Author: David Schwarz

To Novelize or Not to Novelize—Is There Any Question?

Posted on August 1, 2016by , , , , and Not A Committee

anh-novelMike: Sometimes you can know something without really being conscious of it—and often you can be very much aware of something without fully grasping its implications. One such fact occurred to me recently: getting a new Star Wars film every year means that there is every reason to believe that we will also be getting one film novelization every year. In perpetuity.

Going off of Del Rey’s recent publishing schedule (though Disney-Lucasfilm Press adds an interesting new dimension to this), that amounts to roughly one in five “adult novels” from now on. When the prequels were coming out, there were around seven adult novels per year instead of five, and of course only one movie every three years—meaning roughly five percent of Del Rey’s output at the time was novelizations, versus twenty percent now. That’s a huge shift.

Now, I’m not here to say I want to return to seven original Star Wars novels every year. Even with the excitement of the new canon, what we’ve gotten over the last couple years has been more than enough new material to sustain my interest as a reader, while leaving enough energy for me to check off an old Legends book once in a while. My interest is strong, but my time and energy have waned as I’ve gotten older—so while I’m actually grateful that the publishing has slowed down a bit, I’m also more choosy about what I really do want to read.

And I don’t know that I want to read a new novelization every year. While most people will agree that at least one, Revenge of the Sith, was able to break out of the box of, let’s say unremarkableness, that firmly contains most novelizations, that’s only one out of seven—and The Force Awakens seemed to confirm that RotS was the exception to the rule rather than a new priority. I don’t think it was bad, it was just…unremarkable. The fact is, the basic mission statement of a novelization doesn’t demand a whole lot of an author, and plenty of good ones have failed to break out of that box, or even, seemingly, to try. I get why they exist, I don’t really expect Del Rey to stop doing them anytime soon, but—I’m seriously wondering if they’ll soon stop being worth my time. Read More

The Pitch – New Ongoing Comics

Posted on June 15, 2016by , , , and Not A Committee

vader25A few months ago, we ran a group piece on something I had been thinking about since Marvel started publishing Star Wars comics again—had the medium actually gotten stronger since the original Star Wars series, or would we look back on this era as being just as silly and dated as those early days of Jaxxon and Cody Sunn-Childe? What I noticed then that I hadn’t really considered before was that a good chunk of the regular staff here actually doesn’t read the comics and has little in the way of opinions on them.

Then last week, when I started thinking about what Marvel might come up with to replace the soon-to-conclude Darth Vader series, I decided to bring the question to the staff, and this time I wouldn’t accept “I don’t read comics” as an answer. It’s hard to argue that Marvel haven’t done a great job maximizing Star Wars sales among the existing comics audience, but I was especially curious what they might do to bring in all these superfans I knew who nevertheless barely touched the things. I got some interesting ideas back, to say the least—here they are.

Ben C: As Marvel takes the bold move of ending Gillen’s Darth Vader title, what’s next is a logical question, as is what they should do. The cynical response is to say Marvel will simply re-launch the book with a new creative team in a few months, pocketing the ker-ching generated by it. Here’s the non-cynical response: What if they don’t? What then? Well, over the last two years, Marvel have proved to be competent custodians of the Star Wars license. Due to some very smart creative combinations of writer and artist, with a mix of ongoing and limited series and a restrained use of events, the only question left to ask is what does Marvel have left to prove? Read More

“What is this?” – Interrogating the “Casual” Reactions to Rogue One

Posted on June 13, 2016by and Interviews

When the first teaser trailer for Rogue One was released last April, a whole bunch of people who would identify themselves as Star Wars fans on some level found themselves seeing for the first time evidence of a movie that was unequivocally connected to the franchise, yet had little in the way of familiar characters—no Rey or Finn, no Luke or Leia, no Anakin or Padmé. The only recognizable face in the whole thing was Mon Mothma, but she looked a lot younger than she was in Return of the Jedi—what was this?

https://twitter.com/salsapantz/status/718191455068626945

While I have no interest in teasing or belittling these people for not following the ins and outs of Lucasfilm operations the way a lot of us do, I have to admit I found this oddly fascinating—not just confusion about the story and how it related to the existing movies, but even about whether it was an authorized Lucasfilm production, or some kind of off-brand remake a la Never Say Never Again, the unofficial James Bond movie.

So last month I came up with a short questionnaire and passed it out to several people, with a lot of help from the trusty David Schwarz, that you might call casual fans. The first couple questions revolved around The Force Awakens, with the goal of establishing their current perspectives on the franchise and its “main” story. Once that was done, I then got into their thoughts on the Rogue One trailer and premise in more detail; those responses are reproduced below with my own thoughts and conclusions peppered throughout. Read More

Fatal Faves: Children of the Jedi

Posted on May 20, 2016by Six on the Wild Die
You want Star Wars? I got you, fam.
You want some primo Star Wars? I got you, fam.

So, this is my thinkpiece on why Bloodline is the greate– nahhhh, let’s talk about Children of the Jedi.

Picture yourself on the Internet, and try to imagine that everyone hates something that you love and hold dear. I know, unthinkable of, right? That kind of online hate? Who would do that? So you won’t believe how offended I was when Mike said that this new section, Fatal Faves, was going to spotlight indefensible areas and works of the Star Wars universe that we still love anyway, because fuck it. Because honestly, I feel like I’ve been defending Children of the Jedi for the last twenty years in a pretty badass lonely crusade, like some long-haired Toshiro Mifune ronin or some overweight Leonidas yelling “Roganda!!!!” before charging alone against the masses of the haters. So yes, I’ll say it here: I love Children of the Jedi and I don’t hate myself for it. Not most of the time. Sometimes. Only when it gets dark.

In this fandom saying that you love Children of the Jedi is like playing a selection of the best moments of RuPaul’s Drag Race before a Westboro Baptist Church congregation. If you admit that you drink the Kool-Aid of the Eye of Palpatine, you are hated by the Legends fans, you are also hated by the movie purists, hell, you are probably hated by people that have never read a Star Wars book but just found out that the book has a tuberculous plant called topato and a pet called pittin. “What’s wrong with you, freak!? Didn’t you recently throw a fit over the use of stupid words like flimsiplast instead of human words like paper? Why don’t you go back to your stupid continent? God, I’m a staunch Hilary supporter, but I’m voting Drumpf just to see you walled out of my country!” Read More

The Force Does Not Throw Dice: 1d100 Bounty Hunters!

Posted on April 20, 2016by Six on the Wild Die
Han rolled first
Han rolled first!

Hello and welcome again to The Force Does Not Throw Dice, our irregular feature devoted to the world of pen-and-paper roleplaying games set in the Star Wars galaxy. This time we have a slightly different treat to offer.

For the past weeks I’ve been quite busy rediscovering a fantastic classic aventure called Tatooine Manhunt and writing a retrospective on it. During the research process, an idea came to me: a classic roleplaying article, the one you would find in fanzines back in the 1980s and that you can still find in several blogs around the Internet. I’m talking about a random table, on its most Gygaxian nature.

In the following table, you are going to find one hundred bounty hunter concepts, ready for you to flesh out and use in your games. Use this table if you desperately need to give some character to a random bounty hunter encounter (something that happens often in Tatooine Manhunt), if your players have been naughty and you desperately need a hunter to set their sights on them, or if you simply want ideas. If you don’t have time to stat them out, don’t worry about it: use the stock bounty hunter stats you will find in the rulebooks, no matter the system.

These descriptions are short and sweet, describing the general appearance and their weaponry, what usually makes a bounty hunter memorable; you are expected to flesh out the rest of the character, discard what you don’t like and change it to your liking. You might also want to use this table as a springboard of ideas for your fanfiction: feel free to do it! That’s the point.

Read More