have bonded them like brothers. Witnessing their rekindled bromance was one of the great joys of the Obi-Wan Kenobi press junket. There is a lot of well-documented toxicity around Star Wars (and around this show specifically) but seeing Ewan and Hayden back together again was wholesome and delightful. Indeed, these two have grown into elder statesmen of Star Wars and it was quite gratifying to see Hayden get a veritable hero’s welcome from the fans attending Star Wars Celebration in Japan last year. He shows up in multiple capacities here, some wonky de-aging notwithstanding.

The show, however, is wildly uneven, poorly-paced, and full of puzzling decisions. We start as we might expect, with an Obi-Wan who is older and full of regret and trauma eking out a living on Tattooine, within a stone’s throw of young Luke Skywalker and his adopted family. Instead of this story being the predictable Tatooine-based adventure involving Ben and Luke, we turn our focus to Anakin and Padme’s other child, Leia, here a mischievous ten year-old-girl who is kidnapped from her adopted family on Alderaan as part of a plan to lure Kenobi out of hiding. 

As might be expected from a story set in this time period roughly half way between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, the Jedi hunting inquisitors are the main antagonists, at least in the first half of Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Imperial Inquisitorius were introduced in Star Wars Rebels and later fleshed out in other media as the squad of former Jedi that Vader and Palpatine turned to the dark side to help them hunt down the Order 66 surviving Jedi (of which there were quite a few, it turns out.)

 

The Grand Inquisitor and the Fifth Brother are both straight from Rebels but have suffered a bit in the translation from animation to live-action. The Grand Inquisitor is particularly disappointing as he is a Pau’an, a species we have already seen in Revenge of the Sith in all its Nosferatuesque glory, here rendered inexplicably egg-headed and human-looking. 

The Inquisitor who gets the most time is Reva, the Third Sister. We see her as a youngling in a flashback at the start of the series during an Order 66 flashback and later stabbed with a lightsaber by Anakin Skywalker and left for dead (more on that later.) Reva has figured out that Darth Vader is Anakin and wants to find Kenobi in order lure Vader into a position to kill him. Moses Ingram plays Reva and does an admirable job with a fairly mediocre and one-note character who is largely just written as a tropey “tough chick.” What’s worse, she goes on a genuinely dumb and unmotivated rampage at the Lars homestead, which basically ruins what would have otherwise been a tragic and meaningful character arc. What’s worse, the Jedi Fallen Order game featured another conflicted Inquisitor who was given a similar and much more nuanced characterization which makes Reva feel oddly redundant.

All of that said, none of this is on the shoulders of Moses Ingram who was hired to play a character written from an imperfect script. Of course, none of that stopped racist assholes from harassing her online. There is a certain strain of Star Wars fan who seem to get oddly triggered when seeing women and people of color headlining these projects and they seem to make it their mission to harass people online. It got so bad that Ewan McGregor had to record a damn video about it.

Again, not to say there aren’t any number of legitimate issues with this project, such as some oddly-lackluster “action” sequences such as a runaway Jedi using the force to pull down an awning which somehow stops a trio of inquisitors from pursuing him. Or in a later scene when Vader and a squad of Stormtroopers look on helplessly when Obi-Wan is pulled away to safety a mere twenty feet away with only a thin wall of fire separating them. And do not get me started on the hare-brained sequence in which Obi-Wan breaks into the Fortress Inquisitorious to rescue a kidnapped Leia (another element ripped from Jedi Fallen Order) and attempts to smuggler her out in a damn overcoat. 

So there are a lot of issues here. But a lot works as well. Not only do we get Ewan and Hayden but but also Joel Edgerton and Bonnie Pliese reprise their roles from the prequels as Owen and Beru Lars, as do Jimmy Smits as Bail Organa, Leila’s adopted father. Even Temuera Morrison gets a cameo as a down-on-his luck Clonetrooper. We also get a cameo from Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine. Maybe most impressively, Liam Neeson appears in the show's final moments, paying off a subplot from Episode III. And that's not even mentioning a new John Williams theme for the show. 

Indira Varma (who played opposite Pedro Pascal in Game of Thrones) is introduced here as an Imperial double agent who is helping feeling Jedi and Force sensitives in a kind of Underground Railroad. She is a great character who feels straight out of Andor and who ends up being influential on Leia. And of, course, there is Leia, here played by Vivian Lyra Blair who manages to capture some of the regal command of Princess Leia but also some of legendary sass and wit of Carrie Fisher herself. I would love to see her play Leia again in a future project.

The show unfortunately starts a maddening trend in Disney Star Wars of people surviving being impaled on lightsabers, the very wound on which the fate of the galaxy turned with the killing of Qui-Gon in Episode 1. There are three different instances of this in this show alone. Reva, survives this wound not once but twice. So does the Grand Inquisitor, from a wound inflicted by Reva who should have known better.

But ultimately, this was billed as the Rematch of the Century between Obi-Wan and Vader and their final duel is wildly satisfying and even helps to elevate the rest of the show. This is really a top tier Star Wars duel and very much worth the price of admission, and even contains some moments that emotionally pay off the Prequels in a way that was not possible under George Lucas’ direction. It is for a few short moments in this final duel that Hayden’s return really counts leading to a moment that is one of the most iconic in Star Wars both in terms of the story of the Skywalker Saga and also in the meta sense for us fans who always knew that these guys could act and that Star Wars can also serve up haunting and heartbreaking moments.

FAN CUTS

I think Fan Cuts are fascinating an have been a part of Star Wars since at least The Phantom Menace. I talked about a fan edit of The Book of Boba Fett which I thought was a really interesting way to watch the story. I also watched the Patterson Cut of Obi-Wan Kenobi, which for my money is a much better version of the story in only because it removes some of the things that don’t work in the show such as Reva’s survival of her clash with Vader and subsequent Tattooine rampage. It also adds some minor visual fixes such as offering improved de-aging, fixing the “40 Year-Old Padawan” effect.

Patrick Garone

The Ancient Origins of We Lowly Gods

My upcoming novel, We Lowly Gods, is set to release in June. It’s a story I’ve been living with for a long, long time. As in, since the early 1990’s. 😬

The novel is a mythic fantasy adventure set in the waning years of an Ancient Greece in which it has been decades since anyone has seen the Olympian gods. All that remains of their great pantheon are scattered communities of Chimerics—Fauns, Centaurs, Nymphs, and other wild creatures scraping by in the shadows of humanity. When a Faun is brutally murdered outside a remote village in ancient Sicily, it sets our Chimeric heroes on a quest to find out what happened to the gods and to put into place a daring plan to replace them and to keep humanity in check. Unfortunately, they are not the only ones attempting to fill the void left behind by the gods and other powerful entities plan to install their own faiths, faiths that do not include a place for misshapen Chimeric demigods. 

The earliest version of this story, a vignette featuring a young Faun looking out over the orgiastic Festival of Pan and contemplating his place in the world—was written in a high school creative writing class. Although I no longer have the MacWrite file for that piece, there is a scene in the final book that is very similar to that original piece (as far as I can recall, that is.)

As I worked on the story in the ensuing years (in a variety of archaic word processors), it became a tale about a young Faun who was tasked by his elders with escorting a powerful god-creature across a mythological landscape in order to revitalize a blighted world. From a certain point-of-view that is still a major plot of We Lowly Gods. Fun fact: after the release of The Phantom Menace, I rewrote the story to feature a young Qui-Gon Jinn who crash lands on a primitive, off-limits planet and is given a similar task. Lucasbooks, if you are reading, this is still a viable story.

The story took a backseat to other pursuits, theatrical projects, my first novel, City of the Gods (no relation), going back to school to get my Bachelors and Masters, and it faded into my subconscious the way abandoned stories sometimes do.

That is until 2019. In 2019, I was fresh out of a seven-year relationship that ended in a kind of personal disaster. I was feeling deeply isolated and depressed and barely holding it together, with only a truly excellent cat to keep me company. 

RIP, Arigato. Thank you, indeed.

As I was working my way through this dark period, I decided to complete a bucket-list trip to southern Italy which took me from Naples, to Salerno, to Palermo. I hadn’t gone on a big international trip in a decade and it was exciting to get back on the road for three weeks. And while I saw some amazing Roman ruins like Pompeii and Herculaneum I was not ready for all the stunning Greek sites that dot the region. 

The ruins at Segesta, in Sicily.

Southern Italy and Sicily it turns out were the sites of major Greek colonies which, in some cases, surpassed even eastern cities like Athens. Greek culture is a major part of the unique cultural identity of southern Italy and some of the finest examples of Classical Greek architecture are actually found in Italy. So there I was wandering around places like Paestum, Agrigento, and Segesta and I got to thinking about my old story about the Fauns and wondered “What if it took place in Italy instead of Greece?” More than anything, that change gave me an instant cultural connection to the material, after all, my family is from southern Italy, that those Greek colonists could have been my own ancestors.

The ruins at Agrigento in Sicily.

From there it was off to the (chariot) races. I wrote a short story and over the next couple of drafts expanded it into a novel, letting the characters and story beats stretch out and breathe. I worked on it during a couple of more trips both in Spain and I finally “finished” it in 2024 on another trip to Sicily, where the beginning of the book would ultimately be set. 

The ruins at Paestum, near Salerno.

I’ve followed the example of my favorite author, the late great Anne Rice, a writer of almost exclusively supernatural fiction featuring vampires, ghosts, mummies and other outlandish horror tropes but all infused with her deep humanity, with her own struggles, her own trauma, her own yearning  for meaning. Despite the fact that my lead characters are half-goat godlings, We Lowly Gods is truly the most personal thing I’ve written to date in which I deal with some of my own ancient wounds through the prism of what I hope to be a compelling and subversive fantasy adventure filled with gods and creatures.

Look for it in June.

Patrick Garone

Monster Movie of the Week: Godzilla: King of the Monsters

​A direct sequel to Gareth Edward’s Godzilla, King of the Monsters is an epic third entry to the then-new Monsterverse, bringing in a trio of classic Toho monsters to join the titular Titan which is what fans wanted instead of the rather generic MUTOs from the first movie. 

Michael Dougherty directs here and the tone is consistent with the epic and more serious vibe of the fist movie, although with more humor shoehorned in which I don’t think works that well. This is in contrast to the Monsterverse entry that preceded it, Kong Skull Island, which was a more lighthearted movie and the humor was much more organic.

On the visual side, I will say that this might be the most beautifully-shot Kaiju movie I have ever seen. There are about a half dozen or so really iconic shots in this movie and generally an approach that is almost painterly in the way shots are composed and the use of light, color, and texture. This is gorgeous movie full of beautiful monsters, and on that level is is an amazing film in the genre.

The human characters, however, leave much to be desired. Generally, a good rule for human characters in Kaiju movies is to avoid being obtrusive. There are a handful of characters in this movie who are just flat-out grating none more so than Vera Farmiga’s character. I love me some Vera Farmiga, she was great in Bates Motel and The Conjuring movies but here they have her playing a character who decides she wants to use a kaiju-signaling device to awaken all of the sleeping Titans to “cleanse the Earth” or some nonsense and there is just an air of dumbness around this whole subplot that bogs the movie down. What’s worse, she’s not even fully committed to the plan and struggles with it throughout the movie. 

Kyle Chandler (who previously appeared in Peter Jackson’s King Kong) plays her ex-husband and seems like he also doesn’t seem to be fully in the movie. His character is reluctantly dragged into the events of the story and seems to be only grudgingly in the movie. Bradley Whitford plays a wise-cracking Monarch agent, whose schtick goes tiresome after a few scenes. The great Ken Wanatabe returns from Godzilla seemingly to provide Japanese street cred and to occasionally say “Go-jira.”

THE MONSTERS

Okay, we’ve established that the human characters are pretty terrible and annoying in this movie, however, the monsters are exquisite. Godzilla is fairly unchanged for better or worse from his eponymous movie, although we do learn a bit more about him here such as the fact that he’s his own fricking Batcave in the ruins of an underwater Atlantean city. This movie also establishes that his species has been around since the dawn of history or before and are intertwined with ancient humanity. We do also see the Monsterverse version of Burning Godzilla, the meltdown version of the monster before his death in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah although here it is a temporary state and they don't take the opportunity to kill him off or reboot his design.

The movie also introduces us to the Monsterverse version of Mothra, here reimagined as essentially every insect with traits of butterflies, wasps, and mantises. Although she looks good I do think she’s a little over-designed to make her look deadly. Part of the appeal of Motha was that she is deadly while also looking cute and harmless.  She’s always been able to hold her own despite looking like a plush butterfly. 

Rodan also makes his American movie debut, here climbing out of a Mexican volcano, ironic since the original Rodan met his demise in volcano. This version of the character is a nice update of the original design, with perhaps some more gnarly avian features. He also seems to be perpetually burning, giving cool “firebird” vibes. True to form, he is incredibly destructive, leaving hurricane winds in his wake which literally pull people and cars into the sky.

The real star of this movie, however, is King Ghidorah who I will just go on record as saying has never looked better than he does in this movie. This is a beautiful character design and execution. This version of the character is notable for having larger-than-normal wings which give him a majestic appearance and very long, serpentine necks. He is recognizably Ghidorah but instead of the very awkward and vertical orientation the character had in is suitmation days, this version is more animalistic and crawls on its wings like a pterodactyl, long necks undulating before it. I also love the interactions of the heads, with the central one being the most dominant and the right head being a little derpy, the source of the famous meme template.

This is the first time the character has appeared in a big-budget Hollywood movie and it is quite a big deal. This character is one of the most frequently appearing kaiju in the long-running Godzilla series, having made his first appearance in 1965’s Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. He has the distinction of being the titular monster in not one but two Godzilla movies (Invasion of the Astro-Monster is the other), although Ghidorah has never had a solo movie like Mothra, Rodan, and Varan. That said, the golden space dragon was all over the Showa movies and is essentially Godzilla’s arch nemesis. So his appearance in King of the Monsters is as big as the first movie appearance of the Joker in the 1989 Batman movie. So I am very happy the movie did him justice. 

MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT 

Ghidorah’s emergence from the Antarctic ice and we first see a weird collection of legs and tails and we don't really even know what we are looking at. Love that shot.

TRAILER

Patrick Garone

Monster Movie of the Week: Kong Skull Island (2017)

Directed by: Jordan Voght-Roberts

Genre: Kaiju/Jungle Adventure/War

THE MOVIE:

Gareth Edward's 2016 Godzilla movie launched a new shared universe, the Monsterverse which is still going strong with multiple movies, television shows, and ancillary media. The first follow-up to Godzilla is a prequel set in 1973 during the Vietnam War era and is a fun genre mash-up that mixes kaiju action, the King Kong mythos, and Vietnam war movie flavor. Thankfully, this movie wisely avoids retreading the classic story which was done so lovingly in Peter Jackson’s 2005 movie. 

Although this movie is in no way a remake of any past movies, there are some echoes of the classic Kong stories. Like the previous films, Skull Island features an expedition to the titular location, although here on an expedition for the Monarch organization introduced in Godzilla. As always, there is a blond woman, here played by Brie Larson who like her predecessors forms a (in this case, brief) connection to Kong. There is a dashing leading man, played by Tom Hiddleston, in full action hero mode. Sam Jackson plays a military commander who forms and instant grudge against Kong and is one of the few actors I can think of who can both believably stare down a 100 foot ape and shut down a self-righteous monologue with a well-placed “Bitch, please.” I do think this is one of Jackson’s most iconic and fun performances. Also, a fun game in this movie is counting the other MCU actors which includes some more obscure ones like John C. Reilly and Eugene Cordero.

Skull Island also does a lot to flesh out the world of the Monsterverse, centering on John Goodman’s character, Bill Randa, who is in some ways is fulfilling the Carl Denham role as the morally ambiguous figure who sets the whole voyage in motion here in service of Monarch. Randa is also a major character in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, which features him in the decades prior to Skull Island and the early years of the organization. Kong: Skull Island also eases us into the concept of the Hollow Earth which is a major plot point in the subsequent movies. This theory is alluded to by Corey Hawkins character, who also appears decades later in 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

This movie introduces audiences to a new, bigger Kong and sets the giant primate up to go on new adventures. The Monsterverse does a wonderful job with Kong over the course of the series making him a compelling character in his own right with a satisfying arc that finally frees him from his tragic story.

However, the greatest legacy of this movie is adding a much needed element of fun to the Monsterverse after the somewhat glum and serious Godzilla. Skull Island and the subsequent Kong/Godzilla team-up movies are really notable for their often unexpected and quirky tones, bold, inventive action and visuals and excellent characterization of Kong and some of the other creatures and that really starts with Jordan Voght-Roberts’ direction here and is built up in the subsequent movies. 

THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS:

This design is much more upright and less Gorilla-like than he was in Jackson’s version. Kong here is not at his full adult size yet but the movie clearly scales him up prepping for his planned fight against Godzilla, which doesn’t happen for another fifty years in the movie continuity. Certainly he is much bigger than he has been in American media. Remember, classic Kong is only about 25 feet tall and about twice the size of the largest apes to have lived. That is barely up to Godzilla's cankle and hardly makes for an interesting match up so to play in Godzilla's sandbox he's always had to be scaled up significantly (classic Toho Kong is a little bigger than he is depicted in this movie.)

Skull Island, as always, is full of creatures. While there is not the fully realized prehistoric ecosystem of the 2005 Peter Jackson movie, there are a handful of memorable creatures here including some Pterodactyls, a giant yak, an overgrown octopus (seemingly a Toho throwback), and a creepy giant stilt-legged bug, that is the source of a memorable horror scene. There are some other creatures native to Skull Island which we see later in the franchise in Monarch season 2.

Instead of the usual dinosaurs, this Kong's natural rivals are two-limbed reptilian creatures which Reilly's character self-consciously dubs, Skull Crawlers. One of Kong's main roles in the Skull Island eco-system is to control the population of these creatures. These monsters have a unique design with a weird two-legged walk. Their heads are covered with a bony exo-skull, hence their name. They have a maw filled with teeth and their prehensile tongues. The final boss is the giant Skull Devil which emerges from underground, possibly straight from Hollow Earth from where these creatures originate. Kong fights the Skull Devil at the end of the movie, here beginning his habit in the Monsterverse of wielding a variety of tools (boat propellers, Godzilla Spine Axes, Power Gloves, children) to defeat his enemies.

MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT: 

Our first encounter with Kong, as the helicopters descend on the island Apocalypse Now-style, complete with requisite Classic Rock soundtrack only to have one of them fall prey to a giant tree trunk thrown like a spear and we suddenly go from one genre movie into a completely different one.

SEQUELS:

Followed by Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024) and Godzilla X Kong: Supernova (2027)

The Apple TV series Monarch Legacy of Monsters (2023-) goes into the backstory of Bill Randa and the origins of Monarch. An animated series Skull Island also is set fully on the titular island twenty years after the events Kong: Skull Island.

SEE ALSO

Primitive War (2025) One of the few movies that has the same genre profile as Kong: Skull Island this is another Vietnam era monster movie only in this case a squad of soldiers finds themselves in an inexplicably dinosaur-jungle. Filled with fantastic dinosaurs and over-the-top action and gore.

Patrick Garone

Mexico City: 20 Years After The Incident

Note: I was kindly granted access by the Mexican government to their capital on a journalistic visa for this article on the events that occurred here two decades ago. As I stand in the bustling Nuevo Zocalo surrounded by the rebuilt governmental buildings, the giant redesigned Mexican flag waving over me (the eagle now colored green) I can’t help feel that as an American, I am not quite trusted in this newly insular, more technologically-advanced country.

The Mexican flag, redesigned in 2017. 

 

​A generation of Mexicans have grown up under El Milagro Mexicano, what people in the country call “The Mexican Miracle,” which followed the day of terror and revelation which forever changed Mexico and the world. In the US we are more inclined to refer to it as The 2010 Mexico City UFO Incident but that hardly sums up what happened that day and its long-ranging consequences for the world.

What has been described as the "Aztec UFO."

As is well-documented, on the morning of September 18th, 2010, a massive UFO appeared over Mexico City, communicating messages in the indigenous Nahautl language. The Mexican government under the leadership of then-President Manuel Luis Carrasco-sent an envoy-his cabinet Minister Melquíades Guzmán-and a translator-Sandra Ramirez-to the ship, where they disappeared for several hours only for Guzmán to return, dead and mutilated. Ramirez was not seen again, except briefly at the ruins of Teotihuacán. 

Sandra Ramirez and Melquíades Guzmán, prior to boarding the UFO.

It was at the former archeological site and tourist attraction where she reunited with her younger brother, Eddie Ramirez before disappearing again. Her brief conversation with her brother is the source of what little insight that we have into the the ship’s occupants. Teotihuacán has been closed to the public since the day of the incident and shrouded in secrecy. My requests to visit the site were denied by the Mexican government. The site has an aura of mystery and is often referred to as the Mexican Area 51.

Eddie Ramirez and President Carrasco, shortly after the incident.

The aliens-if that’s what they were-then released a giant creature which proceeded to destroy a large swath of Mexico City, seemingly invincible to the many weapons the Mexican defense force threw at it. The creature, nicknamed after the Aztec death goddess Coatlicue, was only stopped when another monster rose up to defeat it. 

The Coatlicue creature, 2010.

This second creature-apparently connected to the mythic Quetzalcoatl itself-had seemingly rose from the ocean floor on its own accord, and is believed to be otherwise unrelated to the UFO. After a pitched battle, Quetzalcoatl defeated Coatlicue and several other creatures and then the ship itself before both the Feathered Serpent and the UFO disappeared never to be seen again.

The Quetzalcoatl creature, 2010.

The world was left with the knowledge that these things-monsters, gods, UFOs-all definitively exist and the impact on the human psyche cannot be overestimated. The incidents have inspired various cults and religions both within Mexico and outside it. 

A young Mexican girl worshipping at an offering table dedicated to Quetzalcoatl.

Some of these are centered around the figure of Quetzalcoatl himself, already a Christ-like figure in Mexican mythology. Other belief systems inspired by these incidents are of a kind we have seen before-UFO cults-born out of the existential shock and despair that accompanied the day's revelations. These have particularly taken root in the United States.

A UFO cult in the southwestern United States.

Despite prayers to the contrary Quetzalcoatl has not returned since that fateful day in 2010. However, there have been sightings in the last few years of...something in the Pacific Ocean off the coasts of Central and South America. The Peruvians have nicknamed it "Mama Cocha" after the Incan ocean goddess. If the reports are to be believed (and they may not be) the cryptid is roughly the size of the Feathered Serpent. If it exists at all, the creature seems to be content to avoid human beings for the moment. Indeed, South America and Perú in particular has become something a hotbed for these sightings, with another potential animal frequently sighted in Lake Titicaca.

Unknown creature sighting off the coast of Perú, 2026.

In the wake of the 2010 incident, Mexico was left to rebuild its capital but not without some very valuable resources falling into its possession. Not only had the mysterious invaders left behind a great deal of their technology in the form of wreckage from Coatlicue’s massive deployment pod but allegedly also one of the “teleportation rings” and weapons used by the invaders to travel to and from their ship as well as some hull wreckage blasted from the vessel during Quetzalcoatl’s attack. Perhaps more importantly were the extensive biological remains of Coatlicue and the creatures that she bore during the incident.

Coatlicue creature remains, 2010.

What should also not be discounted is the importance of the millions of Mexican nationals that returned to the country from the United States in the weeks after the attack. This influx of workers not only provided a boon during the reconstruction of the city but also proved to be crippling to the country’s northern neighbor, and later geopolitical rival. The US had initially gone as far as offering incentives to bring some of those workers back, ironic considering the years of threats and harassment to the Mexican migrant population that had lived within its borders for decades.

Part of the "caravan" of Mexican nationals that returned to Mexico after the attacks.

In the ensuing years, Mexico pulled all of those resources into good use, reverse-engineering much of the alien technology, turning Mexico-under Carasco’s savvy leadership-into a hub of advanced industry and biotech. 

President Carrasco, immediately after the attacks.

A short list of Mexican advancements during this time: hypersonic mag-lev trains, teleportation technology, cures for numerous diseases (including most cancers), a kind of force field technology, futuristic alloys and materials, and some kind of mysterious clean power source. Parts of Mexico City are barely recognizable at this point with gleaming neon skyscrapers looking more like a futuristic anime megalopolis than Mexico’s ancient capital.

Needless to say, all of this technology has been proprietary and Mexico has declined to share it with the rest of the world. Indeed, the last twenty years has seen a remarkable turnaround in the country, long seen as a backward third-world nation, now a technocratic world leader.

The transition has been more difficult for those of us in the US, a country that has never quite recovered from the economic loss of workers nor the psychological toll of its southern neighbor clearly surpassing its fortunes. Indeed, it has become common for American citizens to attempt to circumvent the miles long, technologically-advanced invisible wall that Mexico has constructed on its northern border, creating a tragic humanitarian situation at the frontier. Under a 2027 program, Americans of Mexican descent who can document their Mexican ancestry can now apply for Mexican citizenship and emigrate to their ancestral home and many are choosing to seek opportunity in the United States of Mexico.

During my recent trip to the country, I was allowed to sit down and interview now-United Nations Secretary-General Manuel Carrasco to discuss the anniversary of the attacks and its legacy for Mexico and the world.

Carrasco, 2027 at the United Nations.

MY INTERVIEW WITH SECRETARY GENERAL CARRASCO (EDITED FOR LENGTH AND CLARITY)

PG: Let's start with the aliens. All these years later we know precious little about them.

CARRASCO: We know almost nothing about the occupants of the ship. What little we do know was lost with Sandra Ramirez, who herself had only spent a few hours with them. There are things about that day that I fear we will never know.

PG: But they are human beings? Testimonials suggest bodies were recovered at Teotihuacán...

CARRASCO: No comment.

PG: It seems like much of what we know hinges on the account of Eddie Ramirez yet he is famously reclusive and has given no substantial interviews to the press.

CARRASCO: Eddie Ramirez lost his sister that day. He’s made his statements over the years. I think the has earned a little privacy. As has his brother.

PG: And what of Mexico’s territorial aspirations? Is it true that you have designs on the Southwestern United States?

CARRASCO: (Chuckling) While I can’t speak for president Zacatalco, I can’t see us making a land grab like that. This is the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth…

PG: Given your new role, has there been any consideration to sharing technology with the rest of the world? Mexico has been reluctant to do this…

CARRASCO: I’m happy to announce that Mexico will begin sharing certain technologies with some of our developing neighbors within the hemisphere in a very limited, very controlled basis. And with the US we have negotiated making some medical treatments available for free to US citizens in international waters, not on Mexican or US soil.

PG: And that’s it?

CARRASCO: That’s it. We are the custodians of great power and knowledge that came out of those events, two decades ago. We have a responsibility to ensure they are used responsibly and do not fall into the wrong hands and the more we share the greater the risk of that happening.

PG: Speaking of the technology, what response do you have to reports that agents from the US or US-based companies have acquired bio-samples from the Coatlicue creature?

CARRASCO: I would say that this would be a dangerous and foolish thing to do. Look, there have been numerous wonderful things have come from our work with them, including revolutionary cancer treatments. But an army of monsters could just as easily be developed by bad actors and used to terrorize the world. To date, Mexico is the only country to face a giant monster attack. I pray that this remains so. Because of this fact, Mexico has a special responsibility to safeguard this technology.

PG: Okay, regarding the Occupants, as you call them, there is a rumor that is gaining traction online that the ship was not alien at all but a ship that travelled back from the future-a future that Mexico is actively creating.

CARRASCO: Well, that’s an intriguing idea but and I suppose it’s as possible as all the other theories. Although, I would imagine there are better ways to leave us this technology than destroying the Centro and killing thousands of our citizens.

PG: And what about Quetzalcoatl and the reports he has been seen in the Pacific?

CARRASCO: I don't think there is any quality information to indicate this. But many in my country see the return of Quetzalcoatl to be a wondrous thing.

PG: Last question: Is Mexico ready for another giant monster attack?”

CARRASCO: Mexico is more ready than it ever has been before.

 

Patrick Garone