Author: M. Dean Cooper

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

Vision of the Future: Eleven-ThirtyEight Enters its Fourth Year

Posted on July 11, 2016by Site Stuff

You see a Mon Cal cruiser too, right?

Last Friday was the third anniversary of Eleven-ThirtyEight’s official launch. Usually we mark the occasion solely via the bi-annual Second Look feature, which ran all last week, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about how the site has developed thus far and how best to move forward now that we’re knee-deep in the Disney Era of Star Wars filmmaking, so I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss these things with you, our beloved audience.

When I was first approaching people to write for this site in early 2013, part of the “elevator pitch” for what I had in mind was that instead of posting news, ETE content would be news. I’m nothing if not presumptuous, but what I meant by that was that the platonic ideal of an ETE piece would be something that wasn’t being said anywhere else—something that needed to be said, and that upon reading, people would want to pass on to others in the way they would an important news item. That was very much FiveThirtyEight’s reputation after the 2012 American presidential election, and that was the bar I wanted us to be aiming for at all times—hence our name—even if the reality was unlikely to be quite so lofty.

While not directly related to this goal, another priority I established early on was that we would post on a regular schedule—for this reason, I’ve often used the word “journal” to describe ETE rather than “blog”. Posting content whenever it strikes one to do so, in my mind, was the hallmark of a news site, where important things might happen at any time and prompt immediate reaction; and conversely, where there might be occasional periods where nothing happens at all. I wanted to set us aside from that by being, well, predictable—you might not know whether a given day would involve breaking news or the deepest of deep cuts, but you could bet your ass that on Monday at 8am EST, we would have something for you to read. Read More

Second Look: The Pull to the Light: Redemption and Salvation in Star Wars

Posted on July 8, 2016by

vaderunmasked

Another ongoing debate left in the wake of The Force Awakens: what becomes of Kylo Ren? Not just what will happen, but what should happen? Between invading Rey’s mind and ending Han’s life, many are already convinced he is beyond redemption. Recently, guest writer Mark Eldridge considered the deeds of Darth Vader in this light—were they not just as bad? The fascinating thing about Vader is how important his redemption is to the first six films while at the same time it’s dwelt on barely at all; what does it mean, in the cosmology of Star Wars, for someone to be redeemed?

…almost as soon as he has saved Luke from the Emperor, Anakin Skywalker ascends into the Force and is rewarded by retaining his identity. The film does not show him facing up to his previous actions, and he does not have to atone for them in the physical world. Nor does he face justice through any legal system. Star Wars avoids these questions entirely, and is not interested in showing him redeeming his bad deeds by working to rebuild the galaxy. Sacrificing his life for his son is enough.

Mark considers that something more, well, cosmic is happening than simple worldly atonement—certainly Vader didn’t manage that. He then goes on to apply this perspective to Kylo and where his character might go from here. Not just will he be redeemed, or does he deserve to be redeemed, but: what would it mean if he was?

» Read more..

Second Look: The Case for More Padmé Amidala

Posted on July 7, 2016by

senator-padme

Last April, with the Leia-centric novel Bloodline fast approaching, Sarah Dempster took advantage of the calm before the storm to advocate for more content, a novel in particular, focused on Padmé. Despite being Luke and Leia’s mother and an important part of Skywalker history, the Expanded Universe, and the new canon thus far, have been very hesitant to spend serious time sketching out her life, or even her headspace during the sweeping events of the prequel trilogy:

How does her relationship with Palpatine change as he goes from her subject to her Chancellor? How does Sidious feel towards her, since she nearly singlehandedly undermined his plan due to her tenacity and smarts when faced with adversity? How do the events of TPM affect her and inform her going forward? She mentions in AotC that she was relieved when her two terms were up…but then the next queen asked her to serve as senator and Padmé says she couldn’t refuse.

Sarah goes on to note that while the character started out strong in The Phantom Menace—as arguably the main character, no less—she suffered a great deal from cut plotlines in the next two films, meaning that her life as both a politician and as Anakin’s wife was never explored satisfactorily; a perfect opportunity, in other words, for tie-in material to fill in the blanks and give more depth to one of the most hotly debated characters in the prequel trilogy.

» Read more..

Second Look: Fantasy Foresight – Could the New Republic Have Prevented the Starkiller?

Posted on July 6, 2016by

firstorderassembly

One of the big debates in the aftermath of The Force Awakens—and on some level, continuing today—revolved around the degree to which the New Republic “failed” as a government by not preventing the destruction of Hosnian Prime. They knew Imperial remnants were still out there, didn’t they? How could a competent government allow something on the scale of Starkiller Base to happen undetected? Ben Crofts followed this line of thinking to its logical conclusion: how could the New Republic claim to be any better than the Empire if it eliminated every single ex-Imperial? And even if it could and would do such a thing, what next?

After all, the Imperials are in the history books. Everyone knows what they are and some are susceptible to them. Clearly the only response is to purge this hidden column of Imperial wannabes and outlaw any positive depiction of the Empire. Yet not even that will be entirely effective for, as the Nazis have demonstrated decades after their defeat, evil retains an allure of fascination. Even if they are depicted as total baby-killing bastards, still some will be drawn to their banner.

This kind of thinking, Ben argues, is at best an example of 20/20 hindsight—Starkiller seems like an obvious threat by the end of the film, but could any New Republic, let alone one worthy of the name, ever have utterly prevented any possibility of such an attack? And even if it could, would it have been worth the necessary sacrifices?

» Read more..