“They are requesting a call sign.”

BODHI ROOK FATHER OF ROGUE SQUADRON

(THE SQUADRON LUKE SKYWALKER FLEW IN)

AN ENTIRE GENERATION OF PILOTS AND STARFIGHTERS PAYING TRIBUTE TO HIM

IT’S HIM

Riz Ahmed’s first acting role was as a guy imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. One of the Tipton Three, who tried to sue Rumsfeld for torture and religious abuses but who failed because the torture hadn’t technically been prohibited and Rumsfeld was technically immune from prosecution.

So we take a guy with a very specific set of imagery associated with him and we put him stumbling and terrified in the desert with a bag covering his head. Heck, put him through interrogation techniques invasive enough that people tend to go crazy from them.

Take this guy, this guy whose skin is brown and whose family live in a war-torn city full of suicide attacks against tank-driven peacekeeping patrols.

Make him clever and brave and beautiful. Make the audience cheer when his plans go right. Make his intel pivotal to everything, and then do it again. 

Remember those jokes in Kevin Smith and Mike Myers movies about evil henchmen with regular families, about contract workers on the Death Star, about whether they deserved to die just for having worries about paychecks and taking a job? 

Those jokes are all about Bodhi Fucking Rook, an intergalactic long-haul trucker, and they aren’t jokes anymore because his answer is that you don’t stay some anonymous jerk just keeping his head down and acting like the machine he’s in isn’t his responsibility. You find something pure and strong in yourself, that inch of integrity Alan Moore told us about once, the thing that’s worth more than your life.

Luke Skywalker resonated with the audience because he was a fresh-faced farm boy setting off on the hero’s journey, and that gets us on a primal gut level.

Bodhi Rook isn’t an ancient archetype like Luke is. Bodhi Rook is a modern achetype. Bodhi Rook is the human face that we all hope looks back in the mirror at us when we ask ourselves if we’re willing to compromise our humanity – are we willing to ignore Guantanamo and Manus, turn a blind eye to Rumsfeld and Dutton and Morrison? Is it okay to take a job installing air conditioning on the Death Star when you know that it’s the Death Star, because someone’s gotta do it and you need the cash?