Happy Star Wars Day
When Obi-Wan sends Luke to Degobah for training, Yoda tries everything he can to reject him. Now, we have to acknowledge that Yoda’s suffering from PTSD, having failed to prevent the overthrow of the Republic, the murder of all the students, and really, frankly, Obi-Wan’s incredibly bad judgement about apprentices. And Yoda’s final excuse is “He is too old! Yes, too old to begin the training.”
Star Wars has an interesting relationship to education. We learn early in the first movie that Luke is eager to send his application to ‘the Academy.’ In the prequels, we see Jedi Padawans separated from their families to be molded into Jedi. But far more often, we see children who are not in school, for example in the gambling den of Canto Bight, we see stable-boys (and girls). Education, like accents, is a tool of world-building, and how each society treats its children tells us a great deal without having characters expound on it.
One of the fun things about working in the Star Wars universe for the Threats book is that I had a reason to pay attention to the masterful work that’s gone into the universe, and so I wanted to share some of my favorite celebrations, including this departure board from Heathrow, who did a phenomenal job with the flight information:
And there are shorter versions of the Angeles stadium drone show, but this one’s great, and includes some of the setup: