Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens Novelization Review

Some unexpected things have happened with my readings habits throughout the years but one thing I never would have predicted is that I enjoy reading novelizations of movies I like to watch. It started because of Star Wars mostly and while I haven’t read tons of novelizations since I discovered I like reading those kinds of books, it’s a trend that will likely continue for many years. Recently, a little movie came out continuing the story began so many years ago with the release of Star Wars in 1977. That movie is Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens and it’s pretty good. It’s not a masterpiece, but I don’t think anybody was realistically expecting one. Generally speaking, we wanted a good movie and we got a good movie. We also got a good novelization courtesy of the Grand Master of novelizations Alan Dean Foster.

Though it didn’t really surprise me, The Force Awakens book was pretty darn close to the movie experience and so my reaction was essentially the same. This is not the best novelization I’ve read but it’s still good. In some ways, I like it more than the movie. In some other ways, I don’t. This mostly has to do with the fact that when I read the book I lose the good elements from the movie such as the actors’ portrayals of their characters and the movie’s visuals. I’m well aware that I’m not saying anything revelatory here. It kind of comes with the territory of novelizations. However, if I’m comparing this to my experience reading other Star Wars novelizations, this one falls a little short. That’s because the original trilogy’s visuals and the actors performances are engraved in my mind’s eye. My multiple viewings of the original trilogy actually supported and improved my reading of their respective novelizations. That is not the case with The Force Awakens. I’ve seen it once and while the viewing was fresh it my mind when I read this book, I simply don’t have the same familiarity with it that I did with those other movies.

Star Wars: The Last Command Review (Unread 034)

Cover art by Tom Jung.

While the world is filled with excitement and initial positive responses to the latest Star Wars film’s release, I’m alone in my little corner finishing off the excellent trilogy of novels by Timothy Zahn. The Thrawn Trilogy has been a pleasant surprised from start to finish. I had quite a few reservations when I started to read the first volume in this series. The first Expanded Universe novel I read was Choices of One, a book focusing on Mara Jade during the time of the original film trilogy and written by Zahn. To be quick about it, I didn’t like it. I didn’t really know who Mara Jade was and worst of all Zahn didn’t make me care. The book had a more militaristic feel than the Star Wars films and I felt that was a bit of an odd fit despite there being a constant presence of the Empire and its military forces in the movies.

Because of this and other smaller details, I didn’t have much in terms of expectations when deciding to read The Thrawn Trilogy. The expectations I did have were mostly of reluctance and hope. You see, the fans are very vocal online about their love of this trilogy which arguably created the Expanded Universe (which sadly met its demise earlier this year). Zahn is often hailed as the best author in the entire EU and people support their statement with this series of books. Could it really be that good? What makes these books better than the rest? What makes these books better than Choices of One?

Star Wars: Smuggler’s Run: A Han Solo & Chewbacca Adventure Review

In the last year there has been an understandable increase in the amount of reviews and articles about the Star Wars franchise. The excitement for the new film is resulting in a huge amount of speculation as to what the future of the franchise will look like as well as guessing and plenty of fan theories to make even the most imaginative fans giddy. There has also been plenty of attention given to the rapidly developing New Canon which is in the process of replacing the beloved Expanded Universe of Star Wars tie-in fiction. Personally, I haven’t taken part in the speculation because I find it brings little value to the overall appreciation of the franchise. More importantly, it doesn’t give me any satisfaction. Instead, I’ve been investing my time in enjoying the comics and novels of the EU and dipping my toes in the New Canon. So far I’ve read three volumes of Star Wars comic, which are once again being published by Marvel following Dark Horse’s loss of the licence. I’ve just read my first New Canon novel. Appropriately, it’s written by Greg Rucka with illustrations by Phil Noto, both of which have had a noteworthy career in the comics field. That’s the main reason I chose to start with this book and it also happens to be short which was quite convenient.

Set right after A New Hope, Smuggler’s Run centers on Han Solo and Chewbacca. Now that they’ve received payment for helping the Rebellion during their attack on the Death Star, Han plans on going back to Tatooine to pay off Jabba the Hutt. He’s tired of living in fear of the price on his head and who could blame him? Leia, on the other hand, has different plans for Han. He’s proved his usefulness to the Alliance and she’s not ready to let this new ally go.

Star Wars Omnibus: Clone Wars Volume 1: The Republic Goes to War Review (Unread 033)

I’ve written before about Dark Horse’s Star Wars comic omnibus collections. They’re pretty great. They’re designed to collect novel length stories and smaller stories that otherwise wouldn’t be collected anywhere else. I really like them because they’re huge and quite affordable. This volume is over 400 pages long. For the most part, these omnibus volumes include numerous issues all tied to a theme or a series or a time period. This one, obviously, is set during the Clone Wars. Particularly the beginning of the Clone Wars shortly after the events of Attack of the Clones.

A very large number of issues are included in this volume. Unfortunately, I will not list all of the creators involved because I’m lazy. However I’m pleased to announced that Dark Horse meticulously listed all creators at the beginning of each story. For this collection that meant almost every new issue. Most of the comics in this volume are short stories of approximately two issues in length (all the Jedi one-shots are double sized issues). Here are the contents of Clone Wars: The Republic Goes to War:

Star Wars: Young Jedi Knights: Heirs of the Force Review (Unread 032)

In my anticipation for the latest Star Wars theatrical release, I’ve been exploring the Expanded Universe. This might seem a little odd to some people after Disney’s announcement that the EU is no longer canon, but that doesn’t matter to be one bit. I’ve read enough novels and comics that are part of the EU to know that it’s a pretty incredible fictional universe to explore. It can match, scene for scene, the enjoyment to be had from the Star Wars films and it often does that by exploring some pretty ludicrous ideas. It’s sometimes beautiful, scary, uplifting, exciting, funny, embarrassing, action packed, and it’s just about everything you could ever ask for from genre literature. I believe that whatever descriptive word you can think of it can be applied to stories set in the EU. It’s a large, inexplicably complicated, occasionally messy shared universe continuation (and, uh further prequelization) of the Star Wars films.

It’s much more than just tie-in media. These novels and comics aren’t just a collection of one-off stories that don’t really matter. They’re not stories that occur between the stories we already know from the movies (though they are that, too). The Expanded Universe is really well named because it does what the title suggests. It expands everything you know about Star Wars and in just about every direction possible. This brings us to Heirs of the Force.

Star Wars: Dark Force Rising Review (Unread 031)

Cover art by Tom Jung.

It’s been a few months since I read Heir to the Empire the first volume of The Thrawn Trilogy. Not sure how I lost track of the series but the constant commentary on the upcoming seventh instalment of the Star Wars film saga has brought my attention back to one of my favourite franchises. It just made sense to finish reading this series before moving on to other novels in the Expanded Universe. This series is so important to the entire EU and introduces a lot of elements to the Bantam era Star Wars novels. Unlike the first book, I knew what to expect this time around and I think I enjoyed this volume more because of it. Once again written by Timohty Zahn, Dark Force Rising is a direct continuation of the events depicted in Heir to the Empire. As such, there are a lot of similarities between both books, but the second volume tops the first in execution, character development, and plot.

The plot might seem a little light at first glance, but a lot of what goes on is nicely matched up with character development so it’s a little deceptive. The political instability that plagued the New Republic regime in Heir to the Empire further develops. Bothan councillor Borsk Fey’lya continues to garner more support to his cause and it’s dividing the New Republic’s military strength. This is leaving them vulnerable to Grand Admiral Thrawn’s fleet. Han and Lando are sent on a mission to gain more supporters and in doing so they pick up the trail that might lead them to the secret location of the Katana Fleet, a large fleet of 200 Dreadnought-class vessels that date from the Clone Wars. Thrawn also picks up the trail and begins looking for the lost fleet as well. Meanwhile, Luke searches for Joruus C’baoth, an old Jedi Master, in the hopes of continuing his training in the Force. Leia travels to the Noghri homeworld to fulfill a promise she made in the previous book. Here she’ll continue her work to bring more support to the New Republic.

Star Wars: Heir to the Empire review (Unread 007)

Here it is; the big one. The grand-daddy of all Star Wars Expanded Universe novels: The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn. It took me two years of exploring the EU to finally come around to reading Star Wars: Heir to the Empire. To be honest, this is probably where I should have started exploring the EU but for reasons that can be summarized by the simple fact that I had other EU books in my hands before I ever bought a copy of Heir to the Empire, I only got around to reading it two months ago. I’m glad I did because the book holds up as an entertaining follow-up to the original trilogy, despite the praise it’s usually given by fans of the franchise. I was honestly worried this book would be overhyped.

For those who have not heard of this book and its sequels, The Thrawn Trilogy is arguably the most important Star Wars novels as they’re regularly credited with first developing and popularizing the foundations of what became known as the Expanded Universe. All of the Star Wars novels of the 1990s owe a debt to Zahn and his trilogy. To try and put this accomplishment in perspective, Zahn gives the franchise an identity post Episode VI, creates some of the most popular and best developed characters of the EU, successfully writes about Luke, Leia, Han, and other characters from the film by being true to their onscreen counterparts but also providing them with a new identity. He does all of this while also telling an interesting story that mixes old and new tricks resulting in a thrilling first volume of a trilogy. What gives this book such a lasting impression is that it was used as the foundation on which all of the other Bantam Spectra era novels are built upon. It forms the backbone of this publication period of Star Wars novels. Some even credit this trilogy with renewing George Lucas’ interesting in creating the prequel trilogy. It’s uncontested truth that The Thrawn Trilogy has had a lasting impact on the franchise and is at the very least partially responsible for the continued success and popularity of Star Wars today.

The Truce at Bakura review

At the time of The Phantom Menace's release, many complained that the movie was no good because it used politic issues as a main plot point in what is obviously an action-oriented franchise. Some even went as far as to say that politics don’t have their place in Star Wars. Those fans are idiots for saying so but they’re not entirely wrong. They’re idiots because politics has been a part of Star Wars for several years before the release of the first movie in the prequel trilogy. Many of the novels and comics in the Expanded Universe integrate politics in some fashion. Indeed, the charm of the Expanded Universe is that the Star Wars galaxy is so large it can be the home to several different types of stories. One of my favourites is the unlikely genre mash-up that is Death Troopers. In short, there is something for everyone to enjoy in the Expanded Universe.

The fans where right in saying that the movie suffered because it used politics but that had as much to do as how the politics were used. Politics has been used effectively in all sorts of genre writing. An obvious example is the Star Trek franchise. A more current and obvious fantasy exampled would be George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series and Game of Thrones the HBO show based on the series. You could easily add many different series and novels to the list but my point here is that politics in itself cannot be blamed for a bad movie or book because of its inclusion in said movie or book. Cue The Truce at Bakura by Kathy Tyers. 

The novel begins just minutes after Return of the Jedi. It’s a great little idea especially when a couple chapters later the plot has moved on to a diplomatic mission to a planet on the edge of the Outer Rim which is rife with troubles and under potential attack from xenophobic aliens looking to enslave the Galaxy. Bakura is a planet under the rule of an imperial Governor, Wilek Nereus. When they find out about the imminent Ssi-ruuk attack, they contact the Empire for assistance but the message is intercepted by the Rebel Alliance. Knowing that Emperor Palpatine has just been defeated and that the Empire is likely going to be in disarray for a while, Leia, Han and Luke decide to go to Bakura to defend the planet and hopefully have them sign up with the Alliance when they realize who came to their help when they needed it most. That’s the Rebels for ya, nothing but a bunch of opportunists!

The book has three main problems. The first is that the Ssi-ruuk are boring villains and boring aliens, there is very little about them that is interesting. The second is that the characterization of the main trio is really off and the nice bit about Leia isn’t enough to make up for the rest of the poor decisions. The third and final problem is that Tyers doesn’t seem to know what kind of story she wants to write and by throwing everything in together she only ends up writing what I would quality as an uneven and poorly plotted book.

The Ssi-ruuks which threaten Bakura are some of the more uninteresting aliens in the Expanded Universe I’ve had the displeasure of reading. They’re not just boring, they’re actively annoying. They’re essentially space raptors (which is a terrible idea) that speak in a combination of whistles and clicks. They scour the Outer Rim for human prisoners which they “entech”, transferring their life energy into battery cells. Those battery cells are then used to power droid starfighters. It’s pretty evil. They’re essentially soul traffickers and it’s a pretty despicable trade. I like the idea of entechment as a story element but it’s never explored. I want to know if the souls are like energy, once they’re expensed do you need to acquire more souls in order to power the droid? Or is it different, does one soul power one starfighter indefinitely? They’re good ideas but they’re not really used, it’s just a way to setup conflict on Bakura which provides the writer with an excuse to send the movie cast on an adventure. The reason the Ssi-Ruuk don’t work is that the main Ssi-Ruuk characters are poorly written. They talk in clichés and their motivations are equally uninspired.

As much as I like the idea that The Truce at Bakura begins mere minutes after the end of Return of the Jedi, it unfortunately serves to point out one of the book’s flaws which is the poor characterization of Han and the Skywalker twins. Han is as his most uninteresting in this book. He doesn’t really do anything of note. He flies around in the Millennium Falcon at the beginning and towards the end but aside from piloting his famous ship, he serves no real purpose to the story. When he’s not flying, he’s arguing with Leia. Han and Leia’s relationship progressed nicely in Return of the Jedi but here it’s regressing simply to provide the reader with forced and uninteresting bitch fits between our favourite Star Wars couple.

Thankfully the other half of the power couple gets some interesting moments. It’s nice to see her put her skills as a diplomatic to good use. In the movies we mostly see her as a rebel strategist and running around blasting Stormtroopers.  Unfortunately, Leia’s diplomatic skills appear to have been left unused for too long a time. She’s very rusty. I think that’s more representative of Tyers’ inability to write a convincingly accurate portrayal of Galactic politics or believable senators. Leia continues to be regarded as a very good diplomat in my mind even though I’ve never really seen her skills in action. The other interesting element of Leia is that she actually gets to deal with the news that Darth Vader is her father. It’s the best thing about this book. Tyers could easily have skipped over it and, honestly, I likely would not have noticed it. It’s extremely important to Leia’s character that she acknowledges this fact and learns to deal with it. While Luke has been obsessing with Vader and the power of the Force for three entire movies, Leia has simply despised the man for what he represented within the order of the Empire as well as for his cruelty and the evil deeds he’s done.

Luke’s portrayal is alright but like Han’s, he seems to have regressed as a character. Gone is the Jedi who is confident in his ability in the use of the Force. Every time he says or thinks something of which Yoda wouldn’t approve, Luke has an immature thought which amounts to “Whoops, Yoda would disapprove. I shouldn’t think that.” It’s unnecessary for the readers and it makes Luke think like a petulant child which is something he used to be but isn’t any longer. He’s also immature in his search for an apprentice. So much has happened to him in the time before and during Return of the Jedi you think he’d take a breather for a couple days. Besides, he has several other more important things keeping him busy on Bakura (the diplomatic mission, protecting the planet from the Ssi-Ruuk and a Jedi-hating love interest) he’s obsessing over finding force-sensitive individuals to train in the ways of the Force. Why doesn’t he focus on his own training for a bit while searching? Why doesn’t he make it his primary focus and leave the Alliance for a while? Luke, you’re too busy to obsess over everything. Just take it easy for a little while.

The best thing about the book is the setup. I really liked the book for the first few chapters. I really liked the idea that it begins directly after the credits of the last film in the trilogy. It's a logical extension of the story which began in the movies. After they defeated the head of the Empire the Rebel Alliance is now trying to establish its credibility as an alternative governing body. They do so by providing aid to a planet under imperial rule because of the Empire's current inability to offer aid to said planet. Unfortunately, once the setup is over the book starts to go downhill pretty fast. The novel lacks focus, it doesn’t have a main story is a problem and all the other, separate elements are tacked on to each other in the hopes of making something cohesive. Is The Truce of Bakura an action adventure story or is it political drama? Theoretically, it could be both but in this particular case there isn’t enough that connects both stories to make for a compelling novel. The focus shifts from one to the other without any reason rather than have both stories feed each other and grow. It makes for an uneven read and probably the most disappointing Star Wars novel I’ve read yet.

                                                                                   

Star Wars Omnibus: The Complete Saga, part 2 review

Last week I started my review of Star Wars Omnibus: The Complete Saga published by Dark Horse comics. It includes the comic book adaptation of the first six Star Wars movies. The first part of the review focused on Episodes IV, V and VI. All three adaptations were originally published in single issue format by Marvel Comics a few decades ago. The actual stories included in this collection were reissues by Dark Horse to coincide with the release of the Star Wars: Special Edition DVDs. The second part of review will focus on the adaptations to the prequel trilogy.

Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Script: Henry Gilroy

Pencils: Rodolfo Damaggio

Inks: Al Williamson

Colours: Dave Nestelle

Colour Separation: Harold MacKinnon

Lettering: Steve Dutro

It’s been interesting to read the adaptations, mostly to experience how certain scenes from the movie are better suited to being adapted to comic form. Many scenes in The Phantom Menace are made up of people talking. As such, it’s rather simple to do a talking head comic. It’s a slower read than you would thing but there is a lot of dialogue in the movie and most of it is present in the comic. In comparison, most of the action sequences are cut short considerably. The pod racing scene takes place in just a handful of pages. Specifically, the entire race only takes up five pages! It’s not just the race though; all the action scenes are cut down to allow for all of the dialogue heavy scenes. It makes sense why the creative team decided to do so. Action takes more space to reproduce in comics than it would in a movie and while you could have rewritten all of the diplomatic and senatorial debates, it would have made for a less faithful adaptation and it’s a lot of work for little pay off. Yes, you’d then have more room for the action scenes but you wouldn’t be able to convey the same sense of spectacle and speed as the movie could. As such, the lightsaber duels, the battle on the plains of Naboo, the pod racing and the starfighter battle above Naboo all flounder and aren’t particularly interesting to read.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the things I don’t like about the movie I also don’t like in the comic. Things like how the Gungans, particularly Jar-Jar Binks who has more “panel time” than any of the other Gungans, are super annoying. In the films you hear how they talk like idiots even if you’re not paying attention to them but it’s an entirely different thing to see their dialogue written out and then reading it. It magnifies the stupidity of their speech tenfold.

Shut up and listen to Yoda ya little brat!

The art is serviceable. It does what it’s supposed to do but the characters all look stiff, possibly because the artist is using the film as photo reference. The actors rarely look like themselves but that’s fine. As much as I like the thought of reading a comic starring Liam Neeson, there is no real need to have the characters look exactly like the actors who portrayed them in the film. What’s more troublesome is that most of the male characters look alike and many characters have a piggish nose. It’s kind of distracting to see similar facial characteristics on so many characters. Still, Damaggio gets the job done and I can’t really fault him for that. It’s just disappointing that Artoo and some of the starships are better drawn than most of the human characters.

                                                                                        

Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Script: Henry Gilroy

Pencils: Jan Duursema

Inks: Ray Kryssing

Colours: Digital Chameleon, Dan Jackson, Chris Horn, Jason Hvam, Dave Nestelle, Dave McCaig

Lettering: Steve Dutro

The art by Jan Duursema, who’s done quite a bit of Star Wars work in comics, is better than the art for Episode I. It’s very dark though, she uses a lot of inks and sometimes it’s too much. I appreciate how she embellished her art and avoided trying to simply draw screen captures of the film. She also changes the composition or a few scenes, giving us a different camera view than what we’re used to seeing.

Henry Gilroy scripted the adaptation for The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones but they’re both rather different comics. I’m certain that a lot of the differences have to do with the differences between both movies. While The Phantom Menace had a lot of dialogue with a few action sequences spread throughout the movie, Attack of the Clones has the same two types of sequences but the balance has shifted. There is more action and less dialogue and that has an impact on the adaptation. Similarly to the scripters for the adaptation of the original trilogy, Gilroy uses narration to help reduce the length of the action scenes. The battles on Geonosis, Obi-Wan and Jango Fett’s fight on Kamino, the lightsaber duel against Count Dooku, all of the action scenes use narration in some capacity. It works well because the action doesn’t feel as breezy and unimportant as they did in the adaptation of Episode I. These action scenes matter and the narration helps to slow it down and provide the reader with important, and sometimes even interesting, details. In every way, the adaptation for Attack of the Clones is better than the adaptation of The Phantom Menace. There is a noticeable improvement in storytelling and the result is a more enjoyable comic but it still fails to deliver as much impact as the movie.

Yoda dude, don't hold that lightsaber so close to your face. It's drying our your skin.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Script: Miles Lane

Art: Doug Wheatley

Colours: Christopher Chuckry

Lettering: Michael David Thomas

After reading the comic book adaptation of Episode III, I’m very glad I decided to read these stories in the order in which the films were released because Revenge of the Sith is the best of all six adaptations by a considerable margin. It makes for a good way to end this trip through the comic book adaptations of the saga.

It’s pretty simple to see why this is a better adaptation than the others. For starters, it flows well. There are very few weird cuts or transitions from one scene to another. It doesn’t read like it’s adapting anything. To the contrary, it reads like an original comic story, the elements from the first half of the story progressively build to the elements of the second half and even though it’s titled Episode III, the end is quite satisfying. It also helps that like the story in the adaptation of A New Hope, this story focuses quite clearly on one main character and those closest to him. It’s Anakin’s story, everybody else is supporting that story. The story is tight, even when characters go off to do their own thing; it ties it to what’s happening to Anakin. That consistency in the story certainly helped with how well it could be adapted to another medium.

                                                                                                                                                                                

Naturally, some of the scenes in the movie are cut short, particularly the action sequences. I don’t mind because it actually helps to accentuate the focus on Anakin. Besides, the scenes are all there, They’re all here, the rescue of Chancellor Palpatine, the duel between Obi-Wan and General Grievous on Utapau, Yoda helping the Wookiees on Kashyyyk, the duel with the Sith Lord, Order 66 and of course the climactic battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan. They’re all shorter, yes, but those condensed sequences are well balanced by more dialogue heavy scenes which serve the purpose of plot and character development.  

The art is also the best of any of the adaptations. It has a painted quality that increases the sense of realism without relying on a heavy use of crosshatchings. The colouring palette is also less bright than the colouring for the adaptations of the previous episodes. It helps to reinforce the thematic elements of Anakin’s journey to the dark side as well as avoid the cartoonish look of some of the scenes in Episode I.

If you want to read a comic adaptation of the Star Wars film, do yourself a favour and start with this one. You won’t be disappointed with is like you would be if you read any of the other adaptations. Really, the most interesting thing about reading this collection was seeing how different creative teams adapted the movies. Some were very success, others considerably less so.  

Star Wars Omnibus: The Complete Saga, part 1 review

I wonder if there was a huge debate at Dark Horse as to which order they should present the stories of the Star Wars films. I’ve convinced myself that some people wanted to print the sagas in their original order of release, starting with the original trilogy and ending with the prequels.  Maybe there was even someone who was of the opinion that the adaptation of Episode I not be included at all. Obviously the final verdict was to release them in chronological order but I won’t the Man tell me in which order to read my comics. Fuck that! No sir. I’m reading them in the order in which the movies were originally released but even more importantly, I’m reading them in the order in which the comics where originally released. You see, the comic book adaptations of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi were all release before the adaptations of The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith (way back during Marvel first tenure as official publisher of Star Wars comics). In all begins in the skies above Tatooine . . .

Episode IV: A New Hope

Script: Bruce Jones

Pencils: Eduardo Barreto

Inks: Al Williamson, Eduardo Barreto, Carlos Garzón

Colours: James Sinclair, Cary Porter

Lettering: Steve Dutro

The comic book adaptation of A New Hope is the most cinematic adaptation of the original trilogy. I say this because it’s the one with the least narration. There are very few caption boxes and those that are present are mostly used to set a scene and place a reader in the location such as “The Death Star conference room…” or “The fourth moon of Yavin…”. That isn’t to say there aren’t other types of caption boxes. Some of them give us insight into the characters’ feelings and others, particularly during the Battle of Yavin, give the reader additional details on the action present on the page. The comic feels more cinematic that the adaptations for Episode V and VI because the story is mostly told with the use of dialogue and art. You might be thinking “Aren’t all comics storytelling through the use of dialogue and art?” Well, yes (and no) but reading these three adaptations back to back it really struck me just how different A New Hope is from the others, both in how it tells it’s story and how it more closely resembles the film. I think that the storytelling is closely linked to how the comic accurately portrays the movie.

Despite these cinematic similarities, A New Hope doesn’t work nearly as well in comic form as it does on the screen. There are too many important components of what defines great Star Wars for me that are missing from the comic. The first is the absence of John William’s music. It’s such an important part of what maintains the tone of the movie that without out, the comic struggles to establish and maintain the tone. Fans of Star Wars have likely seen the movie a dozen times and when you’re reading a particular scene, say the Millennium Falcon defending itself from TIE fighters after escaping the Death Star I can’t help but hear the music in my head and knowing that it’s missing is a shame. It’s a pretty poor criticism, I know, comics aren’t auditory but it’s hard to accept that in this case. The other important element that is missing is the sense of movement. In my review of X-wing: Rogue Squadron I mentioned that the novel did a poor job of giving me that same sense of movement and energy given to me by the movie’s battle scenes. The same problem happens here but it’s somehow worse. In my mind’s eye I could take Michael A. Stackpole’s descriptions and make a mini movie in my head but with the comic, everything is incredibly static. That’s not to say you can’t draw something that gives the illusion of movement. Many artists have done so before but sadly you won’t find it in this comic.

I do not know if it was the intent of the creative team to give this comic adaptation a cinematic feel. It seems likely considering they’re adapting a movie but what seems like a good idea at first might actually be the comic’s biggest flaw. By resembling the movie more than the comics for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, the comic adaptation of A New Hope attracts more comparison with its movie counterpart than the other two adaptations. The comparison favours the original because there are too many elements that are characteristic of the Star Wars films that are difficult to do the medium of comics. It was an uphill battle from the start but I don’t think anybody was expecting the adaptation to be equal to or better than the movie. They rarely are.

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Script: Archie Goodwin

Pencils and inks: Al Williamson, Carlos Garzón

Colours: James Sinclair, Frank Lopez

Lettering: Rich Veitch

Part of the problem with the comic adaptation for A New Hope was that it accentuated how plain the plot is. The Empire Strikes Back has a much more complex and engaging plot than A New Hope but Archie Goodwin’s excessive use of narration gets in the way of it and the whole things feels bogged down. The pacing is slower because of it and it affects the quality of the story. One of the greatest strengths of the movie is just how organically the story moves from Hoth to Dagobah to the asteroid field to Cloud City. The movie explores multiples characters in multiple different settings and it maintains a high level of action and adventure. What’s interesting about the adaptation is that there are several scenes that are added to the story. One example is the attack on the Rebel’s based on Hoth by the same yeti-like creatures that attacked Luke in the movie. Oddly enough we never actually get to see a full figure drawing of the monster. Instead, all we see are hairy arms and legs. Another example is additional training scenes Yoda has with Luke on Dagobah.

Reading The Empire Strikes Back was a strange experience. It’s very different from the movie and a lot of that has to do with Goodwin’s writing. His use of narration serves to slow down some scenes from the movie while also quickly skipping over other scenes. If you consider the additional scenes, it’s no surprise that the comic seems to present an alternate version of what The Empire Strikes Back could have been. The art by Al Williamson and Carlos Garzón is much moodier than the art for the other adaptations. Part of it is because of the inks and another part of it has to do with the colours by James Sinclair and Frank Lopez. It works well with the more introspective tone and feels of the series. Overall I connected more emotionally with the art in The Empire Strikes Back than I did with the art in A New Hope but what it gained with its moodier art it lost in clarity. The art in A New Hope was easier to read but it also had less detail and the storytelling wasn’t as strong. The story in A New Hope’s adaptation felt like there were regularly panels missing from the page; the storytelling in The Empire Strikes Back is much stronger. It’s clearly the work of veterans of the comic book industry and it shows on the page. I had to get used to it a bit but once I was in the story my biggest problems were with the unnecessary narration regularly stepping on the artists’ toes.

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Script: Archie Goodwin

Art: Al Williamson, Carlos Garzón

Colours: Cary Porter, Perry McNamee

Lettering: Ed King

Return of the Jedi was adapted by the same writer and artists as the comic of The Empire Strikes Back but there are some significant differences between the two comics. For starters, Return of the Jedi is the shortest of all the adaptations in this omnibus collection. It’s just a tad under 70 pages long and that’s pretty surprising for an adaptation of a full length movie. It contrasts the length of the previous comic which was one of the longer stories in the collection. The reason being is that Goodwin reduced the frequency of his caption boxes. The narration is much more limited and evenly spread out as it was in The Empire Strikes Back. He changed his storytelling approach and used far more dialogue per panel and per page than he did in his previous adaptation. The reader actually experiences characters talking without being intercut by needless narration. Dialogue heavy scenes take less space than before and the same can be said for action heavy scenes. The fight against the Empire on Endor is one of the moments where caption boxes are most heavily uses but Goodwin does it in a different way. Instead of using narration as a device to provide additional details, he uses it as a way to reduce the number of panels necessary to tell the story. It could also be that Goodwin doesn’t feel like spending time in the head of Ewoks. I can't say I blame him.

The art also contributes to shortening the length of the comic. There are more panels made up of just faces or upper torsos as opposed to full body or three-quarter body images. A lot of room is given to speech bubbles and the art suffers for it. While reading The Empire Strikes Back I couldn’t help but wonder what the art would look like at a larger page size. The page size of the omnibus collections is smaller than your standard comic book and the result is that art is smaller than its intended size. I certainly felt the same way about the art of Return of the Jedi but there is a considerable amount of pages where I honestly don’t think the page size matters because it would just look like a bunch of speech bubbles with faces next to them. It’s also interesting to point out that while the same artists worked on both stories, the art is Return of the Jedi is cleaner and less heavily inked. I think it might have to do with just how much is done by Wiliamson and how much is done by Garzón but either way, they’re a decent team. It is a bit of a shame that the technology looks better drawn than the characters but it helps that everything remains consistent throughout each story.

I will conclude my review of Star Wars Omnibus: The Complete Saga next week with Episodes I, II and III.

Star Wars Omnibus: The Other Sons of Tatooine review

Dark Horse has been releasing omnibus collections of their Star Wars comics for a few years. I’ve read a couple before and unfortunately, they just weren’t anything worthwhile. The quality of the book was rather nice. The binding is pretty good for comics so thick and they collect about three to four regular sized trade paperbacks worth of comics. You can’t really go wrong unless you buy the Boba Fett or Early Victories trades which I didn’t really enjoy. At the end of the collection, there is a note regarding the omnibus books:

Dark Horse Comics’ Star Wars omnibus collections were created as a way to showcase actual novel-length stories or series, and to provide home for “orphaned” series, single-issue stories, and short stories that would otherwise never be collected.

The idea works well and the previous collections I read really showcased the idea of collection smaller stories that are still linked in some way, either by focusing on a character or a timeline. This particular collection groups together stories from three other characters native to Tatooine, other thank Luke Skywalker. Most of the stories were originally serialized in Star Wars: Empire and Star Wars: Rebellion.

X-Wing: Rogue Squadron ½

Credits: Michael A. Stackpole (story), Mike W. Barr (script), Gary Erskine (art), Dave Nestelle (colourist), and Annie Parkhouse.

This is a single issue story that takes place just before the Battle of Yavin. Members of Rogue Squadron are on a mission on Commenor to pick up several R2 and R5 units from a smuggler. The droids are for the Alliance’s X-wing starfighters which currently aren’t capable of travelling through hyperspace due to the lack of astromech droids. It’s interesting just how important droids are to the use of a starfighter. A pilot is several limited without one. Not only do they play a crucial role as a navigation computer, they also assist with repairs. Pilots can do pretty well without a droid when travelling short distances but for long distance they absolutely need an astromech.

It was interesting to see that there was a female pilot, Cesi "Doc" Eirriss, a Twi’lek. I’m not sure if this is a commentary by the writers on the complete lack of female pilots in A New Hope? You have to hand it to Stackpole as he’s done a good job incorporating a wider variety of aliens in addition to balancing out the genders of important characters in the Expanded Universe. Overall this story was short and sweet and it didn’t overstay its welcome but it feels in dire need of context. I preferred the story when it was retold in “The Saga of Biggs Darklighter”.

The Saga of Biggs Darklighter

Credits: Paul Chadwick (writer), Douglas Wheatley (penciler), Christian Dalla Vecchia (inker), and Chris Chuckry (colourist), Digital Chameleon (letterer). Originally published in Star Wars: Empire #8-9, 12, and 15.

The second story focuses one of the characters that appeared briefly in A New Hope, Biggs Darklighter. In the movie he only appears near the end, during the briefing before the attack on the Death Star but Biggs gets an earlier introduction in the novelization of A New Hope. While Luke is still on Tatooine he spends some time talking with some of his friends and Biggs was among them. “The Saga of Biggs Darklighter” takes the character and essentially shows his point of view story happening parallel to the events of the first Star Wars movie. There is a part of the story that takes place several months (maybe even a couple of years) before the fateful day two droids came crashing down on Tatooine’s surface.

Biggs’ story is interesting on its own but the creative team kicks it up a notch by telling the story as a serious space drama. Everything feels so important and there is a sense of gloom to the whole thing because anyone who’s watched the movies knows how Biggs’ story ends. It’s surprising just how much happens in just four issues. Paul Chadwick uses his narration boxes to great effect. It blends well with artist Douglas Wheatley’s work and it contributes to filling the comics to the brim with action, mutiny, and space battles. It’s just so well done. I can hardly believe that something so good could have been made based on a character that doesn’t spend more than a few minutes in the movie. His comic story meshes so well with this movie story that it feels like a series of deleted scenes that should have been part of A New Hope. Biggs as a good a main character as Luke was during Episode IV. Sure, Luke was later developed and grew more interesting but his wide-eyed innocence and know-it-all attitude didn’t give him much during his first adventure. I’m a bit upset that there won’t be more Biggs Darklighter stories. Well, maybe I shouldn’t say that because there is a shit ton of Star Wars comics in the long boxes and on the shelves but for me, this is the definitive version of Biggs’ story.

There was only one thing that bugged me about the story. There is an editorial note that appears about three or four times which explains that although the creative team was aware that TIE fighter pilots wear a helmet and suit that is under pressure. The note is there because in the story, Biggs along with all of the other pilots wear a helmet with no visor or faceplate. The reason being is that they wanted to be able to show facial expression. I can’t decide whether or not the decision is lazy or simply uncreative. I think that a more interesting solution could have been found. Anyone who’s ever read an Iron Man comic could have offered a least a couple different options. It soils what is one of the best Star Wars comics I’ve ever read.  

The Bravery of Being Out of Range

Credits: Jeremy Barlow (writer), Brandon Badeaux (artist), Michael Atiyeh (colourist), and Michael Davis Thomas (letterer). Originally published in Star Wars: Empire #23.

“The Bravery of Being Out of Range” is a throwaway story. It’s about another character who hails from Tatooine, BoShek, and the entire issue is just a chase comic. It ends by showing the reader that regardless of whether you’re a supporter of the Empire or the Alliance, the galactic civil war will find a way to suck you in. You can’t avoid the conflict because it can be found everywhere in the galaxy, even on backwater planets.

 

The Last Man

Credits: Welles Hartley (writer), Davidé Fabbri (penciller and colourist), Christian Dalla Vecchia (inker), Sno Cone Studios (letterer). Originally published in Star Wars: Empire #16-18.

The Wrong Side of the War

Credits: Welles Hartley (writer), Davidé Fabbri (penciller and colourist), Christian Dalla Vecchia (inker), and Michael David Thomas (letterer). Originally published in Star Wars: Empire #36-40.

My Brother, My Enemy

Credits: Rob Williams (writer), Brandon Badeaux (penciller), Wil Glass (colourist), and Michael Heisley (letterer). Originally published in Star Wars: Rebellion #0-5.

The last three stories in the collection focus on yet another Tatooine native: imperial Lt. Janek “Tank” Sunber. They’re presented here in chronological order and it’s quite nice because it gives you a pretty fair assessment of what it’s like to be an imperial during the galactic civil war. “The Last Man” takes place on the world of Maridun where they are attacked by the Amanin. Outnumbered, Sunber finds himself clashing with his superior officers and trying to survive the battles with the natives. It’s Janek’s first time questioning the efficacy and the values of the Empire. “The Wrong Side of the War”, reinforces the internal struggle Sunder is having by having him meet up with Luke. It becomes quickly apparent that both young men have chosen different paths and while Luke is confident in his allegiance with the Alliance. Sunder on the other hand has his faith shaken. Everything comes together in “My Brother, my Enemy” in which Sunder strongly considers joining the Alliance and everything ends in bloodshed.

While I enjoyed Sunber’s story, the real highlight of The Other Sons of Tatooine is The Saga of Biggs Darklighter. But Sunber’s portion of the collection is still a very good read. You seldom get a story which focuses on an imperial but the writers take it one step further. Sunber is questioning his loyalty to the Empire and he’s also questioning the validity of the Alliance’s war. Part of it has to do with his childhood friendship with Luke and the news of Biggs’ story and the sacrifice he made during the Battle of Yavin struck a chord with him. What makes his story work though is how it ends. He easily could have become a member of the rebellion but instead he chose to stick with the Empire because of what he believes is right. It’s not an easy ending and that’s what makes it work. The Empire isn’t entirely made up of bad individuals. Certainly there are bad men in power, but some of these other guys are just trying to earn a living in a confusing and war torn galaxy. Naturally, not everybody born on Tatooine is a hero but The Other Sons of Tatooine clearly demonstrates that many other inhabitants of the Star Wars Universe have a story worthy of being told . . . and read by any self-respecting fan of the franchise. 

The People vs. George Lucas: The Problem with Fandom

I completely missed writing something last year for May the Fourth and so I’ve made sure to prepare something for this year. It was a bit challenging to find what I should talk about but I settled on watching The People vs. George Lucas documentary and it sparked enough thoughts and commentary to make up a whole post.

The movie was directed by Alexandre Philippe, a lifetime Star Wars fan (aren’t we all?). It presents a discussion between the conflicting aspects of the franchise, particularly the love/hate relationship many fans have with Star Wars to a degree, but particularly with George Lucas. The movie is structure in such a way as to present a brief history of Lucas’s career up to the release of the first Star Wars movie. It then used interviews with a wide variety of people including writers, several people in the film industry, comedians, journalists and fan-submitted videos from the movie’s website. These various interviews were edited into what I thought was a poorly structured look at Star Wars, its fans, and the difficult relationship with Lucas. There are some very interesting ideas that are brought up in the movie but ultimately it doesn’t really go anywhere. In the end, the movie’s message to its viewers is that Star Wars is great, Lucas has deeply hurt us all and we feel pretty betrayed, but we hope there will be more Star Wars goodness in the future. What follows is my attempt to restructure some of the ideas from the movie, add in my comments, and try not to upset too many of the more sensitive (emotionally sensitive, not Force-sensitive) fans.

George Lucas – Duality of the businessman

One of the elements that start off the discussion from the movie is the duality inherent in George Lucas. As one person explains, they believe Lucas’s psyche is structure similarly to a Russian doll. On the onside there is a Lucasfilm, the corporation. Inside of that is Corporate Lucas. Inside of that is Lucas the Capable Filmmaker. And inside of that is a young, enthusiastic Lucas Filmmaker. That’s not quite how I see it. I think it’s simpler than that, but it does shed some light on how Lucas’s fans see him. He’s a complex and contradictory figure.

The way I see it, Lucas is internally conflicted by two aspects of his life. The first is his creative persona, the one that initially allowed for the creation of Star Wars. The second half is his business savvy persona, which also allowed for the creative success of Star Wars. During the early part of his career, Creative Lucas (that’s what I’m calling him now) has to defend his creativity and artistic vision against company executives and producers. These early battles were very difficult for him and I believe they’ve affected his development as a filmmaker. The success of the original trilogy, which I believe was made possible by the combination of Creative Lucas and Business Lucas, freed him from ever having to battle it out with a producer ever again and that’s what led to the fractured Lucas we all know now. Before, when he had to fight with his producers, both parts that make up Lucas were working together against an outside force. After Star Wars, the outside force was more or less absent and without a common enemy both sides started to fight against themselves.

 

"Advance and destroy all laser disc copies of the theatrical release!"

Fame and success have changed how Lucas feels about creating. He’s had serious issues with the lack of control he had in his early career. He had to fight for it and when you have to fight for control, you need to pick you battles. Having to struggle with producers and production company executives meant that Lucas had to fight to implement the creative ideas he thought had more potential. Since he’s escaped that type of creative environment, he’s been on his own. He no longer has the outside filter he had before. Wanting to have all the control has left him with too much control and many, many internal conflicts over various creative decisions on the franchise.

Fandom – Imitating the Duality of the Creator

Is this was betrayal looks like?

Some of the biggest fans of Star Wars are also some of the meanest towards the creator of the franchise, George Lucas. They can be huge assholes with him for rather small and petty reasons. Fans of Star Wars have been engaging in participatory culture for several years, if not decades since the release of A New Hope. They don’t simply consume Star Wars, they contribute to the development of the franchise while also acting as disciples who spread the word and share it with new fans and create new generations of fans. This participatory culture has created group of fans who enjoy pocking fun at the thing they love or re-enacting it for their enjoyment. There are countless projects that can be found online where fans are simply having a good time. Some fans are also using these projects to develop their own filmmaking or special effects skills in the hopes of becoming filmmakers someday. I like this portion of fandom. It has fun, creative, and positive aspects to it. Playing in the Star Wars sandbox has acted as their training wheels in a way. Lucas has influenced an entire generation of creators. Watch any documentary on Star Wars and you’ll have interviews with film industry professionals who started their career in filmmaking because of Star Wars.

However, there are other fans whose time engaging in participatory culture has led them to develop a penchant for remixing the beloved franchise. In essence, they’re remixing Star Wars to suit their preferences. It’s unclear why this practice originated but it’s as much a part of Star Wars fandom as dressing up as favourite characters when attending conventions. It’s pretty clear that some of this remix attitude is the result of Lucas’s crusade to shove his Special Edition version of Star Wars down the throats of unwilling fans. On its own that would be an unfortunate desire on the part of Lucas but it’s even worse if you’re familiar with a bit of film preservation history.

Early in his career, Lucas was a main proponent against the colourization of black and white films. He would argue that colouring black and white movies went against the creative visions of the people who originally worked on the movie. It was disrespectful. He also presents arguments that preserving films in their original appearance was a way to preserve cultural history. He went further in stating that the reasons why he thought it was important to preserve our culture history. You can easily find plenty of information on this part of Lucas’s life online. It actually makes for a rather interesting read.

Older George Lucas always looks sad. Even sadder
than young George Lucas. You can see the regret
in his eyes. Tugs at my heart strings, it does.

These earlier arguments made by Lucas seem to contradict the release of Star Wars: Special Edition in which Lucasfilm did several revisions, changes, additions and tweaks to the theatrical release version of the original trilogy. That in itself isn’t a necessarily a bad thing. After all, it’s the creator tweaking his own work with the intent of having the finished product more closely resemble his artistic vision. I’m ok with that as long as the original work is still available. For the most part, it’s not, and that’s what’s problematic for me. Lucas has been attempting, and as far as I know continues to attempt, revisionist history. By refusing to continue to produce and sell the theatrical version of Star Wars, he’s not only disrespecting everybody else who worked on the films, he’s being disrespectful of our shared cultural history. The Star Wars of 1997 isn’t the same Star Wars people saw back in 1977. Lucas isn’t only being hypocritical, he’s being disrespectful to fans and the people who helped make the Star Wars films.

The problem though is that certain fans continue to allow Lucas to do as he wishes because they continue to support him throughout all of the various releases, his new films, and basically anything else that has the Star Wars brand name on the product. Fans will buy it. There is a moment in The People vs. George Lucas were a fan lists all of the different VHS and DVD versions of Star Wars he’s bought over the years. In essence, it was all of them. When discussing the release of The Phantom Menace, there is a scene in which a journalist asks two fans “What are you going to do if the movie really sucks?” To which one of them answered “I’ll go see it again.” That’s part of the problem! Why go see a movie you don’t like? Why financially support the man who is responsible for producing the movie you thought sucked? It’s a vicious cycle in which fans complain about the changes being made but continue to pay to watch it or own it. Nobody is forcing you to be a ridiculous, all-consuming fan. I have some distance between my love of Star Wars and how much money I spend on it and that allows me to continue to love the franchise and not lose my mind or get insanely angry at Lucas.

The remix culture allows for fans to continue enjoying Star War by taking out or changing the parts they don’t like. Perhaps without realizing it they continue to support a franchise that no longer reflects what they like. They’re taking the good and taking out the bad in order to be able to enjoy the good. I think it’s an unhealthy approach to entertainment consumerism because it’s symptomatic of radical fanaticism. Do you really love Star Wars if you’re changing it to better suit what you think it should be? When you’re watching the fan-edit of The Phantom Menace, are you still watching The Phantom Menace?  I’m interested in seeing how fans will react to the new trilogy being worked on by J. J. Abrams. I know that part of me will enjoy some of it even though I’m also pretty convinced I won’t enjoy parts of it. There are a few reasons for that but I won’t get into them hear aside from mentioning that I’m worried about what Abrams will do with the franchise simply because his first Star Trek film is about the only film or TV series by him that I’ve enjoyed. The other thing is that there appears to be as much importance played on looking back as there is looking forward. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but it can lead to self-indulgence and lack of narrative progression. We’ll wait and see but really, other fans’ reactions is something I’m looking forward to. The discussion of the franchise’s future as well as the pervasive remix culture leads me to another point of contention among fans, what exactly is the “true” Star Wars?

Is this awesomely ridiculous book
"true" Star Wars? Hells yes it is.

The “true” Star Wars?

I’m curious as to why George Lucas is so adamant in having his vision be the only “true” Star Wars. By deciding not to release the theatrical release on blu-ray, he’s clearly supporting one version of Star Wars above another. Maybe he wants to make his revised, Special Edition version the only “true” version because he’s had to suffer through seeing his films be interpreted in hundreds if not thousands of different ways. Sometimes this was done reverently, other times in ways combining amateurish invention and unfiltered adoration and other times filled with hatred and condescension. With so many different versions of Star Wars available to the masses, maybe he’s worried his version, the only one he thinks really matters, is being lost in the mix.

I have to admit I find it kind of sickening to watch people argue, rather than have open and honest discussions, but argue and fight over silly things like Han shooting first. Who gives a shit? Multiple versions of that same event exist on official releases. That in itself is problematic but at the end of the day, regardless of your opinion, all those versions exist. If you choose to accept one version over another, that’s fine. I’d actually encourage it because I would then ask you why you preferred one over the other and that could be the start of a fun conversation about Star Wars and who doesn’t like that? But once the discussion evolves into which version of Han shooting Greedo is the “right” one, you enter dangerous territory. That leads to remixing Star Wars and it becomes of battles of which version is right and which version is wrong.

You can also throw in the whole idea of canon into that discussion. Star Wars is a multi-media franchise. Comics, novels, video games, TV series, etc. Many stories from different genres directly contradict things in the movies and in other stories. The development of an Expanded Universe of tie-in media before the release of the prequels trilogy inevitably led to contradictions galore once the prequels were finally released. The same thing is bound to happen with the release of Episode VII and Disney has already published a press release on the matter. Which stories are “true” Star Wars and which ones aren’t? Which stories count? I know that this is opening the floodgates but really, there is an easy solution to all of these questions. It all counts. It’s all one glorious mess of super-continuity.

No two fans can agree on what Star Wars really is. So why not embrace it all? Lucas and the fans need to embrace it all. Why is it so difficult to be able to admit that you like certain things and dislike others? Where does this need to erase the things you don’t like come from? Is it in reaction to Lucas’s own hypocrisy? Do fans who re-edit the films feel as though they’re sticking it to Businessman Lucas? All of that doesn’t matter to me because I love it all. I even love to hate the parts I don’t like (“Yippee”, anyone?).

Love 'em or hate 'em, Ewoks are part of Star Wars. I choose to love 'em. 

The idea of super-continuity isn’t mine. I’m borrowing it from Grant Morrison’s take on Batman. While writing his multi-year Batman story, Morrison decided that all of the published Batman stories have actually happened to the character. There is a way to better understand and appreciate all Star Wars stories in how Morrison treated Batman. He attempted to reconcile large section of the character’s past into one huge, ever-expanding history for Batman. In this idea of super-continuity, if something was published with Batman in it, it “counted”. It happened. The same idea can be applied to Star Wars and essentially all other entertainment franchises. You can choose not to read or watch any stories in which Jar-Jar appears, that’s your call, but you cannot dismiss him by pretending he never existed in the first place. He did and it’s up to you to reconcile that.

I like to embrace it all, the good with the bad. By not allowing myself to watch Episode I, I’ll never have to deal with some of Jar-Jar’s worst moments. That’s true. But I’m also missing out on tons of other cool ideas that are present in the movie. I also miss out on Obi-Wan’s early days and that’s a shame because he’s one of my favourite characters. I’m not trying to tell you Episode I is a misunderstood masterpiece because it’s not. It’s a visual masterpiece; the entire prequels trilogy is a visual feast. Yes, Episode I (or maybe Episode II) is the worst Star Wars movie but it’s still has its moments. The most important thing to keep in mind is that it’s not the worst thing to ever have happened to Star Wars, it’s also not the first thing that “ruined” the franchise. I’d like to offer up Star Wars: Jedi vs. Sith as one of the worst stories in the franchise. It’s certainly one of the worst comics. As for things that happened before Episode I that contributed to ruin Star Wars for a certain category of fans, you can kind of take your pick. It can be a pretty selective list. Some people will posit that Episode VI: Return of the Jedi was the first step in a dumber Star Wars. Others will mention Star Wars Holiday Special.  I for one love Return of the Jedi. Ewoks? Love the little bastards. You can hate them and you can disagree with me but Ewoks are still Star Wars. You can’t change that and neither can I. What Lucas has forgotten is that he can’t change that either and he has to stop trying.

Have fun with continuity. Embrace it. Hell, the first obvious thing that comes to mind is a drinking game. Take a drink every time something happens in Episode I that you don’t like. I guarantee you’ll like the movie by the time the end credits roll because you’ll be so inebriated.

Overall The People vs. George Lucas was very frustrating to watch. It’s well put together and some of the people in the movie actually had some very interesting things to say but really, it’s just inconsistent in what it’s trying to be. It wants to discuss what Star Wars is to fans and the difficulties that come with being a fan, many of them having their source with Lucas. It’s also trying to be a comedy and it kind of undermines some of the more serious and interesting discussion. Some of the comedy works, but a lot of it doesn’t. It also feels very one-sided and I feel as though the movie was trying to make me hate Lucas. It’s all a bit difficult to understand though; it’s not an easy subject for a documentary. Star Wars fandom is filled with confusion and contradictory emotions and opinions. I think it’s important that we remember that Star Wars is a multigenerational franchise. The first generation of fans had so little Star Wars for so long that they invested themselves in the franchise. The newest generations of fans have been bombarded with Star Wars media their entire lives. For them, it’s been non-stop.

The movie ended on a hopeful note. People are willing to give Lucas and the franchise the chance to amaze us again. When a fan’s reaction to not liking the first of the prequels is to go and watch it twelve other times, it’s a strong sign that he has faith in the creator and the series. Fans felt betrayed by the prequels because they had very specific expectations and when they were giving something different, they wanted to continue watching until they “got it”. Fans acted as though they didn’t understand the movies, as though they were the problem. When it finally clued in that they weren’t the problem the finger was pointed at Lucas and the remix culture caught on. I don’t agree that Lucas has a responsibility to the fans. I think that’s a perceived responsibility. However, I think he does have a responsibility in preserving cultural history and it’s up to us to ensure he acknowledges that. As for fandom, it grows and changes hand in hand with the franchise. It’s bigger than all of us combined and the contradictions is what fuels the growth of its fans by always having another element to enjoy, criticize, and debate.