17 years ago, George Lucas brought his two Star Wars trilogies together into one big story with Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. In the final we experienced that Order 66 and with it the fall of the republic and the rise of the empire. At the command of the villain Palpatine, all Jedi are to be wiped out. It’s a devastating sequence of suffering and pain that even reaches Baby Yoda in The Mandalorian.
The terrible events of Order 66 are told on two levels: On the one hand, we witness an incredible carnage that is sweeping across the galaxy. Clones turn against the keepers of the light and make short work of it. On the other level, Anakin Skywalker enters the Jedi Temple and executes a group of defenseless younglings hoping for rescue.
From Revenge of the Sith to The Mandalorian, Order 66 is the most painful Star Wars event
It’s a betrayal that later not only shocked Obi-Wan and Yoda, but traumatized Star Wars fans to this day. In a few minutes everything collapses into darkness – and Lucas is at a loss for a picture to illustrate this punch in the pit of the stomach. What was a single sequence in Revenge of the Sith is now a supporting pillar almost every new Star Wars series.
You can watch the trailer for The Mandalorian Season 3 here:
The Mandalorian – S03 Trailer (German) HD
As The Clone Wars culminates in Order 66, The Bad Batch emerges from the chaos that is wreaking havoc across the galaxy. The Obi-Wan Kenobi series also returns to the Jedi Temple that night and shows us the merciless bloodshed.
Enter Baby Yoda: In The Book of Boba Fett, we experience Order 66 through Grogu’s innocent eyes – and that’s where The Mandalorian picks up.
The trailer for the new season comes up with a setting that can be clearly assigned to the previous Order 66 flashbacks in its design. Most likely we will find out who Grogu was then rescued from Jedi Temple before Anakin could wreak even greater havoc and kill the cutest Star Wars creature. For many Star Wars fans, however, the rescue is a minor matter. What counts here is the pain.
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Trauma Bonding and Memeification: The Order 66 unites Star Wars fans on Twitter
A cult has developed around the Order 66 in recent years, which is between Trauma Bonding and Memeification emotional. Lucas staged the fall of Anakin Skywalker as a great tragedy. Thanks to the internet and fan culture, this has created a dynamic that the Star Wars creator probably did not expect.
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Hardly a day goes by on “Star Wars Twitter” without someone pain
– that is, the pain – that appears in the most diverse stories of the star saga. Behind the beautiful pictures often hide extremely dark abysses. That “For the better, right?”-Meme sums it up well: What was a romantic scene suddenly turns into pure uneasiness.
Anakin and Padmé dreamily looked into each other’s eyes. He is a Jedi Padawan tasked with bringing hope to the galaxy. Padmé, a pro-democracy senator. When Anakin tells her that he wants to change the world, Padmé replies: “For the better, right?” Anakin’s silence is like one commitment to fascismwho later enters the galaxy far, far away with Order 66.
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Trauma and pop culture: Star Wars captures the spirit of the times with its Order 66 stories
Star Wars can go from zero to a hundred very quickly when it comes to charging seemingly meaningless moments with great symbolic power. Not even the flower meadow from the picture book is free from the pain that Obsession of many Star Wars fans has become. No wonder Order 66 acts as the ultimate trigger.
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Almost every popular character that can be associated with the event has here experienced a loss. Be it Grogu’s frightened googly eyes or the nightmares that still haunt Obi-Wan decades later in exile on Tatooine. Star Wars is a franchise that has existed for over four decades – in other words: it has a long history and a corresponding amount of trauma that can and must be processed.
This means that Star Wars has its finger on the pulse of the times. Trauma is the keyword to bring back beloved characters and give new twists to fictional stories. Halloween Kills provided the most impressive example of this. During the press tour, leading actress Jamie Lee Curtis was never at a loss to emphasize the trauma of her scream queen, Laurie Strode.
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Star Wars pain isn’t about actual pain, it’s about the love of the franchise
Since the first Star Wars film in 1977, Luke, Leia and Co. have had to cope with traumatic experiences. That this pain is cultivated by the fans, however, is a much more recent phenomenon, which would probably not exist without the Internet as a place of exchange. Tweets that exaggerate the cruelty of Star Wars are secret testimonies that Star Wars touches its fans to the core.
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No matter how often it’s stylized and fetishized, Star Wars pain is about stories that pull you in and characters that you really empathize with. The shared pain signals the depth solidarity of the fans to their heroes and the adventures they experience. The Mandalorian does not follow Order 66 by chance, but because the heart of the Star Wars universe is open here.
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