Tabula Rasa: On Adaptation and the Solo Kids

Posted on July 22, 2015by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

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DISCLAIMER: while this post will be discussing major potential plot points in The Force Awakens, I have seen no real spoilers regarding the topic in question and what follows is purely speculative—and will remain equally valid even if the details don’t hold up.

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In a roundtable interview at BookCon last May, Adam Gidwitz, author of the forthcoming young-adult adaptation The Empire Strikes Back: So You Want to Be a Jedi? addressed how his fairy tale-heavy background applied to writing a Star Wars book as follows:

“The main character of every fairy tale is an empty character. They don’t have a lot of personality traits. You know, Cinderella—we know almost nothing about her. And there’s a purpose for that. The purpose is that children can put themselves into [her] shoes…and you can follow in her footsteps. So, Luke, I think, is an empty character. He’s not like Han, with a sharply-defined personality, he’s not like Leia, who’s a real powerful woman. He’s brave, and he’s kind…that’s about it.”

This insight, Gidwitz explained, is what led to his decision to write the book as if the reader themselves is Luke Skywalker—an almost literal insertion of the audience into the story. Naturally, those of us who have been steeped in the Expanded Universe for the last twenty years could cite all sorts of personality details that snuck in at the edges of Luke’s character over the years, but the fact remains that he was conceived as an audience-identification character—and the value of that as the original trilogy unfolds is that his lessons become our lessons. Read More

On the Aftermath of the Aftermath Excerpt

Posted on July 20, 2015by Obiwomble's Outlook

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Late last week, an excerpt from the upcoming Star Wars: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig was released. To say it proved divisive amongst fans would be an understatement, but disliking a particular writing style is hardly a big deal, no? If only it had stayed at that. No, some of those who greatly disliked it felt a need to add a qualifier to their criticism, that clearly the book was written for a younger and dumber audience, demonstrated by its short sentences and use of present tense. To these people, the excerpt was proof that their beloved Star Wars was being hijacked by short-attention-spanned Twitter addicts.

I would not begrudge anyone the right to dislike something on personal aesthetic preference. How a story does and does not appeal to an individual is going to be a highly subjective matter, that’s fine. What is not is slagging off a entire generation in a bid to give your personal criticism a perceived sense of greater legitimacy.

What set off this particular firestorm? Based on the excerpt, Wendig has opted for a quick, staccato rhythm to his prose which places the reader in the heads of the character as they respond to the situation at hand. It gives the reader an immediate sense of time and place, but with a corresponding level of chaos and incomprehension. In this respect, for me, the prologue set on Imperial Plaza in Coruscant was the more effective sequence. The rest of the excerpt is concerned with Wedge Antilles basically getting into deep shit with a couple of Star Destroyers. Yes, those are not good odds for anyone, Corellian or not. Read More

The Void: Exploring the Galactic Unknown

Posted on July 17, 2015by

Space is huge. It’s quite a bit larger than we are able to think about, and the concept of a light-year is truly incredible. How far can one travel in one year? Not even halfway to the next star over. But what about universes where faster-than-light travel is normal, where one can go across the galaxy for dinner if one’s hyperdrive is fast enoughCorellia_Antilles_Atlas, but there are still places too remote to easily access? There’s a fine balance in science fiction of allowing technology to be advanced enough to travel through space, while maintaining a sense of exploration and wonder. Star Wars accomplishes this feeling well, just by looking at a map of the galaxy.

Everyone knows where you start in the galaxy. The Core Worlds are the first settled, easiest to find and get to, and probably have most of the galaxy’s population. Beyond that, the Colonies, Inner Rim, Expansion Region, and Mid Rim show different stages of galactic settlement and exploration. As you get further away from the Core, there are fewer named planets and hyperspace routes. By the time you get to the Outer Rim, named worlds and known routes are few and far between. Within the Outer Rim, we see Wild Space and the Unknown Regions, areas that show you have truly left the civilized and mapped galaxy. The very description of a corner of the galaxy as the “Unknown Regions” is more than just flavor text. It’s a very accurate description of a part of the galaxy that is functionally a mystery. Best of all, the name Wild Space, applied to the furthest corners of the galaxy, is so remote that there is just simply nothing there. It’s a huge galaxy.

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Imperial Justice – Cold Truth of Fascism

Posted on July 15, 2015by Imperial Court Circular

Servants_of_the_Empire_Imperial_Justice[1]In what’s becoming a regular feature on this site, we’re publishing yet another rave review of a Jason Fry novel. It’s not our fault – Jason has a tendency to release high-quality novels at an impressive pace, so blame him for the lack of variety. Although that’s pretty unfair, because the best thing about Jason’s novels is that each of them are good for different reasons and allow us to focus on different aspects of the Star Wars universe. His original books have plenty to discuss, while his two Servants of the Empire books highlight the very compelling awakening of political consciousness and the dynamics of teamwork and personal perspective. Rebel in the Ranks developed the plot threads of Edge of the Galaxy, but Imperial Justice is where the early investments in character and setting really pay off. The events of the book are more meaningful because of what we know about Zare, Merei, and the other characters that populate Lothal.

This book was released at the perfect time, as we were looking to write a series of articles on the theme of morality among heroes and villains in the new canon (how the Imperials and Rebels have been portrayed in the new canon and how they should be portrayed, what worked and what hasn’t). In 2013, we wrote a series of pieces on Politics and the Expanded Universe showing where the now-Legends EU had succeeded and where it had failed in convincingly portraying the good guy and bad guy factions in Star Wars. A similar piece about how the sexism of the Galactic Empire never made in-universe sense also reflected on the nature of villainy in Star Wars, and how an effective villain was not merely a series of evil checkboxes but reflected something that the heroes would actively fight against and challenge.

Imperial Justice showcases villainy, but in a more compelling and active way. Instead of providing a menace or a threat that the heroes must react to, the influence of the Empire is pervasive throughout the course of the novel. To be certain, the Empire takes a hard tack from the benign neglect / colonialist exploitation of the first novel towards police state tactics in Imperial Justice. It’s not the suppression of liberty or the paranoid, informant-centric mindset that best highlights Imperial evil though: it’s what the influence of the Empire’s darkness does to the heroes that really shows the danger of fascism. Evil is not just tyrannical, and it is not merely seductive. Evil corrupts peoples and societies, including those who are out to fight evil. It’s not a coincidence that our long-standing favorite novel of the new canon, A New Dawn, both established the pre-ANH era and set the thematic tone for the rising corruption of evil and the heroism that is spawned in response to it. Jason Fry takes up that thread and runs with it. In showing this thoughtful and nuanced take on evil, his Imperial Justice justifiably claim to be the most thematically impressive – and best overall – novel of the new canon to date.

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Portrait of a Wookieepedian

Posted on July 13, 2015by

brandonrheaAs I explained in the intro to my last Better Know a Fan interview, sometimes I get to know people online who defy even my hardest-earned assumptions and expectations. While I’m an outspoken contrarian by nature, I’m occasionally even a contrarian against myself, and when I meet someone who brings a very different background and point of view to their Star Wars fandom, but who nonetheless earns my respect, I like to use ETE as a venue to show that I don’t think everyone I disagree with is a bad fan—often they’re just as deserving of a little attention as anyone else.

This time around, I spoke at considerable length with Brandon Rhea, outspoken fan of the open-source encyclopedia format both in an official capacity as an employee of Wikia and unofficially as a regular contributor to Wookieepedia. I’ve had my own mixed feelings about the wook over the years—and we get into that a good bit—but in his recent guest piece, Brandon made a fair case for its continued existence, and for himself as a friendly and level-headed guy who’s always willing to listen, even when the first thing he hears from you is “it’s time to start over“. Read More