Oreo has dropped a collaboration with Lucasfilm featuring special edition Star Wars sandwich cookies. Fans will be able to buy packs of the classic treat representing either the light side or dark side of the Force.
The fun catch? You won’t know which side you’ve got until you actually open the package. Each pack will feature one of two different color fillings: red for the dark side and blue for the light side—both infused with “kyber” sugar crystals inspired by lightsaber cores. The Oreos also feature heroes or villains embossed on the cookies themselves, with characters like Darth Vader, Darth Maul, and a stormtrooper representing the dark side, and Luke Skywalker, Yoda, and Princess Leia representing the light side. In total, there will be 20 iconic characters featured.
The limited time Star Wars Oreo cookie packs will be available for presale starting May 30 at Oreo.com/StarWars and they will begin rolling out at retailers nationwide June 10. Take a look at the designs in the gallery ahead!
When we first met General Grievous 20 years ago this month in Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars microseries, it gave him an immediate, chilling presence. But then Revenge of the Sith, and with it the Clone Wars 3DCG series, constrained what could be done with the character. Grievous took on the air of a Saturday morning cartoon villain—twirling lightsabers rather than mustaches. Tales of the Empire is keeping the twirling lightsabers, but it might just bring back a little of that original menace, too.
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Today Lucasfilm released the first clip from the upcoming anthology series Tales of the Empire—its spiritual successor to Tales of the Jedi, this time focusing on stories of the Dark Side, including the life of Morgan Elsbeth before she joined Thrawn’s service, and whatever happened to Barriss Offee after her radicalization against the Jedi’s role in the Clone War. Leaning on the Morgan side of things, the clip sees Tales’ own riff on a particular moment from the 3D Clone Wars series—the season four episode, “Massacre,” when as part of an act of vengeance by Count Dooku, Grievous and an army of Battle Droids launch a devastating assault on Dathomir to try and wipe out Asajj Ventress and her Nightsister comrades.
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The clip is brief, but very fun—if Star Wars is to insist on returning to stories of Clone Wars as it so often is these days, at the very least being able to do so in animation, with the lessons and experiences learned since it came to an end in place, is nice. Getting to see this moment first glimpsed 12 years ago with modern visuals and style is great! But it’s also because, given free reign to act here as the catalyst for Morgan’s traumatic past, Grievous just gets to be unleashed as pure, sinister id.
Going up against Obi-Wan or other Jedi in Clone Wars—never Anakin, of course, because the two were not allowed to actually meet until Revenge of the Sith—Grievous was most often doomed to be a bit of a jobber. He had his moments here and there, sure (the early season one episode “Lair of Grievous” is always worth shouting out), but in Clone Wars Grievous was usually far from the charismatically petrifying agent of death he was when he first stomped into animated canon in the 2D series. It might only be for a brief while, but at least Tales of the Empire looks like it’s bringing at least a little bit of that edge back.
Tales of the Empire begins streaming on Disney+ May 4.
Star Wars products love a theme moment—Force Friday, Triple Force Friday, whatever the Force Friday equivalent for Rogue One was called. Maybe they just love Fridays, but now Lucasfilm and its merch partners are capitalizing on a whole month to sell you things, with a specific villainous twist.
This March is now Imperial March, because, well, duh, and Lucasfilm is planning a bunch of new merchandise announcements with a suitably evil theme. Hasbro is leading the charge with a wave of new figures from Jedi: Fallen Order, Ahsoka, and classic Star Wars across its 6″ and 3.75″ toy lines, and although “Imperial March” will be long done by the time any of them come out, it’s still nice to see what’s in store for the baddies on your shelves this year.
The Jedi: Fallen Order three-pack (featuring the vision of an Inquistor Cal Kestis, the Second Sister, and a Purge Trooper) will release this spring exclusively through Amazon for $75, while the Vintage Collection Captain Enoch and Night Trooper pack ($55), as well as the individual Darth Vader and Stormtrooper releases ($17 each), will be available from Hasbro Pulse and other retailers this summer. Click through to see pictures!
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: the Bad Batch find themselves up against, and running away from, some kind of giant creature. “Why,” grunts Wrecker, the team’s beefy strongman as he huffs along, “why is there always a huge monster?” It’s a fun gag, because really, with The Bad Batch, there almost always is a huge monster. But it’s also an awkward truth of the show at large.
Bad Batch has struggled to find a balance between telling a variety of one-off stories of the week (like, say, the perpetual huge monster the ragtag clones always seem to find regardless of what their mission was) and a larger narrative with its titular heroes.
Image: Lucasfilm
It’s why, for the most part, the series and its characters have largely felt stuck in place, even as the relentless Rise of the Empire encroaches further and further on the world and surviving characters of the Clone Wars—save for Omega (Michelle Ang) and conflicted team turncoat Crosshair (Dee Bradley Baker, perpetual voice of every Star Wars clone), the team hasn’t really grown in character beyond their initial introductions. It’s also why arguably the most interesting plotlines the series has developed so far—like seeing the young Hera Syndulla and the burgeoning re-emergence of Ryloth’s resistance groups in season one, or season two’s plotline about the lack of social welfare for Clones as the Empire turns towards its Stormtrooper program—have, by and large, not involved the Batch at all. The series has mostly kept its momentum restrained, content to only barely advance its world and characters as it distracts itself with another monster of the week.
All that changes in its third and final season—which returns today on Disney+ with a three-episode premiere, the first batch of 15 episodes—even though the huge monsters are definitely still there (in the first eight episodes, provided for review, there are at least five, depending on your hugeness threshold). Coalescing around the fallout of that three-part premiere, which itself focuses on the captured Omega and Crosshair as they reconnect and endure their separate lives in the underbelly of the Empire’s mysterious cloning research facility at Mount Tantiss, The Bad Batch’s final outing takes a more serialized approach than its predecessors, deftly drawing together plot elements that have built in fits and starts over the show so far. It’s been a long time coming, and occasionally to the show’s own frustration in the past, but even as season three moves on from one story to the next, everything feels like it’s coming together to focus on one particular endgame—one with potentially huge ramifications for both the characters we’ve come to know over the course of the show and the wider connective world of Star Wars in this tumultuous time period.
Image: Lucasfilm
Everything matters here, and not simply in a quantifiable, wikiable “canon” way—it’s just that instead with this tight focus on its endgame drawing together myriad characters and stories at the nexus of Mount Tantiss and what the sinister Doctor Hemlock (Jimmi Simpson) has in store beneath its peaks, Bad Batch finally feels like it’s making effective use of the time it’s got. From the big monster action sequences, to character threads coming home to roost as the Batch reckons with the loss of Tech in season two’s climax while also dealing with the return of the lost members to its fold, season three spends its first half in service of starting to dig back into its characters in ways it rarely has so far, using the pressure cooker of its overarching scenario to really put the screws on its characters, and explore in what ways they really have changed in the long days since Order 66. Once again, this is in large part done most well through the lens of Omega and Crosshair, but this unlikely duo doesn’t just bring out the best in themselves but also draws that out in the rest of the crew, leading to some really satisfying moments of character work that feel like earned payoffs given how scattershot the series’ episodic nature has been in service of those characters in the past.
And while yes, there are some fun one-offs in these first eight episodes—a particular highlight sees Hunter and Wrecker begrudgingly team up with Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) in a desperate bid for information—none of it feels necessarily “wasted,” in either distracting from the central plot or away from digging into its characters more, all weaving itself into this singular path towards Tantiss and Hemlock, again and again. It works, not just because it means we actually get to sit with our heroes and watch them develop and bounce off each other more, but because it effectively sets the stakes for the season at large as something that really matters—grand in the scheme of Star Wars itself, and The Bad Batch’s place in its timeline, but more crucially grand in terms of what matters to our heroes as people, especially.
Image: Lucasfilm
Where the show has previously struggled to make its most interesting worldbuilding personally matter to the Batch, season three marries the personal and galactic stakes together perfectly, keeping everything compelling as it ticks over from week to week. It’s a reflection of a much stronger, more confident show, one that feels like it’s finally ready to nail down the story it wants to tell with its characters and is laser focused on doing so. Time will tell if the back half of the season will effectively pick up on the strengths of its front—but The Bad Batch has set a stage brimming with potential for an incredibly satisfying end to this chapter of Star Wars animation if it sticks the landing.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch’s third and final season begins streaming on Disney+ today, February 21, with a three-episode premiere.
You could certainly accuse creators within the Star Wars franchise of needlessly injecting their media with heavy doses of fan service, and Ahsoka series creator Dave Filoni might be the guiltiest of them all. There’s a reason a tweet from April 2023 sharing a fake page from a Filoni script that follows the famous “and my ax” format from The Lord of the Rings but with Star Wars characters is so funny—because it feels, in part, like something the man blessed with George Lucas’ trust would try to pull off.
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There are moments throughout the first episode of the new Disney Plus Ahsoka series that feel a bit like that tweet, and a bit like Filoni, who helmed the animated Star Wars: Rebels series, just wanted to finish telling that show’s story. But even though the frequent nods to content and characters from that beloved series may sometimes make Ahsoka feel like it’s only for the initiated, it still manages to be a compelling standalone story in its own right—maybe not as well as Andor does, but far better than, say, The Book of Boba Fett.
Ahsoka begins with something that makes me genuinely squeal with delight: a traditional Star Wars opening crawl (though in a striking red font), filling you in on the key story beats you’ll need to know going in. This is a brilliant move by Filoni—not only does it help Ahsoka feel more like a full-blown film (which it does throughout the first two episodes that aired on August 23 thanks to fantastic VFX and excellent pacing), but it gives a little bit of context for fans who may not have sat through some 200 episodes across two different kids’ shows.
The crawl tells us that Morgan Elsbeth, an ally to Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn, has been captured by Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and is being transported by the Rebel Alliance. Cue a giant Rebel ship sweeping into view, and a nice look at how the new government is running—a ship sending out an old Jedi signal is asking to board, but the Rebel captain thinks its passengers are bluffing. Most of the Jedi were wiped out during The Clone Wars, remember?
The captain was right to suspect them, because it turns out they’re two red-lightsaber-wielding bad guys named Baylan Skoll (RIP Ray Stevenson) and Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno). Both Stevenson and Sakhno shine in their respective roles—Stevenson playing Baylan like a classically trained Shakespearean villain, Sakhno imbuing Shin with a feral, twitchy energy like a corner feral cat. They kill everyone on the ship and release Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto, who first played the role on The Mandalorian), who tells Baylan that there’s someone after the “map”: Ahsoka Tano.
This is an early reminder that Filoni likes the toys in his sandbox a bit too much, as Inosanto’s somewhat bizarre line-read (she just says the name “Ahsoka Tano” before it cuts to the show’s title card) would have been so much more powerful if she never said it all. Instead, we just get snapped right to the name of the show. Listen, Ahsoka is Filoni’s best girl (and mine, too), so I’ll let him have this one.
Dave Filoni loves Ahsoka Tano.Photo: Kate Green / Disney (Getty Images)
Then we see Ahsoka herself, walking through the ruins of what appears to be an old Jedi temple. It’s great to see Dawson physically embody the role—she is reserved, almost stoic as she moves through this space, but still occasionally offers flashes of playfulness that remind us of a younger Ahsoka. And, thankfully, her fucking lekku are finally the right length. In a scene that feels straight out of Indiana Jones, Ahsoka uses her dual lightsabers to slice through the ground and drop straight into a secret room that demands she complete a puzzle to get the object she’s looking for. She does so with ease, but when she tries to communicate with Huyang (a Jedi engineer droid voiced by David Tennant), she realizes something’s not right.
She’s attacked, and we get our second lightsaber fight of the show before we even hit the 15-minute mark (hell yeah). The fight is choreographed well, and it’s clear that the team made sure Dawson’s movements (and that of her stunt double, Michelle Lee) echo Ahsoka’s competency with many fighting styles—she can move swiftly and lithely when needed, but stand tall and powerful to deflect hard hits or blaster shots as well.
It’s a great fight, but it’s the scene afterwards that gives me pause—Dawson, clearly trying to embody an older, more stoic Ahsoka than the one we know from the animated shows, can occasionally feel stiff, a stark contrast to the lively take that voice actor Ashley Eckstein brought to the character. This could, perhaps, be because this is a much older Ahsoka Tano than the teenage girl in Clone Wars (she’s certainly more reserved in Rebels, and she’s in her forties now), but it feels jarring, especially since she is such a beloved character. As my partner said during the first episode, “Those contacts don’t help, do they?” Dawson feels the most like Ahsoka when she invokes a sort of bemused disdain, which we luckily get more of in the second episode.
Ahsoka and her rebels
I love a motomami.Image: Lucasfilm / Entertainment Weekly
Ahsoka believes the map will help lead her to the location of Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen), the last leader of the Empire and its heir apparent. At the end of Rebels’ final episode (which aired back in 2018), Jedi Ezra Bridger used hyperspace-traveling space whales called purrgil to banish himself and Thrawn to the remotest corner of the universe. Ahsoka hopes that the map will find them both, so that she can save Ezra and also prevent Thrawn from retaking his mantle as imperial leader and plunging the galaxy back into war.
She’ll need help, however, so she turns to two of her oldest and closest allies: General Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo). Here is where Ahsoka slows down a bit too much for some, as it tries to give the audience a better understanding of the dynamics between these three women, which were properly fleshed out across 75 Rebels episodes. Ahsoka used to train Sabine, a Mandalorian warrior and close friend to Ezra, as her Padawan, before it became clear that the two weren’t a good fit, and they both fought alongside Hera (who lost her partner, a Jedi named Kanan Jarrus) in the rebellion for years.
Unfortunately for Dawson, her reserved approach to Ahsoka only makes it harder to fully dig into her relationship with Hera (who Winstead plays like a concerned but feisty aunt through several pounds of some of the worst FX makeup I’ve ever seen) and Sabine (who Bordizzo portrays beautifully as a brash, angsty riot grrrl who uses her cool speeder bike to do an Akira-esque slide when you first meet her). Whenever they’re interacting, she feels more like an exasperated mom than a former pain in the ass herself (which Ahsoka was, just ask her older master, Anakin Skywalker). It’s unfortunate, but I’m hoping that the three women stretch and flex into their roles in future episodes.
Awoop, jumpscare.Image: Lucasfilm / Entertainment Weekly
Aside from the trio’s dynamic, however, Ahsoka looks and feels great. The lovingly recreated locations from the animated series (Ahsoka’s ship, the planet Lothal, Ezra’s crow’s-nest home that Sabine now lives in), all look amazing, like something out of a full-fledged Star Wars blockbuster. The animatronic Lothal cat has dethroned Grogu as the cutest Star Wars puppet in my opinion, and aside from Ashoka’s contacts and Hera’s far-too-cartoony outfit, the costuming and set-dressing are all top-notch. The lightsaber battles crackle and snap—there’s energy in every swing of the sword or blaster deflection that feels purposeful and well-directed, and the ASMR-heavy moments (Ahsoka twisting and turning stone columns to complete a puzzle, Sabine shifting a metal sphere to reveal a map) are tactile and almost sensual.
The episode ends with a fantastic lightsaber fight—Sabine, ever the stubborn one, takes the map off of Ahsoka’s ship despite her protestations, and discovers exactly where it leads before she’s attacked by Shin and her droids. Sabine gets a saber straight through her abdomen, something that Star Wars doesn’t do all that often (I gasped so loud I woke up one of my cats), and it fades to black. We know Sabine survives, but will her already fractured relationship with her former master, Ahsoka?
There’s love in every Ahsoka detail, like a jade heart sewn into the pocket of your jeans. You just have to allow for the hope that, like all things, it’ll get better with age.
SAN FRANCISCO—Emphasizing that she should get ready to have her mind absolutely blown, Elon Musk reportedly sat the new Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino down on Friday and had her watch The Matrix as part of her onboarding process. “Buckle up, because this movie will tell you everything you need to know about working at Twitter, and also the world and our society at large,” said Musk, who opened up a laptop, pressed play on the 136-minute-long film, and began excitedly watching, commenting on, and reciting the lines of his favorite scenes over her shoulder. “Okay, so this is how it works when you’re CEO: you’re like Neo and I’m your Morpheus. The machines are trying to control our minds, but luckily, we know the truth. In order to be in charge of Twitter, you must take the blue pill or the red pill. What will you choose?” At press time, Elon Musk had switched the onboarding movie to Andrew Tate’s Hustlers University after discovering that the Wachowskis identified as female.
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Goku is misunderstood. Memes and misinterpretations have greatly contributed to some inaccurate conclusions about the Dragon Ball Z character — with perhaps the most common misconstrual being that Goku is a bad dad. This perception of Goku’s fatherly abilities have been perpetuated by jokes and memes that have, over the years, buried or caused people to ignore evidence that suggests otherwise, when in fact the opposite is true. Goku is a great dad.
When I dove into why I love Dragon Ball couples so much, I concluded that Toriyama excels at putting relationships on display by showing, not telling, how they feel about each other through their dynamics, reactions to perilous situations and subtext. I think the same applies to analyzing Goku as a father. Throughout the original manga, we see Goku being a good dad in both traditional and nontraditional ways.
Goku has confidence in Gohan
To analyze Goku as a dad, we have to look at Goku as a character. Goku is passionate about martial arts, but more specifically, his core character value is always wanting to get better. Goku values working hard to get stronger and seeing those results paying off and this ties to him as a father. Though he doesn’t force them to be martial artists like himself, Goku is incredibly proud of and confident in the strength, skills and results of hard work that his sons display, which is the quality of a great dad.
When Goku shows up to save Gohan from Nappa, he points out his son’s progress, “You’ve changed so much! You trained well!” Even though Gohan admits he couldn’t do anything against Nappa, it’s still important to Goku that his son knows he’s come a long way, and he does just that. A similar scene plays out in the Frieza Saga when Goku once again shows up to save Gohan and Krillin, he comments that Gohan has been through a lot, complimenting his perseverance — he’s less scared and a little stronger than before, and Goku makes sure he knows it.
The Cell Saga is perhaps the best source of moments like this. Throughout the entire arc, Goku shows immense confidence, belief and pride in Gohan’s potential, power, progress and perseverance, saying as much throughout. As the two train in the hyperbolic time chamber, Goku makes it clear that he believes Gohan is going to become stronger than him. He notes how quickly he progresses and compliments his growth, showing nothing but pride and belief in his son’s potential.
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In fact, Goku has the utmost confidence in Gohan’s abilities, so much so that he remains calm when learning that Cell’s power is still greater than his own. Why? Because he already recognized his son’s growth and power, he’s already confident that Cell’s defeat is at hand and that Gohan is going to be the one to do it. Goku approaches the Cell games with this matter-of-fact mindset that Gohan is going to save the world, it’s a sincere belief, not just a father trying to give his son confidence.
And Goku is right to have this confidence — Gohan believed his father to be holding back against Cell, since his dad’s best was far behind the level he had reached. Not only did Goku have great belief in his son — forfeiting his match because he knew he didn’t have to defeat Cell — he also showed great intuition in regards to Gohan’s power. Heck, he’s so confident and proud of Gohan’s strength, he straight up calls Cell an idiot for underestimating him, also quelling Piccolo’s doubts when Gohan appears defeated. These are the acts of a father who has confidence in his son, who is proud and recognizes his hard work and its results.
Illustration: Toei Animation
Of course, Goku does take this confidence a bit far, factoring into one of his weaker moments as a dad — giving Cell a Senzu bean and putting Gohan into the ring with him. This is often cited as one of the biggest examples of Goku being a bad dad and I can’t disagree. However, it comes from Goku’s sincere confidence and recognition of his son’s power, and more importantly, Goku realizes his mistake and was on his way to fix it, before Gohan proves that his dad was right to believe in him, unleashing the power of an ascended Super Saiyan. A mistake, certainly, but not a heartless one.
Later when Cell decides to self-destruct and take the whole planet with him, Goku teleports the sore loser away, but not before he tells Gohan he is proud of him. Then when Cell reforms, Goku urges his son from the afterlife to “show me the power that we made together,” to defeat the villain. Goku sees Gohan’s power as the result of their shared efforts, as something he is proud of and a reflection of their time spent together as father and son — it is a touching scene in the context of the power-centric world of Dragon Ball. In this world, power is everything, and they built this together. Finally, in the last moments of the Cell saga, Goku wishes to remain in the afterlife, giving Gohan one final vote of confidence by saying the Earth has him now, his power and his reliability are going to protect the planet.
The Buu Saga does have some key moments as well. While watching Goten fight Trunks in the kids’ division of the World Martial Arts Tournament, Goku shows great interest in observing Goten’s current level of skill and power. He notes that he can’t quite control energy blasts and is impressed that he can already turn Super Saiyan. It’s small, but worth noting Goku’s deep interest in Goten’s fight. Similarly, Goku stays to watch Gohan train in the land of the Kais, taking an interest in and noting his progress. Additionally, Goku is taken aback — literally, he is blown back — by Gohan’s ultimate form, and tells him as much, giving him one final vote of confidence with a thumbs up as he goes off to fight Buu.
Goku also put great faith in Goten and Trunks and their fusion during the Buu saga, literally saying that it’s their generation’s time to take over. This is a vote of confidence and pride from Goku to Goten (as well as Trunks) and though minimal, it’s worth noting.
Goku balances being a dad with being a teacher
Illustration: Toei Animation
Goku possesses what’s known as a positive flat character arc: he doesn’t change for the better over time, but rather his positive nature changes other characters and the world around him for the better. I think this especially applies to his sons and what he’s left them with as their father and mentor.
In the Cell Saga, Goku teaches Gohan how to turn Super Saiyan, how to perfect the form and how to maintain it. Here, we find that Goku is an excellent teacher, a difficult task especially when your student is also your son, and I think it speaks to Goku’s ability as a father that he can balance the two. Goku is patient, kind, encouraging and understanding — every time Gohan struggles or stumbles, Goku tells him that not even he or Vegeta were able to master the transformation in a day. Goku also reminds his son that he is much farther along strength-wise than he was as a kid, able to handle more time in the Hyperbolic time chamber and full of hidden potential that will outshine both himself and Vegeta. These are all qualities of a great teacher and a great dad.
Gohan reflects this when Videl asks him who taught him how to fight — he doesn’t say Piccolo, though that’s often who people joke is Gohan’s real father. Instead, Gohan says “My dad, mostly.” He reflects it further when he asks Kibito to give him a new gi, one based off of his dad’s, “I want to fight wearing my dad’s gi,” he says, and this is big. Previously, Gohan chose Piccolo’s clothes to wear in respect to his teachings, so it speaks volumes that he now wants to honor his father and wear the pride they have for each other in his gi. He wouldn’t do this if Goku wasn’t an excellent and impactful father and it’s an incredibly touching and important moment.
As for Goten, when Goku is teaching him and Trunks fusion, he swallows his pride in order for them to understand the importance of the technique. He tells them that he is weak, and that his weakness got Gohan and Vegeta killed, which Trunks and Goten blame him for. These kids barely know him and he understands that, he gets on their level to admit his weakness so they understand that fusion will help them surpass his own weakness. I see this as an excellent teacher move, one that finally gets them to listen. Additionally, Goten, who only just met his dad earlier this day, wishes for a final hug before he goes — only someone like Goku could get a son he just met to be that attached that quickly.
Goku as the selfless Saiyan
If you want more direct examples of Goku being a great dad, Dragon Ball is full of such moments.Throughout the Saiyan, Frieza and Cell Sagas, Goku shows immense concern for Gohan’s wellbeing.
Infamously known as a fight-loving freak, Goku pays little attention to Nappa or the Ginyu force when rescuing Gohan from them, ensuring he is safe, healed and away from the battle before even once looking at his future opponents. Also in the Frieza Saga, Goku makes sure that Gohan gets as far away as possible after he turns into a Super Saiyan for the first time — he knows he can’t control the rage-induced power yet and tells Gohan to get away before his control slips away entirely.
In the Cell Saga, Goku literally sacrifices his life for his son when he teleports a self-destructing Cell away — and this moment is important on two levels. First, Goku is being a good dad and giving his life to ensure his son lives, and second, Goku takes the brunt of Gohan’s mistake for him. Gohan got a bit cocky with his power, wanting to make Cell suffer before defeating him, which gives the villain the chance to self-destruct, something that Gohan (and the whole Earth) would have paid for if Goku didn’t step in. He takes the hit so Gohan can learn from his mistake without paying fatal consequences. That’s some grade-A dad s*** right there! He even keeps a positive attitude when telling him he’s going to remain dead! He doesn’t want his son to mourn and dwell on his death!
In the Buu saga, Goku shows a deep understanding and concern for Gohan’s rage, now knowing the full power, and urges him to calm down when Videl gets hurt in her tournament match. He also understands that Videl is important to Gohan and doesn’t hesitate to get her Senzu beans from Korrin. Later, when Goku finds out Gohan is alive and in the land of the Kais, he immediately teleports to him without hesitation, and is later sad that he can’t go back with him to Earth and see him grow up.
There are also two hugs in this saga, both between Goku and his sons. Signs of affection are very rare in Dragon Ball and I think it contributes a lot to the argument of Goku being a good dad that two of them are when Goku is saying goodbye to his sons. I dare you to tell me Goku is some kind of uncaring, distant father after all this!
Goku is a flawed character
Illustration: Toei Animation
To give a fair argument, we have to look at some of Goku’s flaws. In desperate situations, he can be a bit harsh and biting — Gohan experiences this in the Saiyan saga when Goku snaps at him for being too afraid to take over the fight against Vegeta, calling him a coward. This could have been delivered better, but I think it stems from Goku believing in his son, and trying to snap him out of the fear that makes him hesitate, something he takes a better approach with during the Cell games. Here, rather than calling Gohan a coward, he says, “Bring peace back to the world. You want to grow up and be a scientist don’t you?” to directly, but gently teach Gohan that you have to fight for the things that matter, even if you’re afraid. I think this not only makes up for how he yelled at Gohan in the Saiyan saga, but it also shows something that even the best dads struggle to do: grow, change and adapt how they teach and raise their kids.
Goku similarly yells at Goten later in the Buu saga, once again out of a desperate situation. When teaching Trunks and Goten about Fusion, he snaps that they don’t have time to cry and mourn Gohan and Vegeta, that they have to learn Fusion fast if they want revenge. It’s not gentle, that’s for sure, but it’s not out of malice, Goku has to cut through to make it clear that there is a ticking clock and they can save the world if they use time wisely. Again, it’s not a perfect dad moment, but Goku is, as established, a flawed character.
Perhaps the most cited reason for Goku being a “bad dad” in the eyes of some is that he’s absent twice from his son’s lives. But here’s the thing. Goku did not abandon his sons. Goku was gone after selfless acts of self-sacrifice done to protect his sons from current and future threats.
Well… of course, he does sort of abandon his family in the final pages of the series in order to train Uub to be the next protector of the Earth but Gohan is already a full-grown adult here. Goten is still a bit younger, but he’s training Uub to keep the Earth, and his sons, safe. Overall, the epilogue is not a great example of Goku as a dad, but it’s also never stated that he doesn’t visit them during Uub’s training, so I’m gonna choose to believe he does (just let me have this one!)
Super Saiyan, Super Dad
Illustration: Toei Animation
A lot of arguments of Goku being a bad dad come from Dragon Ball Super, which takes a more comedic tone that Flanderizes and pokes fun at Goku’s flaws as a dad. If you want to use those points to argue, go right ahead, but Toriyama’s original text, the original Dragon Ball manga does not, in my opinion, depict Goku as a bad father. Quite the opposite.
Goku being a dad is not the focus of Dragon Ball, and I think this is a big contributor to why people think he’s a bad dad. The series doesn’t put a spotlight on Goku having traditional father-son moments with his kids, but when you look closely, it’s not hard to find moments of Goku being a damn good dad — imparting wisdom, protecting his kids, caring deeply about them, showing affection for them and taking great pride in their hard work and progress. Is Goku a perfect dad? No, but what person, fictional or real is? Is Goku a good dad? Yes, y’all are just mean.
Sean is a writer/researcher who lives in LA and loves Sonic, Dragon Ball and his dog. You can follow him on Twitter and find his work on his website. He also co-hosts Sonic Podcast Adventure and streams frequently on Twitch.
New gameplay from the upcoming Star Wars Jedi: Survivor seems to reveal that, unlike in the first game, the sequel will finally let Jedi Cal Kestis slice up stormtroopers and other human enemies. And that’s a good thing, as this much-wanted change makes lightsabers feel powerful and deadly again.
The lightsaber is one of the coolest pieces of Star Wars tech and genuinely one of the best fictional weapons ever created. Instantly iconic, the weapon and its sounds are so ingrained in our minds that when grown adult actors in Star Wars movies or shows are handed a prop lightsaber they make all the hums and whoosh noises like they were eight years old again. And I don’t blame anyone for loving the lightsaber. It’s a powerful laser sword that can cut off limbs, slice through metal doors, and it comes in rad colors. What more could you want? But for a long time, most Star Wars games—including 2019’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order—haven’t let you really slice and dice with these iconic laser blades, treating them more like glowing bats.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Combat Stances Explained
However, in new gameplay released by IGN yesterday, we see that this doesn’t appear to be the case in Survivor. In a neat video going over how the game’s combat stances work, the devs showcase Cal fighting different enemies while explaining how his various moves will work and how stances factor into combat.
That’s all fine and dandy. But more interesting to me is what happens during the fight against some Imperial scout troopers at around 4:14:
Gif: IGN / EA / Lucasfilm / Kotaku
Look at that! Cal just cut a dude’s leg off. And if you look around the floor at that point in the video you can see at least two more cut-off limbs, likely from earlier in the fight. This is exciting!
Kotaku reached out to EA and Respawn about this dismemberment and was told “The footage is what it is” and that the publisher wouldn’t provide any additional comment.
For many years now, Star Wars games have made lightsabers feel pretty weak as it can often take dozens of hits to kill a random enemy and you never get to cut off limbs or do real damage to your target unless they are a droid or random animal. In an interview in 2019, Respawn senior designer Justin Perez seemed to imply Lucasfilm and Disney weren’t okay with lightsabers cutting off arms or legs. This was further backed up by people who worked on season 7 of The Clone Wars, which is also mentioned in that IGN interview from 2019.
So, I had assumed that was just how things would work. Cal could kill all the innocent animals and aliens he wanted, but he couldn’t chop any limbs off of stormtroopers. But it appears that Disney and Lucasfilm have either relaxed this rule or given Respawn a pass.
Either way, I’m excited to play Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and cut off some legs when it launches on April 28, 2023 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
