#Splinter Of The Minds Eye

[prankprincess123]

[retroscifiart]

Art by Noriyoshi Ohrai for Star Wars ‘Splinter of The Minds Eye’ novel by Alan Dean Foster (1978)

[star-wars-forever]

[walkawaytall]

In February of this year, I noticed that May the Fourth was on a Thursday, which happens to be when my Toastmasters group meets and I immediately asked the person who makes the schedule if I could lead the meeting that day. This is a summary of the presentation I gave to a group of coworkers -- 50% of whom had never seen Star Wars. Like, at all. I had much more energy during the actual presentation. But, you know, in case you've always wanted to listen to me talk about weird Star Wars stuff for seven-and-a-half minutes, here's me summarizing the presentation I gave for my friends.

[legends-expo]

Panel Announcement: Authors Geeking Out

Hear your favorite creators talk about all things Star Wars... except for their own contributions to the galaxy far, far away! Join us on Saturday, September 9th at the Marriott Convention Center in Burbank, CA for a discussion with Michael Kogge, Jason Fry and Abel Peña on favorite stories in the Expanded Universe.

Get your tickets now at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/legends-consortium-2023-tickets-541786186067

[arkham-prisoner]

Went digging through my book collection and found my Legends Reprint and my mothers original 1978 copy of Splinter of The Mind’s Eye

Love that the original isn’t listed as STAR WARS, just SOTME. Book has received a lot of love over the decades

[phoenixkaptain]

Reading the novelization of A New Hope already changed how I saw Luke as a character but Splinter of the Mind’s Eye is going one step further and making me question the very fundamentals thought to be obvious about Luke.

Like, Luke is, for lack of a better term, a nerd. He studied languages and cultures -

“”Yes,” Luke admitted modestly. “I used to study a lot about certain worlds, back on my uncle’s farm on Tatooine. It was my only escape, and educational as well. This,” and he indicated the creature resting a massive long arm on his head and shaking him in a friendly fashion, “is a Yuzzem.””

-he wants to study more languages and cultures-

“Empty doorways beckoned to him and he was tempted, very tempted, to enter one of the ruined structures to find out if its interior was as well preserved as the outside.

This was not, he reminded himself firmly, the time for playful exploration. Their first concern was to find a way out, not to go poking around this ancient metropolis. However wonderful it was.”

Luke wants to know about people. He wants to know about cultures and creatures and he wants to be able to communicate and…

He really just. Is a great Jedi. He jumps between Leia and danger and he befriends the Yuzzem the prison guards thought would kill him and he wants to explore the creepy abandoned ruins of a civilization long past and he uses Anakin’s lightsaber underwater to cut the stem of a lilypad they use as a boat and he comments that the rock formations are almost too beautiful to cut down and he knows how to work Imperial explosives and

He’s a Jedi, man. He’s a Jedi. He’s been a Jedi this whole time, before any of us even knew what that actually meant.

[gameraboy2]

The Splinter in the Mind's Eye, illustration by Ralph McQuarrie

[mordicaifeed]

[swan2swan]

Yes. You were. Because 40+ years of lore has made it abundantly clear that you cannot just Tinker Bell your way into having magic superpowers.

Child, when I was studying the Lore, there were three movies. And maybe some books. You sit down and speak respectfully to your elders.

[grayrazor]

Splinter of the Mind's Eye is probably the most overt Vietnam allegory Star Wars has ever done, even more so than the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi or the Umbara arc in The Clone Wars.

It would have been interesting to see the reaction if it had ended up being the second Star Wars movie instead of The Empire Strikes Back.

Of course, in the post-Lucas era they had Solo revisit Mimban and portrayed it more like WWI. Although, the Mimbanese officer in Star Wars: Squadrons talks a bit more about guerrilla warfare.

[traewilson]

Saw Quinton Reviews' side video talking about Star Wars and how the brand's strict dedication to continuity leads to past "mistaken" continuity gets snipped off, like Sebastian Shaw as Anakin Skywalker. It got me thinking: Star Wars, deep to its most primordial basic structure, isn't actually myth - that's the bones of the body of Star Wars. In its proverbial genes, its history, and even cursory knowledge of how George Lucas tells stories shows this. American Graffiti is the most obvious example of this, being a dramatization of Lucas' childhood experiences. Indiana Jones is another example (until the last one, anyway, but we don't talk about Dial of Destiny). The first three films are defined by the pop culture trends of the time they were set. The villains in 1940s serials were, naturally, Nazis, so the villains are Nazis in the Indy films set in the 40s. This commitment to historical accuracy does lead to problems, however - namely, another source of villainy in the 40s were racial stereotypes of tribal peoples. Cue Temple of Doom, and the cartoonishly bigoted portrayal of Indian people in that film. This is why Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the way it is. In the 50s and 60s, the villains of American serials were the Soviets, so the villains are Russians. A chief obsession of that time was with aliens, so, like how religion was a big obsession in the 40s, aliens are a focus on Crystal Skull. Dial of Destiny partially failed because the filmmakers didn't engage with the series' formula, or rather, the executives didn't want Indiana Jones to deviate any further from what fans were nostalgic for. This results in a sort of bizarre feedback loop, where Indiana Jones is now referring back to ITS OWN PAST, ITS OWN HISTORY, rather than the actual history of the pop culture of the real world. The villains in the Indiana Jones films everybody likes are Nazis, so we're doing Nazis again.

Indiana Jones was on a trajectory where it would mirror the pop culture of the time period its set in. In the end, it abandoned this and gazed down its own navel, harkening back to the history of its own series, nonsensically contradicting the pop culture of the late 60s going into the 70s. Star Wars ran into a variant on this issue with continuity - with history.

Star Wars, of course, is obsessed with its own history. George Lucas himself was obsessed with the history of the Star Wars universe, at least the continuity of the films he made. The creators involved in the Expanded Universe were allowed to do their own thing, provided they didn't contradict his films, and with full knowledge their stories are only as canon as Lucas wanted them to be - which resulted in situations where stories about the Clone Wars pre-Prequels were essentially erased from existence because they, inadvertently, were inconvenient to a constantly revised history. To be clear, this isn't adjusting actual real life history, where it is a good idea to keep its narrative as accurate as possible. These are stories, fiction. And yet, creators and fanbase alike are as obsessed with the minutiae of Star Wars' history as the preacher is obsessed with the minutiae of the Bible and Biblical narratives.

This obsession with historical revisionism for a history that does not actually exist is resulting in the eradication of elements that are no longer convenient to its narrative. Sebastian Shaw as Anakin Skywalker, Clive Revill as the Emperor, all performances destined to become pop culture relics, only known by the most devoted of acolytes at the altar of Star Wars. I'd argue this started all the way back with Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the novel that was essentially George Lucas' backup concept for a Star Wars sequel if the first underperformed, realized. This novel is meaningless to the grand Star Wars continuity. An odd little curio; a peek into a future of the faith that could've been. I only know about it because I was obsessed with Star Wars as a kid. Less and less will know of it as time goes on, because it's basically a heretical text written in unwitting defiance of a constantly rewritten history. This eradication is deeply unfortunate, and actively works against Lucas' undeniable mythical inspirations for Star Wars. Myths are fluid, dynamic, ever-changing. Star Wars only changes as nostalgia and continuity so allow. This will be a BIG problem with Star Wars going forward - both the religious fanaticism of the fandom's strict devotion to their particular denomination of fandom faith (the Prequels are the best! The Originals are best! The Sequels are best! If you don't think that'll happen, I wouldn't bet on it.) and the strict devotion of the creators to the constantly changing, constantly eradicating, timeline of a world that is entirely fictional. Star Wars confines itself like this to its own detriment. Luke Skywalker won't be nostalgic for people forever. Anakin Skywalker won't be nostalgic forever, and in time, Rey won't be either. They will, gradually, over the course of time, become confined to the dustbin of history, along with Sebastian Shaw's Anakin, of Clive Revill's Emperor, as Splinter of the Mind's Eye, or Gennady Tartakovsky's Clone Wars miniseries. Some of this, of course, is the relentless march of time's fault, I get that. But the structure of Star Wars has grown to such an extent that stories are becoming harder and harder to write for it. You can't do too much; you absolutely cannot change Anakin's fate, or a different end for Luke that contradicts Last Jedi, or a British guy as Darth Vader's true self.

All this buildup to say George Miller and how he's handled the structure of the Mad Max franchise will give it a longer life, I feel, once its originator has passed on. George Miller is, frankly, a much better mythical storyteller than George Lucas. Anyone can be Max. Anyone can be Furiosa, or Immortan Joe, or Dementus, or Lord Humungus or the Doof Warrior or Aunty Entity. That's the beauty of this series; since anyone can be anyone, and hard facts are few and far between, this allows much more room for creative experimentation.

Anyway that's my ramble for tonight. I'm sure this will be a mess to get through, but it is a somewhat accurate picture of how I think. I'm a natural rambler. This is why Xwitter and I are not getting along lately.

[theros]

how's your night going a random white mouse just ran up onto our porch

[azazel-dreams]

Star Wars: Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster

Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤

[phoenixkaptain]

I totally get what people mean about Splinter of the Mind’s Eye and it’s weirdly offputting tone, but at the same exact time it reads to me as old-timey fanfiction because like- it’s just. Comparing Luke and Leia. Their similarities and differences. They walk differently. They think about things differently. But they also have a strain of sameness to them. A strain of logic or way of thinking that they both follow. It’s so…

Like it’s trying really hard to be like romantic or something, the whole book is, but instead they just act like. Obi-Wan and Anakin.

The best proof I can give of this is two scenes in the first chapter. And I’ll explain the context because honestly the context is fucking hilarious. They both just crash landed on the moon right before the moon they were aiming for. They’re in separate ships. They got separated (they find each other within the same chapter). Luke is with Artoo and Leia is with Threepio (Leia is talking to Threepio in the quote).

“No rock is as soft as water and no water so soft as a swamp, he reflected, trying to cheer himself.”

““Relax. There can’t be anything out there,” she nodded toward the densest growth, “that would find you digestible.””

Just. Luke Optimism crashing into a swamp and being like “well, at least it isn’t a bunch of rocks.” Leia Realism over there comforting Threepio. But also, more proof withing the first chapter:

“There was a loud crashing, off to her right this time. Swinging around in the seat she instinctively fired off a burst through the cracked port and was rewarded with the odor of burnt, wet vegetable matter. The muzzle of the pistol remained focused on the carbonized spot. Hopefully, she’d hit the thing. Fortunately, she hadn’t.

“It’s me!” a voice shouted, sounding more than a little shaky. She’d barely missed him.”

Yes, Leia just shot at Luke. Yes, Leia feels pretty bad because first she made them both crashland into a swamp and second she just tried to murder him.

“Briskly scrambling over the side, she let herself drop to the ground, planted her feet, took two steps in the direction of the distant beacon… and began to sink…”

“Covered from the ribs down in a packing of green-gray mud and pieces of what looked like dried straw, the Princess appeared decidedly unregal. She pushed futilely at the mud, which was drying rapidly to the consistency of thin concrete. She said nothing, and Luke knew anything he might venture would not be terribly well-received.”

They are so cute.

“Once she spotted him peering hard at a dank copse. “Nervous?” It was part question, part challenge.

“You bet I’m nervous,” he shot back. “I’m nervous and frightened and I wish to hell we were on Circarpous right now. Anywhere on Circarpous, instead of trudging through this swamp on foot.”

Turning serious, the Princess told him, “One learns to accept whatsver events life has in store with the best possible spirits.” She stared straight ahead.

“That just what I’m doing,” Luke confessed, “accepting them in the best possible spirits—nervousness and fear.”

“Well, you needn’t look at me as if this is all my fault.”

“Did I imply that? Did I say that?” Luke countered, a touch more tightly than he intended. She glanced sharply at him and he cursed his inability to conceal his feelings. He would have been, he decided, a rotten card-player. Or politician.

“No, but you as much as…” she began hotly.”

Don’t look at me like this situation that I have already admitted to myself is my fault is my fault - Leia

They are. Obi-Wan and Anakin. Wow.

[bobjackets]

Alan Dean Foster.