A Thousand Stars: Episode V, Part 22
Oct. 23rd, 2025 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrilMisty underground caves -- the perfect setting for a story that explores the unvoiced drives of the subconscious. Later we'll see how this theme plays out for Luke, in the secrets parts of him that are drawn toward the Dark Side. In the Han and Leia storyline, it's a somewhat simpler exploration of the push-and-pull of practical needs versus romantic desire. They've been dancing around the issue, but while hiding in the cave they have their first significant step, a shared kiss.
Now Leia broods alone, only to get jump-scared by a mynock. (Her disgusted scream is almost exactly how I would have reacted.) There's something so evocatively gross about the creature design. A sucker-mouth surrounded by feelers, big bug-eyes, leathery wings, yecch. To investigate, they have to enter the murky fog of the cave. It is fundamentally unsettling. No wonder Leia utters a version of the famous 'bad feeling about this' line. Something is off. The ground doesn't feel like rock. It keeps shifting beneath their feet. The moisture levels are bizarre.
We see the answer click for Han, very expressive even beneath his mask. If we the viewers haven't figured it out with him, we're about to see the answer. The 'cave' that Leia thinks is collapsing turns out to be, in fact, the giant maw of a space worm.
Doesn't it just give you the shivers? A creature massive enough to swallow a spaceship, maybe a whole fleet of spaceships. Too enormous to even comprehend. It's a beastie from a fairy tale, expanded to cosmos proportions. And they were literally in the belly of it, in case you missed all the other hints that this is the darker second act where everything goes wrong for our heroes. For all that, it's not malignant. Once the Falcon has flown out of its reach, it just settles back into its hole to wait for another meal. Nature isn't evil, only unpredictable and chaotic.
That's certainly true on Dagobah, where we'll return next time for a surreal moment of pure, unrestrained subconscious.
Now Leia broods alone, only to get jump-scared by a mynock. (Her disgusted scream is almost exactly how I would have reacted.) There's something so evocatively gross about the creature design. A sucker-mouth surrounded by feelers, big bug-eyes, leathery wings, yecch. To investigate, they have to enter the murky fog of the cave. It is fundamentally unsettling. No wonder Leia utters a version of the famous 'bad feeling about this' line. Something is off. The ground doesn't feel like rock. It keeps shifting beneath their feet. The moisture levels are bizarre.
We see the answer click for Han, very expressive even beneath his mask. If we the viewers haven't figured it out with him, we're about to see the answer. The 'cave' that Leia thinks is collapsing turns out to be, in fact, the giant maw of a space worm.
Doesn't it just give you the shivers? A creature massive enough to swallow a spaceship, maybe a whole fleet of spaceships. Too enormous to even comprehend. It's a beastie from a fairy tale, expanded to cosmos proportions. And they were literally in the belly of it, in case you missed all the other hints that this is the darker second act where everything goes wrong for our heroes. For all that, it's not malignant. Once the Falcon has flown out of its reach, it just settles back into its hole to wait for another meal. Nature isn't evil, only unpredictable and chaotic.
That's certainly true on Dagobah, where we'll return next time for a surreal moment of pure, unrestrained subconscious.
