Category: Opinion

Razor’s Edge Review: A New Author Delivers

Posted on September 24, 2013by Halcyon Days

—–Warning Spoilers—–

315px-Razors_Edge

Razor’s Edge takes place between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. The book was advertised as Leia’s book and Martha Wells delivers that and more for Star Wars fans. The premise of the book is that Leia is going to meet with someone Han knows in order to get supplies for Echo base. The two are traveling on a ship with General Willard which is a great use of one of the lesser known Generals from the movies. Their ship gets attacked and as they are limping in to Arnot Station Leia discovers a long lost Alderaanian gunship marauding as a pirate. This bothers Leia who decides to interfere and ends up taking a small crew (including Han) over to the ship in the hopes of convincing them to join the Rebel Alliance.

Of course nothing goes as planned and the pirates end up sort of kidnapping Leia and Han by having to return to the pirate base in order to fulfill an obligation. Leia is now on a crusade to save the prisoners turned slaves from the ship the pirates took and ends up doing pretty cool action scenes in order to prove her worth to the Alderaanians. Both crews are betrayed by the traitor from Leia’s rebel crew but the heroes manage to survive and save the prisoners with the help of Chewbacca and Luke who were sent by General Madine to help protect the Gamble on its way back from the meeting which never takes place.

The story is pretty classically Star Wars EU and this story really shine from the minor details Wells includes. She definitely did her homework before writing this novel. Wells, while using a heavily female cast (yay!), also uses a variety of species and even invents a few of her own. She makes sure to include different races of humans as well, something the EU fans have been complaining about for awhile now. The three main females Leia, Captain Metara and Captain Aral tukor Viest are well written with detailed descriptions of their looks. The interactions between the characters are clever and the use of a Lorrdian is a nice nod to the EU and does a good job of explaining how a female pirate could have taken over the massive operation in a male dominated time during the Empire’s reign.

Some of the new or little used species include an Andulian (“grey skin, long white hair, furry brows, and atrophied gills in their cheeks”), Ishori an amphibious species, and a Videllan (“gold-brown skin of a leathery texture, a high forehead curving back to a fringe of fluffy golden hair, a beard, and large, expressive eyes with high, tufted brows”). I’ve often thought that during this timeframe the EU authors fall back on the classic movie species so it was very refreshing to read about new species.

“When it comes to trying to stop a crew of innocent bystanders from being sold into slavery, yes, I’m happy to lie with the best of them.”

Leia’s characterization was perhaps one of her best. We even got an introspection from Leia concerning her being seen as a figurehead or symbol for the Alliance. Leia shows some insecurity for being seen as this perfect symbol and wonders how long she can go before she makes a big mistake. This introspection actually strengthens Leia’s character and her grit and determination really shine through in this novel.

The use of Luke Skywalker in this book was also well done because it wasn’t overdone. It seems difficult for authors to use Skywalker without having him become the focus of the story but Wells was able to do so. A pre-Jedi Luke falls for one of the oldest tricks in the book showing the naive farmboy he was during that time but it was nice to see that she didn’t undervalue Luke’s ability since he basically had himself freed but Wells still allowed Leia to ride to the rescue and save Skywalker from being handed over to the Empire.

I really only have one complaint and this complaint probably was my own doing. So I was under the impression that this book was going to give me strong female characters and focus on Leia. Ok the book delivered, except for one part and it was a pretty big turning point in the story. Perhaps if I hadn’t had some expectations going into this book I wouldn’t have been so bothered by it and it might have been unfair of me to put my expectations and hopes for the heroine on Razor’s Edge. Leia is competing in a death match meets the Star Wars version of Quidditch for the sake of the pirates’ entertainment and she thinks if she wins she’ll get what she came for. That’s the ‘deal’ at least. So Leia is on the verge of winning even against the cheating pirates’ droid. Somehow they magically fall through the net and as they’re falling Han Solo who has also somehow fallen through several tunnels comes from the opposite side of the station and bizarrely finds himself in a position to save Leia by ramming a flatbed repulsor into the droid. There was no reason for Han to have done this. This was a perfect place to have Leia be the winner all on her own and it really made me angry to see this in the book that was supposed to showcase Leia. This scene was set up to deliver what I’ve been looking for in a female character’s part of the story and Wells fumbles the ball by having Han end up stumbling through a convoluted way and ending up saving Leia.

The only other minor complaints I have is that Wells turns Han into a horny teenager at one point. I understand what she was getting at with the scene and she was trying to recreate some of that sexual tension we see between the two but the writing was off here and it became kind of creepy and awkward instead of Ford’s suave devil-may-care portrayal of Solo.

If you enjoy Star Wars EU during this time period or you enjoy Leia Organa as a character I would highly recommend this book. Pay attention to the details and enjoy a well written Leia.

(Thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey for providing Eleven-ThirtyEight with advance digital copies of this book)

The Expanded Universe Explains, Vol. II

Posted on September 23, 2013by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

Last week, I began this series to answer some of the burning Star Wars questions my casual-fan friends were always asking me—if you missed it, click here to find out how lightsabers were invented, whether there are other galaxies outside of the main one, and how exactly Emperor Palpatine fell to the Dark Side. This entry finishes off my first batch of questions, but readers are encouraged to pose their own questions in the comments section below (or via e-mail) for use in further volumes.

Now with that out of the way, on to Volume II…

 

 

4. What is the origin of the Millennium Falcon?

Well, first, it should be pointed out that the Falcon, officially a Corellian Engineering Corporation YT-1300 light freighter, is the “windowless white van” of the Star Wars universe. It looks so cool to us in real life that it’s easy to overlook the fact that even farmboy yokel Luke Skywalker calls it a “piece of junk” at first glance. As Han is quick to point out, what sets it apart is a number of “special modifications”—though even Han can’t take credit for all of them.

The YT series was notable in the first place for being an extremely modular and reconfigurable freighter series, which allowed for lots of cosmetic variations from model to model (like this and this) without having to redesign the thing from the ground up. It also meant that a pilot who knew his stuff had a great deal of leeway to alter basic systems—shielding, weaponry, hyperdrive—based on his priorities. For the computer nerds among us, the way I always explain my love of PCs to people is that Macs are the Enterprise (easy to use, ready right out of the box), and PCs are the Falcon (temperamental, but extraordinarily customizable).

Anyway, the YT-1300 model was introduced in 72 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin), and the Falcon was built in 60 BBY—in other words, almost thirty years before The Phantom Menace. Having been subject to a malfunction on the assembly line that contributed to the engines’ touchy nature, it was indeed a temperamental ship right from the get-go, and ironically, that probably had a lot to do with its superior performance by the time Han got a hold of it—it was known for breaking down at inopportune moments and stranding its pilots, forcing frequent replacements and upgrades just to stay operational.

After twelve years in service as a regular ol’ freighter, the Falcon finally ended up in the world of smuggling after Corell Industries Limited declared bankruptcy in 48 BBY. This only hastened its evolution into a lean, mean fighting machine, and eventually it was purchased—and operated as the Stellar Envoy—by the Republic Group, which was basically a clandestine but not-exactly-illegal group of Republic loyalists (including Jedi and Senators) hoping to restore the then-foundering Republic to its glory days. Like the Tea Party, but with an actual point. The Clone Wars erupted not too long afterward, so obviously things didn’t quite work out for them, either.

It was Republic Group business, by the way, that led to the Falcon being present on Coruscant during the abduction of Chancellor Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith, and the ship can actually be seen in the movie shortly after Anakin and Obi-Wan’s crash landing.

Eventually the Envoy got into a pretty bad accident and was sold as scrap to an idiosyncratic engineer, who largely rebuilt it and ultimately put it back to work in illegal activities (and at one point, as the home base for a travelling circus). Things continued like this until Lando won the ship in 5 BBY, by which point it’d been named the Millennium Falcon, in honor of its speed and longevity. Lando then made the mistake of asking his friend Han Solo to teach him how to fly it, at which point Han promptly fell in love with the old girl. Lando had a couple solid years of adventures in the ship alongside his copilot Vuffi Raa, one of the best EU characters ever, before ultimately losing it to Han the same way he’d won it—in a game of sabacc.

Further reading: Millennium Falcon, The Millennium Falcon Owner’s Workshop Manual

5. Are there Jedi doing other things with the Force? Agriculture? Medicine?

Short answer: yes, yes, and yes.

It should go without saying, of course, that even regular Jedi are adept at Force healing, especially in combat situations—and lots of material has been written about Jedi healing practices during the Clone Wars and later in Luke’s new Jedi Order.

But hey, funny story—did you know that in the time of the Prequels, there are actually four Jedi Councils? That’s right—what did you think those other towers were for?

So in addition to the High Council that we see a hundred times, there’s also the Council of First Knowledge (youngling wranglers), the Council of Reconciliation (saying “nice gundark” until they can find a rock), and the Council of Reassignment.

The Council of Reassignment’s job was to, well, the name says it all. They oversaw the four branches of the Jedi Service Corps—Agricultural, Medical, Educational, and Exploration. When up-and-coming Jedi students proved to not have the temperament, or raw Force potential, for the standard Knight lifestyle, the Council would place them where what talents they did possess could still be put to use in service of the Republic, while allowing them to sleep in once in a while. This system led to the Service Corps being seen by many as a polite way of flunking out, but in truth a lot of younglings (and even older Jedi who lost their taste for the big-ticket work) elected to join the Service Corps as a way to more directly serve the common folk of the galaxy. At least until that whole Empire thing…they didn’t take well to that.

Further reading: The Jedi Path, the Jedi Apprentice series

6. Are some species unable to be Force-sensitive? What species is best at it?

This is a tricky topic, as some species very much seem abnormally suited to Force use purely because they’re species that authors feel like making Jedi—Yoda’s species being the prime example. You can count the number of characters of Yoda’s species on your fingers, and sure enough, they’re all Jedi—and mostly important, powerful ones at that. But given how few we’re talking about, it’s hard to take that as definitive evidence that the species itself is unusually Force-inclined; though their longevity could certainly factor into that.

Moving on, another thing that’s come up now and then is the evolutionary benefit of Force-sensitivity—a population composed solely of Jedi will not necessarily produce only Force-sensitive children, but over time, in particularly harsh conditions, sensitives can indeed become more common through natural selection regardless of a species’ normal rate of sensitivity. Mace Windu, notably, is from the human population of a jungle planet called Haruun Kal—which was originally settled by Jedi and did indeed evolve such that the entire human population is Force-sensitive. This seems to be the exception, though; not the rule.

One species, the Miraluka, is so Force-sensitive that they don’t even have eyes; they “see” only what the Force shows them. Gotals (like the goat guy in the Mos Eisley cantina) have limited ESP through their horns that is understood to involve the Force, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they can be Jedi. The nonsentient wolf-like vornskr species actually evolved to hunt with the Force, which led to their natural prey, the ysalamiri, evolving the ability to repel the Force away from them like a little bubble—something that became a huge MacGuffin in New Republic-era EU stories.

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s the Khommites, who decided long ago that their species had reached its ideal evolutionary state and then proceeded to ban natural reproduction in favor of perpetually cloning everyone in existence so that they could continue their historic role in society indefinitely. That worked out okay until Dorsk 81, the first Force-sensitive Khommite ever…or at least in 81 generations.

Last but not least are the Yuuzhan Vong, detailed further in Volume I, who originally existed in a state of Force-sensitive symbiosis with Yuuzhan’tar, their homeworld. When their warring ways led to the death of Yuuzhan’tar’s Gaia-like living consciousness, the species lost its Force connection entirely, and remained that way for so long that upon encountering Jedi they had utterly no frame of reference for what they were seeing.

Further reading: Shatterpoint, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Heir to the Empire, the New Jedi Order series

The Tragedy of Count Dooku

Posted on September 19, 2013by Cry Havac
Count Dooku, played by Sir Christopher Lee

Inspired by my friend Barriss_Coffee’s lament of his treatment, I recently realized that Count Dooku is among the major film characters most mishandled by the Expanded Universe. Unfortunately, in this it only follows the example of the films. Yet it is not hard to imagine an excellent use of Dooku’s tremendous potential. A few books and comics have done so, but all too much of the prequel EU has done Dooku a serious disservice by treating him one-dimensionally and neglecting him as a character.

Conceptually, Dooku is a great character. Played by the iconic Sir Christopher Lee, he is a former Jedi Master of great power and prestige who left the Jedi Order, disgusted with its ineffectuality and subservience to the corrupt Republic, after the death of his maverick apprentice Qui-Gon Jinn. He fell into the orbit of Darth Sidious, who convinced the prideful Jedi that the key to reforming the galaxy was in Sith authoritarianism and turned him to the dark side. Dooku then spent ten years plotting with Sidious to bring about the rise of the Sith. He made use of his image as a disaffected Jedi Master to pose as an idealistic reformer who led a secessionist movement and created the Confederacy of Independent Systems, which he then led in a puppet war designed to bring about the rise of a Sith-controlled Empire.

There’s a lot of meat in that character concept. A respected Jedi Master who leaves the Order for essentially sound reasons but is corrupted through pride into a devious Sith Lord, only to pose for the public as a principled firebrand throughout a political crisis to dupe the genuinely ineffective into a phony war? That’s a layered character, one perfectly suited to the dark charm and gravitas of Christopher Lee.

Yet the prequels themselves did the character few favors. Due to Lucas’s unfortunately on-the-fly writing habits during the prequels, he wasn’t set up by The Phantom Menace. In Attack of the Clones, Dooku was barely introduced. He was mentioned in early exposition, then ignored for the rest of the movie, until he turned up on Geonosis near the end. The scene in which Dooku told Obi-Wan of the Republic’s corruption and Darth Sidious’s role offered a tantalizing question of his motivations, but that mystery was never really explored. From holding Obi-Wan prisoner to attempting to execute the heroes to whipping out a red lightsaber and Force lightning for their duel, there was never any real question that Dooku was a villain, robbing his reveal as Sidious’s apprentice Darth Tyranus of any punch at the end of the film. Dooku’s treatment was perfunctory; rather than build him up or hold him as a presence over the film, or play on the question of his agenda, the film ignored him and his Separatist crisis while it focused on Kamino and romance, then gave Lee only a handful of scenes near the end to set up the battle, then duel the heroes. Compare Dooku’s facetime (or even add on his presence in exposition) to that of any other Star Wars villain, and you’ll realize just how much he was ignored by his own film. Not only wasn’t his potential fully tapped; he wasn’t even used outside the third act.

He was treated even more poorly in Revenge of the Sith. Having been awkwardly dropped into the end of the previous film, he was summarily dismissed in the opening sequence of Revenge. He walked into a room, dueled the heroes, and died, so that the role of main Separatist villain could be taken over by General Grievous. The character who was supposed to be a pivotal figure in the Clone Wars, a character of great potential played by an iconic actor, was hustled in and out of the films with little attention paid to his narrative role and no sense of respect for his potential.

Dooku greeted as as a liberator on Tibrin — an understanding of his public image we don’t see enough

The Expanded Universe, theoretically, is the place to remedy this sort of inattention, expanding the characters beyond their limited screentime. This was especially the case for Dooku, given that the films left the Clone Wars, Dooku’s heyday as a major character, to the EU to tell. Yet the EU has largely failed to run with the ball. His backstory has been relatively little touched; the fandom is still waiting for a real exploration of his time as a Jedi, his decision to leave, and his fall to the Sith.

Yet even more frustratingly, the complex and intriguing character promised by his character outline has largely failed to manifest in the Clone Wars EU. In part, this is symptomatic of the shallow handling of the Separatists in general, as my colleague Jay has pointed out. But it is not entirely a result of that issue; it also stems from a seeming lack of interest in using Dooku himself, rather than using his underlings as lead villains. In the television series, which could have done the most to develop and exploit the character, Dooku was largely limited to appearing as a traditional, generic evil overlord who chewed out his minions and cackled evilly. In most of the Clone Wars works, he appeared only briefly, sending off some lackey to battle the heroes. Supposedly a major film villain, he seems lucky to get any serious attention as a character at all.

Frustratingly, very little has been done to honor Dooku’s public role as an honorable reformist, or explore the complexity of his character. During the Clone Wars, he has mostly been portrayed as a generic evil overlord with minimal story involvement. Before the Clone Wars, he has been reduced to essentially a handful of cameos. The potential of this multilayered character, the tragic arc of the flawed crusader turned deceitful, devious tyrant, has been mostly untapped.

Fortunately, it has not been entirely untapped. John Ostrander has proven one of the few authors working on the initial Clone Wars run to truly get the character of Dooku and put him on the page. His run on the Republic comic series showed Dooku as a charismatic, sophisticated deceiver, malevolent in private but benevolent in public, who seemed to genuinely believe he would make the galaxy better through the power of the dark side but was unhesitating in plunging into secret wickedness.

Jedi: Count Dooku presented Dooku as cunning and manipulative: “In your hands, even mercy can become a weapon!”

Ostrander’s Dooku was especially well-done in Jedi: Dooku, which began with Dooku capturing a ship with several Jedi aboard, among them one who has had her doubts over the Republic’s rightness in the past. By claiming that his prior actions were misunderstood, proclaiming brotherhood with the Jedi, and letting the captured Jedi go, Dooku played to his political-idealist public image while sowing seeds of doubt within the Jedi Order about their leaders’ truthfulness, Dooku’s nature, and the rightness of their cause. Dooku later went to Tibrin, where he defeated its pro-Republic leader, executed the unpopular tyrant and had his head displayed rather than accept his offer to join the CIS, ordered the entire inner circle of the government slaughtered, and emerged before cheering crowds as the planet’s savior. Ice-cold, crafty, and bloody-handed in private; a benevolent liberator in public, conscious of his principled, wise public image and using it as a weapon. At the end of the comic, Dooku revealed that he knew all along that Quinlan Vos, the Jedi agent posing as a convert to infiltrate his inner circle of darksiders, was actually a double agent. He had been pushing Vos toward a genuine fall, and using a combination of exhortation about the genuine grievances of the Separatist cause, seductive invocation of the power of the dark side as a force for change, and emotional manipulation of Vos’s past and the secrets of his family, he managed to push Vos into murdering a relative in anger.

This version of Dooku brought out all the qualities Dooku ought to have. He was a sophisticated, icy chessmaster, a devil who could almost casually corrupt men’s souls, but also capable of playing the charismatic firebrand, the grandfatherly and regretful reformist, with consummate ease. Ostrander honored the complexity of Dooku’s character rather than reducing him to a one-dimensional cackling supervillain.

Yoda: Dark Rendezvous treated Dooku as the multilayered, fascinating character he is

The other major triumph in Dooku characterization was Yoda: Dark Rendezvous. Sean Stewart’s plot was premised on the idea that Dooku attempted to lure Yoda into a trap with a message of regret for falling to the dark side and starting the Clone Wars, asking to broker a truce and return to the Jedi. Yoda pursued the meeting, even knowing it was a trap, because he believed that Dooku, consciously or not, actually did wish to be redeemed and escape the grip of his Sith Master.

Dark Rendezvous thus focused on Dooku’s multiple layers as a fallen Jedi through his relationship with Yoda. A prideful and ambitious, but talented and idealistic youth, he forged a bond with Yoda; after his fall to the dark side, Yoda appealed through that bond to convince Dooku of the truth: that the dark side was in irretrievable conflict with the principles that had led him away from the Jedi and ultimately to the Sith. Dooku appeared to be on the brink of expressing his suppressed remorse and returning to the light side, until Anakin and Obi-Wan arrived — plunging Dooku back into wrath and pride at the intrusion of a pair of Jedi he envied and resented. Stewart thus explored Dooku’s psychological complexity and history by addressing the inherent contradiction of seeking good ends through evil means and the character flaws that made Dooku ripe for evil.

These were not the only times the Expanded Universe did Dooku justice, but they were the best at using Dooku’s multilayered potential. They stand in contrast to so many works that have used him superficially and failed to honor his depth as a character. If only The Clone Wars had taken a hint from these works, the series might have delivered a rich, menacing, and complex villain. If other prequel works would put him front-and-center instead of treating him as dismissively as the films, they might find a great character around whom a lot of drama can be built.

Vergere: An Ultra-Traditionalist Jedi, A Radical Daoist

Posted on September 18, 2013by This Belongs in a Museum

A version of this essay was originally submitted as a midterm paper for Religions of China and Japan at West Virginia University, by yours truly.

traitorMy understanding of Daoism is based upon, of all things, the Star Wars mythos. In particular, I can cite the New Jedi Order novel Traitor as being the key to my understanding of Daoist teachings; the author has a much more thorough grasp of the Force’s philosophical roots than George Lucas himself could ever dream of. The novel follows Jacen Solo’s journey of self-discovery while in captivity. For those who have not read the New Jedi Order, Jacen Solo is the oldest son of Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo, and twin brother to Jaina Solo. For those readers who haven’t read the New Jedi Order (and are likely unaware of the fan debates surrounding it), In the novel Traitor, Jacen Solo is held captive by the invading Yuuzhan Vong in the aftermath of the Jedi Strike Team’s assault on a Vong bioweapon facility, and the resulting death of Anakin Solo. Jacen is taught by the enigmatic Jedi known as Vergere, an unorthodox figure who has since been smeared as a “Sith”. But the epithet “Sith” cannot be further from the truth of Vergere—who herself does not exactly consider the spoken word, the name, or indeed language itself, to contain more than a glimmer of the truth. Like a good Daoist, Vergere recognizes that any truth which can simply be described, quantified, or categorized by words isn’t really a truth at all. Rather than being a product of Sith teachings, Jacen’s revelations teach him to love the universe for all of its faults, find his inner strengths, and use these to further the cause of “Tian”—the process of heaven on earth.

Describing knowledge is antithetical to Daoist beliefs, for knowledge itself is in a constant state of change. To describe a truth is to imply certain static qualities concerning such truth, which runs fundamentally against the concept of “anicca”- impermanence. One cannot find the truth of the Dao in these illusory teachings, because truth itself is not permanent. In the words of the Jedi Vergere, “Everything I tell you is a lie. Every question I ask is a trick. You will find no truth in me.” In Daoism, there IS no truth that a teacher can simply impart to a student. ANYTHING that a teacher simply “teaches” to a student is a lie. The truth of the Dao is beyond any words that society has created to describe it. This VERY ESSAY will inevitably fall short of the truth of the Dao, because to write this essay, I must utilize words—words with a static, incomplete meaning, which obscures the truth behind them. Read More

The Expanded Universe Explains, Vol. I

Posted on September 16, 2013by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

archaiclightsaberWhen I’m explaining this site to people, one of the most important points I have to make is that the tone is intended as Expanded Universe-conversant, without being totally mired in thirty years of miscellaneous continuity. A lot of people still speak in hushed tones of the great Canon Wars, wherein the “everything counts” people waged a holy crusade against the “only the films count” people that rivaled the Galactic Civil War itself, but in my experience, for every Star Wars fan I know who’s actively opposed to the EU, there are five to ten who are at least dimly aware of it, and consider it more or less a valid enterprise; it just isn’t their thing.

Now that the sequels are coming and Lucasfilm is making noise about using at least assorted bits and pieces of the EU in their big-screen storytelling, I want Eleven-ThirtyEight to be as much of a resource for those people as it is for hardcore EU fans—somewhere they can go to get a sense of context as the Sequel Trilogy unfolds without needing an encyclopedic knowledge to gain entry.

If I’m honest, we haven’t quite gotten to that point yet; there’s so little known about Episode VII right now that there’s not much to be said about it beyond “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if they took this or that from the books”. So in the interest of reaching out to those casual fans out there, who have heard of Grand Admiral Thrawn and maybe even read Dark Lord or Shadows of the Empire but otherwise haven’t been paying that much attention, I reached out to Pearlann Porter, a good friend of my own who’s every bit the SW fan I am, but doesn’t know a Houk from a Hoojib, and asked her to provide me with any burning questions she might have about things the films never explained. So without further ado, I give you Volume I of The Expanded Universe Explains. Read More