#mostly just the original trilogy and prequels. some of the old comics & books are interesting too

[kagoutiss]

green beetle black beetle

[datzyuk]

so i'm thinking of reading some star wars novels and i'm pretty sure i've seen you talking about them so do you have any recs or instructions on how to read them? there's just so many. also ignore this if i'm totally wrong lmao

i love star wars novels sm!!! here's my very long breakdown under the readmore.

for starters, there are two main types of books

canon: anything published after disney purchased star wars. first canon book was released in 2014. occasionally small details from the books are retconned by new tv shows/movies but everything else is considered canon.

legends: anything published before disney purchased star wars in 2012. not canon but the new content often takes ideas from these books. before disney took over, there weren’t many rules for star wars books, so a lot of legends books contradict each other.

i’d also say it’s important to note that the canon YA books are usually on par with the adult books, so don’t skip them!

i mostly read the canon books so that’s what i’ll focus on but there are some gr8 legends books out there, and you’re way more likely to find legends books at your local used bookstore.

as for the correct order, some people might read them by following the in-universe timeline but that’s definitely not necessary!

here are some of my favs / good ones to start with!

lost stars by claudia gray. follows two kids from a small outer rim planet that bond over flying and eventually join the imperial academy as pilots. it’s the /perfect/ starting spot because its centered around the original trilogy with an atmosphere + events we know, but with OCs who allow us to get a new POV….and there are small cameos from some gr8 characters. it’s a BRICK but i finished it in like 24 hrs bc i couldn’t put it down.

leia: princess of alderaan by claudia gray. maybe i’m biased bc i’m super interested in the formation of the rebellion and the organas are my favorite family, but this book is so well done. it follows 16 yr old leia as she juggles being a junior senator + a princess. she also starts to discover the secrets her parents have been hiding about how deeply they’re involved in the rebellion. it’s a great look at young leia, but it also gives us a really good look at bail + breha organa as well as mon mothma. similar time period as ‘andor’ so it might be a good read before that comes out next month!

bloodline by claudia gray. takes place ~25 yrs after the original trilogy and ~5 yrs before the force awakens. this is the perfect sequel to #2. it gives us a glimpse at what leia has accomplished with the new republic while also showing its faults which lead to the rise of the first order. IMO, perfect mixture between plot + character driven.

dark disciple by christie golden. if you’re a fan of clone wars, this is it!!!! this was originally supposed to an eight episode arc but it was abandoned after the script was writen (by katie lucas!!). it follows quinlan vos and asajj ventress on an undercover mission to kill dooku. sounds weird, right???? i pushed it off for a year and i regret that so much. tied for my favorite star wars book.

the high republic. not a single book but an entire era that takes a look at the jedi order ~250 yrs before the prequels. it’s a collection of adult/YA/middle grade books, comics, and eventually a disney+ show (the acolyte). if you want something completely new, this is it! here’s a list with the reading order. i’ve personally only read the adult + YA books and i’ve really enjoyed them and haven’t felt like i’ve missed out by not reading everything.

some other notable mentions

ahsoka by e.k. johnston. this author’s books definitely feel more “YA” than others, but it’s well worth reading if you’re a fan of clone wars, rebels, or you’re interested in the formation of the rebellion.

the padme trilogy by e.k. johnston. same as above, but they’re a super quick read + really add to the prequels, especially the phantom menace. 

a new dawn by john jackson miller. the first canon book published and you can tell. definitely not my favorite, but it’s worth reading if you’re a fan of rebels. it’s way too focused on the horrible action plot and doesn’t give us much on hera, but it adds a lot to kanan’s history as a padawan + after order 66.

resistance reborn by rebecca roanhorse. if you want more from the sequels (including a whole page of finnpoe content) look no further. best read after the two leia-centric books mentioned above. not star wars but this author's book "black sun" is very good.

i’ve only read a handful of legends books (most are way too focused on the action for me) but here are some recs from that group

the revenge of the sith novelization by matthew woodring stover. like, yeah, it’s just a retelling of the movie we’ve all watched a million times but with extra scenes /and/ the character’s thoughts + feelings. makes it way more tragic. might contain a scene insinuating that obi-wan is hooking up with bail organa.

wild space by karen miller. a great look at obi-wan + anakin right after attack of the clones as they adjust to war, anakin adjusts to having a padawan, and obi-wan tries to talk to him about his attachment to padme. but 90% of it is bail + obi-wan stuck together on a mission and, you guessed it, there’s a lot of sexual tension.

the jedi apprentice series by jude watson. i literally started reading these bc i didn’t understand some references to obi-wan’s past in fanfic lol. 150-200 pages each, they’re short and simple but add a lot to obi-wan’s story as a padawan. most consider these canon.

youtini.com is a great source for both canon + legends, as well as r/starwarsbooks (except for their obsession with thrawn [puke])

btw you can get a lot of books on thriftbooks for FB marketplace for v cheap.

they are so many star wars books so if you’re looking for a particular character/era/story, let me know!!

[fiercestpurpose]

Intro Guide to Star Wars Comics

There are a lot of Star Wars comics, and they don’t even all take place in the same timeline as all the other ones, so this is a basic guide. It certainly does not list all the comics. It is just meant to be a useful guide for people who might want to delve deeper into Star Wars continuity.

Continuity note: In 2014, Disney announced that it was going to be making a new Star Wars trilogy. In order to make new continuity, Disney retconned away the Legends continuity that had been built up over the course of nearly forty years. Some things were held over as canon, including (of course) the original trilogy, the sequel trilogy, and The 2008 Clone Wars TV series. However, the novels, stories, video games, and comics that were part of the Legends canon were placed aside in favor of a new Disney canon.

Star Wars comics are divided into three main eras: first Marvel era, Dark Horse era, and second Marvel era , which is the current one. The first Marvel era and the Dark Horse era are in the pre-2014 Legends continuity, and the second Marvel era is in the new Disney canon.

Marvel Comics (1970s and 80s)

The original Star Wars comics were published by Marvel, which acquired the rights to comic book adaptations before the first film was released. Indeed, Star Wars #1 was released a month before Star Wars opened in theaters. These comics are fun and interesting from an historical perspective, but they are not especially important to continuity. Many of the things established in these comics are directly contradicted by later canon (such as Bespin having a solid surface), although some characters introduced here are later important to Legends canon (such as Lumiya).

Star Wars (1977) - The main series. It starts with a retelling of Star Wars and then goes on to fill in the gap between the films. Goes on until after the events of Return of the Jedi. A lot of Luke, Leia, Han, and Lando running around and having episodic adventures.

Star Wars: Ewoks (1985) - This one is fun. Magic, princesses, evil witches, heroes, and, most importantly, ewoks!

Star Wars: Droids (1986) - Read this comic if you want to see Threepio being in love with Artoo. I don’t think anything else happens in this comic, but boy is Threepio in love with Artoo.

Dark Horse (1990s-2010s)

This is where Legends continuity begins to get serious. Many of the comics produced during this time tie into some other piece of media, such as a video game or a novel or a television series, and many of them tie into and influence each other. There are several different eras of Star Wars history here, and the comics are as good a place to start exploring them as any.

Star Wars (1998) - Starting in 2002 with issue #46, this comic was known as Star Wars: Republic. This comic is set primarily during the prequel trilogy and mostly focuses on the Jedi Order and The Clone Wars. Read this to learn more about Quinlan Vos, Ki-Adi Mundi, Plo Koon, Aayla Secura, and the rest of the Jedi before and during The Clone Wars.

Star Wars: Empire (2002) - This comic is set near the end of the Empire’s rule and follows such figures as Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and various Stormtroopers as they attempt to root out enemies and fight rebels. (Spoiler alert: The Empire loses.)

Star Wars Tales (1999) - This series collects multiple shorter stories in each issue. Many of the stories featured here (including the Force-sensitive droid and the time Luke wandered into a sandstorm on Tatooine and met Anakin) are not canon even in Legends continuity, but they are interesting and fun.

Knights of the Old Republic (2006) - A series set during the Old Republic era. It centers on a Padawan who, after being framed for the murder of other Padawans, has to go on the run and find out what is really going on. The comic is set before the video game of the same name.

Dark Empire (1991) - This comic, along with the two sequel miniseries Dark Empire II and Empire’s End, follows Luke, Han, and Leia as they fight against Palpatine, who has resurrected himself via cloning.

Knight Errant (2010) - This comic, along with the two sequels Deluge (2011) and Escape (2012), is about the adventures of a lone Jedi Knight during the Old Republic era who gets stuck all alone in Sith space.

Star Wars: Legacy (2006) and Legacy (2013) - These are set during the Legacy era, more than one hundred years after the end of the original trilogy. The first series follows Cade Skywalker, a Force-sensitive who does not want to be a Jedi, and the second follows Ania Solo, a junkyard owner who is just trying to stay alive. This is as far into the future as the Legends timeline goes.

This is just a small selection. There are a lot of Dark Horse comics in every era of Legends, and once you start getting into the thick of it, you can see that the continuity is pretty complex and interrelated.

Marvel Comics (2010s-present)

I may be biased, but this is probably the best era for comics. These are written and illustrated by some of the most talented people working in comics today (and I am aware that that does make me sound like a press release). The rebooted canon also makes this a great place for people who are not long-time fans of the series to jump in, as you don’t need to worry about all the Legends characters and plot points. (That said, I will always be bitter that Disney decided to end the Legends canon.)

Star Wars (2015) - Like the original 1977 series, this comic takes place in between Episodes IV and V, following the adventures of Luke, Leia, and Han as they assist the Rebel Alliance and fight the Empire.

Shattered Empire (2015) - Released in the lead up to The Force Awakens, this comic introduced the characters of Shara Bey and Kes Dameron, Poe’s parents, and follows them in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Endor.

Chewbacca (2015), Lando (2015), Princess Leia (2015) - Marvel released these miniseries to highlight the individual characters. Chewbacca crash lands and finds himself in charge of helping a young girl, Lando pulls off a dangerous heist with the help of some unsavory characters, and Leia struggles with what it means to be the princess of a planet that no longer exists.

Darth Vader (2015) - Follows the adventures of Darth Vader. Closely related to Star Wars (2015) but showing the other side of the story. This comic is also notable for its introduction of the character of Doctor Aphra, who would later get her own spin-off series.

Poe Dameron (2016) - The adventures of Poe and Black Squadron as they fight the First Order under the instruction of General Leia Organa. This series has the best canon characterization of Poe that you’ll find anywhere.

Obi-Wan and Anakin (2016) - Set a few years after The Phantom Menace, this comic tells a story of a time when Anakin almost left the Jedi Order and how Obi-Wan convinced him to stay.

That’s a lot of comics! And that’s just a part of what the wonderful, confusing, exhausting world of Star Wars comics has to offer. I hope this guide provides some useful information for people who might want to get into reading comics in canon either old or new. And if you need or want any more information, Wookiepedia has a complete list of all Star Wars comics that you can refer to.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #481

Top Ten Pixar Villains

Those rascals and rapscallions at Pixar are famous for twisting our emotions, aren’t they? Perverse masters at making us cry with sadness or joy, often at the same time (I’m looking at you, Inside Out, with your yellow and blue marbles). Oh yes, they’ll stick the knife in and give it a good old yank, like John Travolta teaches his daughter to do in Face/Off when he’s not really John Travolta and it’s a bit icky but then she stabs him at the end of the film so it’s alright really.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. Pixar, renowned for turning grown men into blubbering messes, mostly because an adult character was convinced to part with old toys he no longer plays with. But I’d argue that one thing they’ve done less well than their parent studio (that’s Disney) is crafting iconic baddies. I mean, we all know the Disney Villains; they’re so iconic and successful as pop culture icons that there’s an entire trilogy of movies based on what would happen if a bunch of them had kids (apparently they’d sing a lot). Pixar baddies though? Hmmm, maybe not quite so iconic. I can’t see someone making a live action prequel movie about Chef Skinner.

But that’s not to say they’re not great; in fact, rather than going down the route of snarling, moustache-twirling villainy, Pixar actually does a great job in creating antagonists instead. Sometimes they’re misunderstood; sometimes they’re not the person you thought they were! Quite often some kind of redemption is offered, and the villains are very, very rarely dropped off something tall. A lot of them aren’t even defeated, so to speak! A good deal of nuance and shade goes into a Pixar villain, and if they haven’t made as many all-time-great iconic ne’er-do-wells, it does seem as if their approach is starting to rub off on Disney mothership (the likes of Frozen II and Moana either don’t have, or at least subvert, the notion of all-powerful bad guys).

So what do we have? Well, hopefully, we’ve got a list of really cool villains from Pixar movies. most of them are presented as the film’s “big bad”, although there are a couple of lesser baddies. And I think we do see the pattern emerging, of more mundane levels of villainy; the selfish and greedy and damaged. It makes for great characterisation and some beautiful storytelling; some complex and pitiable characters. And, yes, a few absolute bastards too. Let’s tut disapprovingly.

Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear (Ned Beatty, Toy Story 3, 2010): a superb performance from Beatty as a seemingly nice, jovial old bear who’s really a manipulative, power-hungry, gaslighting bully. Realistically portrayed as damaged and bitter, he has a tragic backstory that feels real, and a sense of pain and loss that feels earned in this universe. Questions the nature of everything the movies are about, and is a genuine threat in more ways than one. Plus he literally leaves them all to die in the furnace!

Syndrome (Jason Lee, The Incredibles, 2004): Buddy Pine’s backstory is one of belittlement and rejection, so his switch to villainy is as well explored as many a comic book bad guy. But he’s interesting partly in what his character says about Mr. Incredible – in a way justifying the criticisms of superheroes, as Mr. I does ignore the admittedly-annoying Buddy rather than mentoring or respecting him – but also because he prefigures notions of toxic masculinity about a decade or so before they became, well, a threat to global democracy.

Al (Wayne Knight, Toy Story 2, 1999): Like how Lots-o can be seen as a dark examination of toy life (all toys are replaceable, kids don’t really love you, etc), Al also shows us another dark facet of toy-dom: namely the life of a “collectable”. Toys, in this world, want to be played with, preferably by children, so a big ol’ man-child who stores them in boxes or puts them on display is not ideal. It’s an inversion of what a toy is for; an object of joy reduced to a commodity. Is it entertainment versus art? Who can say? Also, he’s really just a massive jerk and a huge slob, so we feel no pity for him once he gets his comeuppance at the end of the film.

Sid Phillips (Erik von Detten, Toy Story, 1995): man, they nailed the Toy Story villains, didn’t they? Maybe there’s even more to come! But right out of the gate, Sid was a classic. An utter sadist in a skull t-shirt, torturing toys for kicks; adults can see the traits of a genuine sociopath (some serial killers start by torturing animals, remember!), and he’s portrayed like a character in a horror movie. Seriously, in 1995, Sid’s room was legitimately disturbing. I’m not sure what moral lessons his actions teach us, but just as a pure article of terror, he’s supreme.

Hopper (Kevin Spacey, A Bug’s Life, 1998): it feels a bit weird, if I’m honest, to celebrate a Spacey performance. But as a character, Hopper is excellent, one of the best things about the generally-overlooked-but-still-a-bit-lesser-Pixar Bug’s Life. Riffing on biker gangs, Hopper’s locust swarm in, revving their wings. Hopper’s a classic tough guy thug, dominating through violence and threat; a creature with a small amount of power determined to hold onto it, and ultimately eaten by a terrifying bird. Just don’t look at the cast list.

Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt, Coco, 2017): after the horror of Sid and the thuggery of Hopper, de la Cruz is a different, more insidious villain. He’s a thief and a betrayer who exploited and murdered his best friend, condemning him not just to death but to a forgotten obsolescence in the afterlife. He’s a perfect example of the gaslighting, friendly-seeming bad guy, more in the mould of Lots-o, but with the world on his side and a sweet guitar. Genuinely hissable.

Stinky Pete (Kelsey Grammar, Toy Story 2, 1999): what, more Toy Story? Well, yeah. Don’t blame me, blame Pixar. And so Stinky Pete; a far more relatable and understandable villain, one driven to desperation through a lifetime of rejection and broken promises. Unlike the Machiavellian, power-hungry Lots-o, Pete just wants everyone to retire quietly together; he can’t accept the risks of freedom and only becomes sneaky and, indeed, violent after all else fails. But he does kinda get a happy ending, even if he doesn’t realise it; this is a villain who I feel could eventually be redeemed.

Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi, Monsters, Inc., 2001): Waternoose is the real baddy in Monsters, Inc., of course; a conniving capitalist who’s prepared to sacrifice the world’s children to keep his monopoly. But it’s Randy who sticks in the mind; his selfish, vain lackey, a monster with a huge chip on his shoulder. His design – lizard-like, snake-ish, with a huge mouth and invisibility – is seriously disturbing. Hearing Buscemi’s voice come from that form – an aggravated teacher, a furious accountant – adds something special, something darkly hilarious.

Evelyn Deavor (Catherine Keener, Incredibles 2, 2018): visually and conceptually, The Screenslaver (great name) is pretty cool, but when it’s revealed that the Big Bad is really under-appreciated tech genius Evelyn, that’s a great twist. A smart woman propping up her schmoozing brother, her criticisms of the heroes – like Buddy Pine’s – have resonance, although she’s learning the wrong lessons from tragedy. Her relationship with Elastigirl, from friendship to enmity, is very well-written and performed, and her belligerence at the end is a nice touch, denying the heroes of any catharsis from her capture.

Shelby Forthright (Fred Willard, WALL-E, 2008): I was originally going to feature the autopilot, but then I figured, if you can get Fred Willard in your list… and really, who’s the big villain here? It’s us, right? We killed the Earth. But Willard’s smiling, happy CEO is there, encouraging his customers to buy, promising them safety and security, promising them a repaired world… but really he’s shovelling them off the planet, secretly commanding the computer to take humanity far away and never look back. It’s a devious, horrible plan, giving the people unending luxury, making them want for nothing, turning them into fab, soporific blobs, basically because that’s easier than the alternative. It’s a horrible indictment of humanity (also: he’s the CEO of a company, but also – it looks like – that makes him rule the world? Creepy). So, yeah, the autopilot might be a baddun, but it’s the man in charge who’s the real villain of the piece, even hundreds of years later.

Sadly no room for John Lasseter, who may not have tried to enslave humanity or torture children, but still managed to be a huge jerk and a phenomenal disappointment.

[starwarshyperdrive]

I’m concerned about the Star Wars canon

I’ve always been a huge Star Wars fan but didn't follow the old EU (extended universe) because it was too convoluted and well.. a bunch of gobbledygook (granted there were some good bits in it, who doesn’t love the Thrawn trilogy even though he is pretty much a different character now), so I actually welcomed the new canon. Start over with a clean slate and make sure everything is connected, makes sense and feels Star Warsy. So far the story group has done a decent job, even though there were some questionable bits and pieces. As hardcore Star Wars fan and apologist I can force myself to get behind a lot of things and I was cool with the Bendu somehow, but the Clone Wars Mortis arc, as well as space whales and the world between worlds really rubbed me the wrong way. A lot of people are celebrating Dave Filoni as savior of the true Star Wars spirit and he is certainly an inspired artist and nice guy but I once again have to wonder whether or not some of the comic bookish stuff REALLY fits the Star Wars universe. Yeah I know ‘it’s a huge universe bla bla’ but do we really have to accept everything?

Someone recently described hardcore fans (such as myself) as a ‘cult’ and Star Wars Celebration to a religious ceremony and if I’m being honest and self-reflective I can’t really argue against it, but that’s also why you always need to check yourself and not just ‘swallow’ everything without questioning it. Keep a critical eye. Things like time travel and other super hero stuff ( I haven’t seen any of the recent Marvel or DC movies) have no place in Star Wars. Of course Star Wars is for everyone, but does that then also mean we need a Star Wars romcom, a Star Wars coming of age movie ..or ..?  I don’t know..porn? Leave that to fan fiction. 

Star Wars was always more about mythology, some sort of buddhist Excalibur and I am seriously concerned that at some point the ‘people in charge’ will forget that and it will become a shallow bubble gum entertainment focus on ‘what is selling at the moment’. A good example are - again - all the super hero movies picking up on trends. I don’t want a Thor Ragnarok Star Wars movie with a Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack. Don’t make everything the same. Keep Star Wars unique. Keep ‘that Star Wars tone’.

‘XY doesn’t UNDERSTAND Star Wars’ is an overused and abused phrase and in so many ways pointless as there are many facets to Star Wars especially now that we have generations of fans who grew up with the prequels, the Clone Wars, Rebels or even Resistance - I should point out that I actually liked Resistance because it’s not tempering with the mythology - but the lore has been laid out in the original trilogy and everything needs to acknowledge that. We cannot have some Terminator-franchise kind of disaster a la ‘Ezra traveled back in time and actually was there with Yoda on Dagobah’ or what not. 

By now it’s common knowledge that - despite what they say - there has been no overall plan for the sequel trilogy, which is quite concerning and feeding into my concerns that it’s all downhill from here (after The Rise of Skywalker and the Mandalorian or course). I know a lot of people who vehemently defended The Last Jedi when it came out, mostly as a reaction to all the stupid hate it got for the wrong reasons and I am one of them myself, but most of them are admitting now that there is something off about the movie. It is written into a corner and not picking up on the clues given in The Force Awakens. It has some amazing scenes and I will keep defending it, but there are some scenes that just don’t feel right and leave a bad aftertaste. I frequently rewatch all the movies and besides Attack of the Clones it’s the only one where I think ‘Now I have to endure THAT bit again’. I go to a lot of Q&A and it’s interesting to see how people who have worked on the movie feel the same. Even if you 100% loved it and it’s your favorite movie ever, let’s be honest - the humor is completely out of place. Fart jokes in The Phantom Menace > Your Mom jokes. And it’s just too long. Of course we all want MORE Star Wars, but where does it end. Would you go and see a 6h movie? If you are a good filmmaker you should be able to say what you want to say in the same about of time as the other movies. But that’s just my personal 2 cents. It just felt like someone who was hellbent on doing his own thing for the sake of doing his own thing and not for the sake of the story. Don’t get me wrong. It was a great idea to (spoiler alert) kill off Snoke that casually, so the movie has redeeming qualities that save it for me. Then again, as a Star Wars fan I WANT to like it. I still watched it 13 times or so. I was in the room for the trailer reveal at SWCO. I want to take ownership and be part of the hardcore fan community, but they shouldn't bank too much on it. I still want a good movie. I’m not gonna be meek and mild about something contradicting the core mythology. Ryan Johnson is allegedly still doing his trilogy and then there is the Benioff and Weiss trilogy. They didn’t exactly do a great job wrapping up Game of Thrones and left fans in awe about how the show ended and have not really proven that they can handle a franchise well either. Will all off them have free rein and just go to town on a Star Wars story as they please? Am I the only one who finds this a bit odd?!

I trust JJ Abrams to do the right thing and I hope my trust is not misplaced. I think the allegations of The Force Awakens being a A New Hope reboot are misplaced as there are also a lot of similarities to The Phantom Menace, so.. if you’re a fan you know what comes next.. ‘it rhymes, it’s like poetry’. So it makes sense. So I think ‘he gets it’..

My main concern in the new canon overall. I made an effort to get all the publications of the new canon, but the books and comics already started to get weird again. Star Wars always had a slight alien but yet familiar vibe and some stories feature people smoking cigars, drinking coffee in the morning and doing other stuff never depicted in Star Wars before. How long until someone gets a Star Wars burger at Star Wars McDonalds or orders Star Wars pizza while watching Star Wars HoloNetflix. I’m sorry. That’s ridiculous. It’s not automatically Star Wars just because you use Star Wars terminology like death sticks or Nerf steaks. Watch the movies and make an effort.

 And now the novelizations of the movies are apparently not considered ‘hard canon’ anymore because the authors didn’t know the direction the next movies are going, so the clues and hints may be completely useless. So why do I force myself through some really not very good books then (others are great, no generalization here)? That’s quite alarming. Wasn’t the entire reason they got a story group to avoid that? What’s with all the loose ends?  That's also why I think they will shy away from using canon characters in the movies (for the most part). Its easier to have a self contained canon universe where you can introduce Purge Troopers in a comic and then have them in a video game. I once read an interview with one of the Star Wars authors who invented a character and then got told ‘give him that name / make him this person’ instead of having this particular character in mind from the start. This is how you lose consistency. I’m well aware that over hundreds and thousands of years that’s EXACTLY how ancient history was written, which is why there are flood legends all over the world and why Jesus and Mithras are pretty much the same person, but they DID NOT HAVE A STORY GROUP and ancient mythology hasn’t been written over a course of a few years.

At the same time it’s interesting how there seem to be purists who are very determined to bring that original Star Wars vibe back. Like Jon Favreau with The Mandalorian. And like I said earlier about Resistance. Its so much easier to do that if you stay away from the mythology. It’s really tricky and so much could go wrong. The stuff introduced in Rogue One like Guardians of the Whills and the temple of Kyber is a perfect example how it’s done. Some of the stuff in the Clone Wars and Rebels is the complete opposite, so I’m really curious to see how Dave Filonis involvement in The Mandalorian pans out. He is really great with stuff like Mandalorians, Clones and I even came to accept Ashoka after reading the book and seeing her all grown up as Fulcrum, but I’m very skeptical when it comes to his ‘mystical side of the force’ interpretations.

In conclusion I know that I sound like a preacher and George Lucas repeatedly stated it’s ‘just for 10 year old kids’ but tell that to all the dead Bothans.

Please just don’t ruin Star Wars.

[takerfoxx]

Gonna knock off some big ones here! The fav(s) of the day are...

BOBA FETT!

Okay guys, let’s get this out straight out of the gate. I grew up as a major Star Wars fan. My dad is an old-school sci-fi nerd and it really rubbed off on me. Classic science fiction was our bread and butter growing up, and the Star Wars movies were no exception. We must’ve watched those suckers a gazillion times.

And the expanded universe? Oh, I was all over that shit! And I mean the old stuff! The Truce at Bakura, the Heir to the Empire trilogy, the Kyp Durron trilogy, both the Han Solo and Lando Calrissian trilogies (there were a lot of trilogies), Darksaber, Planet of Twilight, Shadows of the Empire, The Courtship of Princess Leia, Young Han Solo, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, the Young Jedi Knight series, all of the Tales books, Galaxy of Fear, even less well regarded stuff like The Crystal Star. All that and more filled my bookshelves.

But like many young Star Wars fans, my boy was the guy that got like four lines of dialogue and quickly gets killed off in the first half of the third film.

It’s hard to really articulate what made Boba Fett so appealing. I think it’s part of the air of mystery around him. In Empire, he strides in with a totally badass design, is the guy to track down and capture the heroes, backtalks Darth Vader and gets away with it, and escapes with one of the main characters in tow. I guess that caused people to become intrigued by him and want to see what he would do in the last film. And sure enough, he shows up looking all cool and mysterious, flies into a direct confrontation with both Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, seems to get the upper hand...and is summarily dispatched by a fluke accident.

Lame.

So I guess many who would become Star Wars writers were, like myself, let down by this, and sought to “correct” this by giving ol’ Boba his own mythos, complex history, cast of closely-related characters, and make it so that he escaped the damn worm and would go on to cross paths with the heroes in every obligatory “The one with Boba Fett!” entry in every long-running Star Wars book series ever.

And boy, did I eat it up!

The Bounty Hunter Wars! An entry in both Tales From the Bounty Hunters and Tales From Jabba’s Palace! Endless comics! The aforementioned obligatory Boba Fett books! All of this created a character that became almost revered by the fandom, who cast a shadow over the whole multi-verse. I bought the books, played with the toys, and even wrote a short little Boba Fett story in sixth grade. I mean, this guy was just cool.

Needless to say, I’m not the Star Wars fan I once was. I mean, the only one of these movies since RotJ that I’ve actually liked is also one of the least popular, so that’s a thing. Hell, I was debating putting up a Star Wars entry to begin with. But man, even if I’m not all that into Star Wars anymore, it can’t be denied that for a time it reigned supreme, and Boba Fett was, in my world, the king.

(Though lowkey, it was kind of hilarious watching writers try to reconcile the already established Boba Fett origin with the one created by the prequels after Attack of the Clones dropped)

He’s no good to me dead.

Also...

DARTH REVAN!

So I went from almost not doing a Star Wars entry to doing one with multiple characters. Yeah, go figure.

All right. So, Knights of the Old Republic is probably my last great foray into Star Wars before sort of slipping out of the fandom. It was recommended to me by a work friend, so I popped over to EB Games (remember them?), grabbed up a used copy, popped it into my X-Box, and...

I think I averaged about eight hours a day on those games. Each of them.

It was one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had, a wholly new Star Wars story taking place centuries before the films (and yet somehow still having the same technology level) that features none of the classic characters, but still felt very much Star Wars, but also its own thing: a sprawling space adventure as you, the apprentice Jedi, joins up with a ragtag group of companions and travel the galaxy trying to thwart a rogue Sith Lord from finding some long lost superweapon. The worlds you visit! The characters you meet! The quests, the leveling, the force powers, the plot, everything was just so fresh and so cool!

And then you get to the twist, a twist that is now notorious for being one of the best twists in gaming history: finding out that you aren’t just some new Jedi rising up to stop a Sith Lord: you are actually DARTH MOTHERFUCKING REVAN, the Sith Lord that was the master of the current Sith Lord, long thought dead but had actually been captured, mind-wiped and reprogrammed by the Jedi! What do you do with this new information? Well, that’s up to you!

Needless to say, when this was revealed in the game, I started screaming, and screaming loudly. What a twist! What a game-changer! 

Now granted, being the PC of an RPG means that Revan’s personality was decided by the player’s choices, so he didn’t get much of a canon personality of his own, but that still doesn’t change the fact that he’s the centerpoint of one of the coolest pieces of the Star Wars EU that there is, and that’s worth a lot in my opinion.

Also, Bastila was bae, just sayin’. Sort of a proto-Serana, if you ask me.

(note: yes, I know about his role in SWTOR and don’t care for it. No, I haven’t read the novels yet, but I do intend to)

Honor is a fool's prize. Glory is of no use to the dead.

And finally...

GRAND ADMIRAL THRAWN!

The Heir to the Empire is the granddaddy of the OG Expanded Universe. I mean, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye technically came first, but no one remembers that. No, it was all about Timothy Zahn’s epic follow-up to the original Star Wars trilogy, which set the gold standard for the series for years to come and also introduced several of its most iconic characters. Mara Jade? She came from here. Talon Kardde? Also here.

And then you have the trilogy’s centerpiece, Grand Admiral Thrawn.

It’s sort of interesting how iconic Thrawn has become as a Star Wars villain, given how different he is from all of them. I mean, he’s not a Sith. Hell, he’s not force sensitive at all. He’s a military officer, in a series where they tend to be treated as expendable underlings. But through actually using his brain, studying his opponents’ strategies and cultures, making use of the resources available to him, and actually being fair to his subordinates, he’s gone on to almost rival Darth Vader in popularity in some circles. A brilliant tactician who managed to (mostly) overcome the Empire’s prejudice against non-humans through sheer efficiency, he came incredibly close to bringing the New Republic to its knees simply by outplaying them at every turn. His knack for figuring out his opponents’ thought process simply through studying their cultures’ works of art was inspired, and those who tried to outsmart him often came to regret it. What was more, he also was surprisingly honorable, having a strict moral code. He simply believed that the Empire was the best way to run things, and acted accordingly. Though don’t let that fool you into thinking that he wasn’t just as ruthless as anyone else in the Empire. He was just smarter than most about it.

While there was admittedly a lot of crap in the EU that Disney was wise to get rid of, losing characters like Thrawn was a major blow, which was why it was so awesome to see him return in the Rebels tv show. I literally have seen videos of grown men crying with joy just through watching his reveal trailer. And while I don’t have the time or means to watch Rebels for myself, I do want to give it a go sometime in the future, and Thrawn is a big part of that.

But it was so artistically done.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

I want to use Star Wars to discuss my feelings on modern Spider-Man

SPOILERS for the Last Jedi coming up.

 Okay so anyone who’s been following me for a while should be aware I hate Slott’s run and modern Spider-Man in general (a few exceptions not withstanding).

 Often times I’ve heard my criticisms and complaints shot down or countered (even with people who’s preferences for Spidey echo my own) with the argument that I am biased in favour of the type of Spider-Man status quo I  grew up with and that now I’m older I just don’t like the new stuff and am letting my biases taint that.

 Obviously this most obviously manifests in the form of ‘you just don’t like it because Spider-Man isn’t married anymore’. Similarly I hear comments like “You only like Renew Your Vows BECAUSE Spider-Man is married in it’.

 Here is the thing. Ever since 2006 or so I’ve made a very conscious effort to try and draw lines of distinction between what I critically evaluate and what I simply like or dislike.

 As I define it, liking and disliking something is involuntary. It’s sit back consume a story and let yourself feel about it however you are going to feel about it. It’s something you can’t really help or control.

 Critical analysis is a little different because you are really looking for points of praise or condemnation. That’s you looking at a story and really asking what it is trying to do and how well it succeeds at doing that whilst being aware of what you personally enjoy and do not enjoy but trying to rise above that.

 One is subjective and the other is trying to be as objective as possible.

  I place zero stock in the lazy post-modern notion that the latter is beyond all possibility and does not exist. Writing is a craft and human beings are biologically geared to tell and consume stories. It literally chemically stimulates us. It’s why jokes work. Jokes with no set up or pay off do not work specifically because the human mind is geared towards that construction. Similarly it is the reason so much of human culture relies upon a rhythm involving the number three. For whatever reason that number and rhythm just resonates with us. So yeah, objectively good and objectively bad storytelling are a thing although it’s not a one size fits all thing. Depending upon the genre or the intentions of the story the criteria for its success or failure can change. A romantic comedy and an action thriller don’t have identical criteria for what makes a good story within those genres.

 Anyway, in a sense I always have 2 opinions on any given story I consume. One opinion on how good it was and one opinion on whether I personally enjoyed it and I do my utmost to NOT conflate the two. Of course there are happy instances where my enjoyment is in line with something being good or stems from the fact that it is good.

 Star Wars is always my main example to demonstrate this.

 From a critical point of view I can write you long essays on why A New Hope and the Empire Strikes Back are such powerful movies that succeed at what they are trying to do and why Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones are such bad examples of storytelling and filmmaking.

 I can tell you why Revenge of the Sith from a storytelling/filmmaking point of view has a lot of problems that means at the end of the day it isn’t really a good movie, just better than it’s predecessor prequels.

 However I can also tell you from the bottom of my heart that Revenge of the Sith is unquestionably my absolute favourite Star Wars movie, although I could only offer speculation as to why that is. For whatever reason I just adore that film more than all the other SW films even though I fully recognize it’s flaws for the most part and agree it’s inferior to the original trilogy.

 And I do this with Spider-Man too.

 The Death of Jean DeWolff from a strictly storytelling (not social/political POV though) is utterly fantastic whilst Spider-Man Torment is garbage. But I am indifferent to the former whilst I adore the latter, likely due to nostalgia.

 I have nostalgia for Spider-Man Torment but I have taken enough of a step back to really look at it and recognize it as mostly a mess by an artist with no experience writing trying to put out 5 issues worth of what he thinks would be kewl.

 I do not think it’s good. I just like it is all.

 So then we come to the modern era of Spider-Man and Star Wars and I’ve noticed more than a few similarities between the latest movie and the last several years of Spidey comics.

 Namely that there is a clear division within the audience, with the majority displeased with the content but nevertheless often drowned out and dismissed by it’s protractors, chiefly int he form of professional critics.

 Now in my view, most professional film critics are much more qualified to do their jobs than most ‘professional’ comic book critics. I’m of the opinion most film critics frankly forget that part of their jobs is to actually try and look at the film a bit more objectively than everyone else as opposed to just throwing out their own preferences for or against it and passing it off as coming from an enlightened place. But nevertheless I believe in their analytical abilities more than your average comic book reviewer on places like CBR who I thoroughly disbelieve have any really noteworthy experience or qualifications to analyse literature at all.

 To make matters worse, whilst I’m uncertain if this is an issue within film criticism as well, comic book criticism has the huge problem of having a vested financial interest in being supportive of the companies output and agenda no matter what. When the EIC of Marvel has/had a regular column on CBR’s website you should be able to tell they’re not going to be honest or accurate in their evaluation of Marvel’s output. This is why for any faults you can come up with about it, smaller fan driven sites are usually going to be more honest and even handed with their reviews of titles.

 Film criticism isn’t like that in my view and if a film sucks or a critic doesn’t like it is more likely than not that the film is going to get slated.

 The flipside to this is when a film that is aggressively and obviously bad gets praise and, as has been explained by other people more learned than me, this has a lot to do with critics living in a bubble due to their job. A film that is bad but subverts expectations is likely to hit more with critics than general audiences because critics see so many films that the tropes, formula and usual tricks become stale to them as they grow more desensitized to them. I love Disney movies but make me watch Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and a few other movies like that in one day and I’m likely going to love something subversive among their canon much more.

 This is a massive component to the Last Jedi’s generally favourable place among many professional critics. It very deliberately subverts expectations and critics reacted positively to that because it was so refreshing for them. Refreshing to the point where they were willing apparently to forgive the films numerous and serious problems. Perhaps the most serious of which was its complete and utter betrayal of the core defining philosophies of the Star Wars films as a whole and of one of it’s most central figures, Luke Skywalker.

 Closely tied into this is the fact that whilst professional critics have probably seen other Star Wars movies, probably liking at least A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, statistically it’s unlikely that many of them, let alone anything close to a majority are fans to the point where they really spend any amount of time thinking about the movies after throwing out their reviews for them.

 I regard anyone with any interest in a story they’ve consumed to be a fan of said story but there are degrees of fandom. Whilst the 5 year old who just got done seeing A New Hope is 100% a fan it is foolish to argue they are fan to the degree as the 20 year old who has seen all the movies, written essays about them, dived into the expanded spin-off material and otherwise thought a lot about the franchise. Which isn’t saying older fans are MORE fans of something than younger ones.

 Case in point. Joe Quesada wrote a Spider-Man story that totally betrays the character and the defining philosophy of the series despite being a fan for longer than a sizable chunk of it’s readership.

 My point is the majority of Star Wars fans DON’T like Last Jedi precisely because being blunt about it, they think about Star Wars more than the average critic and actually know much more about it.

 They also see the film on two levels and prioritize both whilst critics only look at it on one of those levels, or at least prioritize that level above the other. Those levels being the film as an entity unto itself as well as part of a larger story.

 Film critics look at Last Jedi as a film unto itself more than they look at it as a sequel to the Force Awakens and apparently pay little mind to its place within the soon to be 9 film saga. For them the here and the now is absolutely the most or only important thing whereas for fans the here and now is 100% important but the past movies and broader universe is equally important.

 Now of course it is not JUST film critics who’ve praised Last Jedi. Non-professionals, including some fans (casual or otherwise) have as well. But in my observations thus far it is interesting to note that most people of this group are either rather young or decidedly older.

 In other words non-professional proponents of the Last Jedi are either people for whom the experience is rather formative in their history and relationship with Star Wars or people who statistically are much more likely to be cynical and jaded about...well most things in like actually.

 Which makes sense because for the former group they’re more likely to be impressionable and lack developed critical evaluation skills and are just hyped about seeing a rousing special effects driven action flick on the big screen. Meanwhile for the latter group the film’s cynicism likely speaked to them and was offering something new in a film franchise where they’ve believed they’ve seen all they can. Plus even if they are older that doesn’t mean they’re particularly good about analysis and can therefore not see how the film is in fact rather derivative in various ways.

  And as I said for these proponents of the movie the loud cries of defiance over the Last Jedi from the majority (and yes, it is the majority) of Star Wars fandom the primary tactic against detractors is to delegitimize their complaints. Mainly through deriding them for being too in love with nostalgia or recognizing that things need to ‘change’ and ‘be new’.

 This is all eerily echoes countless examples I’ve witnessed within Spider-Man fandom.

 ·         Professional critics not actually that familiar with the franchise heaping praise upon the latest issues mostly because it’s new to them and because they prioritize the quality of the latest content over the bigger picture (a bigger picture they aren’t necessarily invested enough in to properly criticise the latest work).

 ·         Newer fans who honestly don’t know enough about the franchise to see the problems in the latest material that is formative to their relationship with it.

 ·         Older fans who’re jaded and therefore supportive of taking the franchise in ‘new’ directions, even if those directions aren’t actually that new at all and overall damaging.

 ·         Fans basically tricked into seeing something flashy and ‘cool’ and generally a novelty as representing legitimate quality.

 ·         Delegitimizing the majority of fans who’re detractors of the material on the grounds that nostalgia is blinding them.

 Just using Slott’s run as a microcosm of this (because he is not the be all and end all of modern Spider-Man) we can see people fall all over his stories for being ‘new and fresh’ because they’re so used to what they perceive as the ‘standard’ Spider-Man.

 Street level, every man, limited gadgets, Bugle cast, down to Earth stories etc.

 So when Spidey is suddenly Doc Ock, or a tech billionaire, or dating Mockingbird it seems like something innovative when it isn’t.

 It’s a selling out and throwing away of the core values of the character and series just like Last Jedi was.

 You can be new and innovative whilst still respecting those.

 And it is stories like the ones I grew up on, the ones that these pro-Slott/modern Spidey fans use to attack fans like me, that prove that.

 Spider-Man returning to college. Harry Osborn dying. Peter becoming a teacher. The rise of Venom. Spider-Man marrying Mary.

 This mostly respect the core values of the franchise whilst still innovate something new that can challenge the character(s).

 They aren’t novelty for the sake of it and they are much more subtle than the flash nonsense Slott throws out.

 Which brings me to the fundamental lack of self-awareness and analysis of the ‘you just don’t like it because it’s not what you grew up on’ bullshit defenders of modern Spidey throw out.

 It’s a convenient argument to shut down all debate because it seemingly applies to everyone equally. You are only praising to criticising this thing because it is in line or out of line with the version of the series from when YOU were growing up. So your words mean nothing you are being a biased idiot, there is nothing wrong with this new stuff.

 But people are rather hypocritical about that now aren’t they.

 Because it’s blatantly obvious, rightly or wrongly, that there is a clear cut narrative at play within Marvel and within fandom in support of Marvel’s stance.

 Stan Lee/Ditko era Spider-Man when he was in high school is sacred, post high school Spider-Man is less sacred but still pretty sacred (especially the MP Trilogy and MJ’s introduction). Roger Stern Spider-Man was good. Death of Gwen Stacy is good. The marriage was bad. Everything in the 90s was bad. Everything else doesn’t matter at all except for everything post 2008 which has all been good.

 When you have multiple people within Marvel talking about how Spider-Man is defined by youth and the marriage was a mistake because of that and the Ditko run (especially when he was in high school) gets referenced more than literally anything else that isn’t the MP trilogy or Gwen Stacy’s death.

 So the ‘your childhood is blinding you’ argument already has a few cracks in it doesn’t it. It’s clear that there IS a quality judgement being made about different parts of the franchise by Marvel itself. Which is particularly galling because it’s blatant that post-OMD Spider-Man is essentially a gigantic nostalgia trip for the creators involved to recreating THEIR childhoods in direct reaction AGAINST the ‘wrong’ directions Spider-Man went in after whatever period they stopped considering the story legitimate.

 And in addition to that hypocrisy fans and creators will lambast whoever points this out and accuse them of doing the same thing if they do not consider post-OMD Spider-Man ‘legitimate’.

 But there is the rub isn’t it.

 There are genuinely incredibly strong valid reasons for NOT considering post-OMD Spider-Man legitimate in the grand scheme of the series much as there are totally valid reasons for not considering Last Jedi legitimate or a selling out on Star Wars’ core values and philosophies.

  The big one is that One More Day literally created a new alternate timeline meaning there are two distinct versions of the characters in play, a clearer watershed line in the franchise than anything else in it’s history. But even beyond that post-OMD Spider-Man has time and time again aggressively gone against the defined characterization and established intentions and philosophies of the Spider-Man franchise as a whole. I’ve already spoken about stuff in Slott’s run, but even the notion of Spider-Man as a representation of youth is anathema to what happened in Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s run on the character and the broader character arc for Peter Parker across the decades. In particular his becoming married as this is clearly in line with aspect of the Stan Lee run.

 Marriage is a responsibility and responsibility is the entire point of Spider-Man’s first ever appearance. Responsibility to family is clearly conveyed as a major priority within the Lee/Ditko/Romita run as Spider-Man is chiefly motivated by how he failed his father figure and strives to do right in supporting his mother. Later he tries to support Gwen Stacy whom he has ambitions to marry and to whom Lee originally intended him to wed. Even Mary Jane is first mentioned within the context of her becoming Peter’s wife someday. And of course his big three villains within the Lee run are in various ways tied into family dynamics. Doctor Octopus is associated with Aunt May. Norman Osborn is the father of Peter’s peer and friend Harry and their father/son dynamic is key to both characters. J. Jonah Jameson is introduced to us as admonishing Spider-Man in support of his own son John Jameson, the first person Spider-man ever saved as a superhero.

 The notion that finding a Spider-Man story or run that undercuts and sells out on the Spider Marriage to be bad merely because you have childhood nostalgia for it is ridiculous because the Spider Marriage itself is very strongly tied into the core philosophies of the series.

 It’s just as stupid as admonishing someone for being blinded by nostalgia for Return of the Jedi if they found Luke Skywalker’s characterization and direction in Last Jedi to be wrong and anathema to the series.

 In summary:

 No, this stuff isn’t strictly subjective.

 Yes people can be blinded by nostalgia.

 But no, that doesn’t mean they’re beyond capable of seeing things as what they are.

 Yes, their nostalgia CAN be in line with the objective reality of a piece of storytelling.

 Fact is that on a story telling level Last Jedi AND post-OMD Spider-Man have precious little redeeming value.

 Both sell out the characters and core philosophies of the franchises for the sake of shock and novelty and are therefore objectively bad examples of storytelling.

[alwaysbringabookwithyou]

Book: The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage

Author: Philip Pullman

Rating: 5*

Eleven-year-old Malcolm Polstead and his dæmon, Asta, live with his parents at the Trout Inn near Oxford. Across the River Thames (which Malcolm navigates often using his beloved canoe, a boat by the name of La Belle Sauvage) is the Godstow Priory where the nuns live. Malcolm learns they have a guest with them, a baby by the name of Lyra Belacqua

The long-awaited prequel to the His Dark Materials trilogy is finally here! I was lucky enough to be sent a copy free by Penguin as a reward for some work I did for them. They sent me the gorgeous hardcover that has a lovely dust jacket but is (in my opinion) even more lovely with just the naked hardcover.

It's been a long time since I read the original trilogy but I will be revisiting them soon after this. I don't remember much of my original reading experience as I was quite young except to say I liked the books but found the third book pretty dense at parts. 

As a result I feel like I actually enjoyed reading this book more, probably for mostly nostalgic reasons as it brought me simultaneously back to the golden age of reading children's fantasy books for the first time in childhood and to the halcyon days spent later in life in Oxford.

My decision to study at Exeter College (the inspiration for the fictional Jordan of the books) was partly informed by its rich literary tradition that I was (and am) burning to bolster. When I arrived in Oxford in the Autumn of 2013, shivering with fear and excitement and fatigue on the threshold of college I guess was searching for the kind of scholastic sanctuary that features in this book. 

Somewhere in those first few days someone related the urban legend among Oxford students of the intrepid undergrads that stole a boat and punted all the way to London. It's a silly story and one with dozens of variations, but it's something that came to mind when I was reading this book and I wondered if Pullman had heard the same story and it had made the same impression on him. Anyway, the whole book made me very nostalgic for the Oxford I love and the childhood I left behind.

As for the book itself it is pretty incredible. You can tell it was written by a master story-craftsman as it is just the right amount of tense and humorous. The comic levity interspersed throughout the book is brilliantly timed and often I laughed out loud. Pullman also has a gift for capturing the psychology and behaviours of children which I found was really enjoyable to read. The characters in this book are fantastic and complex and they have to be because so much of the action happens in La Belle Sauvage which is a small boat. This is the same kind of thought that struck me when I read Yann Martel's Life of Pi, that only a master storyteller could fit so much tension and wonder into such a small narrative space. It's what made people praise Terry Pratchett for his book The Carpet People because only a genius can fit a whole world into a rug.

So yes, within the book we return to the Oxford full of daemons and anbaric lamps and we experience a breathtaking river pursuit during a flood of diluvian proportions. 

As I was reading the similarities between this and CS Lewis's work danced in my memory, particularly the almost dreamscape writing of much of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. This was particularly interesting to me because although both men were Oxford educated and wrote fantasy, their ideas in many ways were polar opposites, particularly regarding organised religion. I'd like to look at that in more detail someday. The world-building and the detail in the book is incredible. The settings are so highly coloured it's like being there, and the catastrophic events that follow are so expertly written that the reading experience is a rollercoaster of emotion, taking you from the warm hearth of the Polsteads pub, to the bookish fireside of Dr Relf, to the cold and misery of the flood, to the terrifying darkness of a graveyard. In short, the characters are fantastic, the adventure is epic, the comedy is wry and often laugh out loud funny, and the writing is masterful. If you've read it too I'd love to hear your thoughts!!!

[simon-newman]

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

Three movies told the story of a young hero and his friends who went against all odds to destroy the evile empire ruled by the ruthless Sith Lords.

Master Luke Skywalker went a long way from an inexperienced teenager to a wise Jedi Master but one thing remained unchanged - his inner good and compassion that knew no bounds.

He became a beacon of hope for the entire galaxy and a symbol for generations of movie fans.

Much later three prequels were made to tell the story of Luke's father.

Those prequels were not nearly as good but they worked in the way they were supposed to - they told a story, expanded the existing characters and entertained the fans nonetheless.

 But the Dark and Evil empire of Disney is now at large and seeks to destroy what was has shaped two generations.

It's warped vision twists and distorts the galaxy as the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker is nowhere to be found.

Now - after two years - a young Mary Sue managed to find the Jedi Master hoping that he'll restore the balance.

   I guess you can already see where I am going with this review.

 A grumpy, nostalgic oldfag who's unable to let go of the story he grew up with and spits venom on new installment.

You'd be mostly correct. I am a fan of the Star Wars story and unlike many I find certain enjoyment in the prequel trilogy as well.

All six movies have certain magic to them. A magic of telling the story.

Like a good book - the Star Wars movies focus on the story foremost with special effects being only a bonus.

 Hell. I don't want to be disrespectful towards people responsible for other elements like the work of the actors or the awesome music in those movies - it's just not the main selling point for me.

 Yet here I am - after the trainwreck of a movie that The Force Awakens was I still went to see The Last Jedi expecting full well that it's going to suck and I sadly have to say - I was right. Again.

 Now where to start with the latest... Installment... To the franchise?

 Ok. I'll not go the usual way - I shall start in what I can read on the Internet about the movie, then to the movie itself and my own thoughts on the matter.

So... What I can read about The Last Jedi is an interesting matter this time around.

 While TFA was widely considered a masterpiece and people kept freaking masturbating over how good and progressive the movie was TLJ is causing a major split among people.

 From one side we get people who watched this movie and didn't like it - which is not really a minority of reactions.

People didn't like the movie - many people. That or the ones who didn't like it are far more vocal about it than people who did.

 Sadly many of those people still don't see the bigger picture of what is wrong with the so called "New Trilogy" and still consider TFA a masterpiece.

I've even seen people calling for Jar Jar Abrams to be brought back to direct the 9th movie... Please NO!

Jar Jar Abrams is the primary person responsible for us being in this mess in the first place.

Rian Johnson had to work with a setting he was given after Abrams left - which already had the seed of many of the problems people noticed only in The Last Jedi.

 Anyway.

Then there's the other side. I'd call them the Dark Side but I am feeling a weird pressure on my throat... It's starting to get difficult just to breathe in here...

 The Blind Side! I'll call it the blind side!

 The blind side is producing a lot of positive reviews focusing - like with TFA - in how PROGRESSIVE and MODERN the movie is by the choices that were made for the characters and completely disregarding how those choices work as a whole, how they fit into both established universe and the current story.

Hell - those reviews barely even talk of the movie as a whole.

It's like reviewing a Titanic movie and only talking about the ship design and the depiction of sinking.

But there are worse reviews still - One review in particular that I've found tried to justify the choices made by Rian Johnson for Luke Skywalker and the entire Star Wars franchise as a whole.

 The reasoning in that review was...

That the writers are tired of Luke Skywalker and that no story written today can live up to the legacy of George Lucas original.

This is the reason why Rian Johnson had to literally torch everything that was and build anew on top of it.

The review compared the EU to the Jedi Tomes from the movie - a dusty books nobody will ever read and then goes further to compare fans to comic-relief aliens and the entire forty years of legacy to be a meaningless waste of time.

 WOW!

Way to go.

I feel dirty doing it but I'll quote one sentence from TLJ for this one:

"Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong."

 For once - if your writer doesn't feel like he can live up to the previously established story - change the writer. The entire EU shows that the legacy can be lived up to.

Two - if you want to build anew why the fucking hell do you take existing material to do so? This sounds like a plan to effortlessly grab some money using the fame gained by other people.

Three - YES go ahead! Insult the fans and those greater who came before you. Their work is meaningless and fans are stupid for liking it - here have something new, why don't you like it? Please like it! The old is bad - buy new!

 <Nostalgia critic video here>

 Sigh...

 I won't say it directly but some of the positive reviews I've found seem... Odd... As if they were not written by people who actually watched the movie or people who were not even interested in the movie itself. It was more a theory of MODERN and PROGRESSIVE moviemaking and why TLJ fits those trends perfectly so it must be a masterpiece.

  Well... On to part two of the review... My experience with the movie...

 First of all I have to admit - I facepalmed a lot less than during TFA.

Maybe I was already prepared for what I was about to see or perhaps the plotholes and stupidity were less evident here.

No - this time around I have other issues with this movie...

Well - ok. Old problems persist as well but I got used to those somewhat.

 For one thing - the movie is like 90 minutes too long. The pacing sucks big time.

We get a grand opening and a grand ending - the thing in the middle is... Slow and boring.

But I'll go into more detail.

The opening is a reenacting of the Empire Strikes Back attack on the Rebel base by the Empire.

 Wait. No. That's not the opening and not my first issue with this fucking movie.

My first issue is an extension of what we've seen in TFA and it begins with the opening crawl.

Basically - the Imperial remnants retreated to the outer rims where they had no infrastructure to work with in the beginning and scarcely any resources or a workforce outside of what they escaped with.

 Over about 20 years they've rebuilt the armada and created a Superweapon larger than the Drath Star (remember the first one that took the galaxy's worth of workforce 20 years to construct?).

Then they shot laser beam from one solar system to another and blew up 5 planets (in one system) which was a "decisive blow" to the Republic.

By the end of TFA the superweapon was blown into oblivion by a lone rebel fighter and the day was saved.

 TLJ picks where TFA left - the Starkiller is destroyed... But the Republic is already gone, Last Order is in charge and they have another Superweapon in the form of an enormous dreadnought serving as Snoke's flagship.

 HOW!? WHEN!? WHO!? WHAT!?

 Let me put all the above into perspective.

It's the year 1945 - WWII ends and the Nazi remnants run away to South America to hide in the countries there - they have no industry, workforce or allies to work with.

Imagine if in 1975 they appeared in Europe with a massive armada of ships, millions of soldiers and a gigantic Laser Canon on the Moon.

They blow up Paris and 5 surrounding cities but someone destroys the Moon Base and the fleet they brought to Europe.

It turns out however that 5 hours later another BIGGER fleet appears at the coast and this time they brought an entire Australa turned into a battleship with them.

At this point Hawaii discovers the Nazis already control both Europe AND United States of America.

 In short - the amount of power the First Order has at it's disposal is ludicrous and the idea that blowing one out of THOUSANDS of solar systems automatically disables all the governments and transfers the power to the First Order is insultingly simplistic.

 Even in the Original Trilogy we learn that only in New  Hope the senate has been disbanded.

Yes - it took the Emperor 20 years to completely seize the power over the Galaxy. You expect me to believe that Snoke did so in 5 minutes? Pfff...

 Ok - back to the lack of plot.

 First battle is an re-enacting of the Empire Strikes Back battle on Hoth (space part) - just more goofy.

Final battle is an reenacting of... the battle of Hoth... Ground part this time.

 Yes - the entire movie is just a big nostalgic fap to the Empire Strikes Back opening scene.

With elements from all the old Star Wars movies up to this point but on that later.

 As for the individual character arcs the movie is separated into three storylines after the beginning and all three are flawed and boring.

 Line 1 - Poe Hotshot.

The mostly dead in TFA ace pilot is getting his own plotline here and... he's just a stock hotshot who disregards rules every fucking time he disagrees with them and faces no consequences for doing so.

I hate such characters with passion as they're insulting every military personnel ever just to appeal to the "young rebel is right" theme.

Not to mention that the command of the Rebels is retarded as well. Knowing they are being tracked and can't escape their grand plan is to... Fly forward full speed as long as they have fuel and hope to reach a conveniently nearby rebel base planet before they run dry.

Maybe split the fleet? Transfer fuel to one vessel? ANYTHING at all? Why do people on board not know what is the plan?

 By not telling anyone and allowing the fear to run rampant you pretty much ask for mutiny at this point.

 Line 2 - Finn the Janitor.

The progressive black Stormtrooper character. O how I despise you.

IMO - he's the biggest insult to POC representations in all the movies.

After TFA painted him as a coward and allowed for small character development here he's... A comic relief and a plot tool. That's all.

A trained-from-child soldier is once again beaten by a girl smaller than him - this time a clumsy mechanic girl with a stun stick. Some trained soldier you are.

 As for the plot tool - he's just there to janitor his way into every piece of First Order spacecraft, perfectly know the design and how to access stuff.

All they need is a pro codebreaker they find in a person of a drunkard they find in the gambling planet's jail.

TBH - Codebreaker drunk portrayed by Benicio del Toro is by far the most charismatic character in this piece of shit of a movie.

 But back on topic - both lines 1 and 2 lead to NOTHING - Poe's mutiny is cut short and Finn fails to disable the tracking device.

In fact - their actions give First Order the intel of nearby Rebel base and fuck everyone over.

Another fun fact - onboard Snoke's flagship BB-8 proves to be the most psychopathic droid in the entire Star Wars so far - wrecking a killcount higher than any other character in the movie.

  Line 3 - Rey... Fuck me sideways Rey and Jake Skywalker.

 I don't even know how to begin here.

My predictions after TFA were correct - Luke Skywalker is gone and a man standing in his place (as Mark Hamill himself stated) is nothing like the original.

Jake Skywalker is a grumpy failure of a man who gave up on the galaxy after one failure.

 That's it - that's all the character of Luke Skywalker accounts to in this movie. A failure for new and better Rey to stomp over and surpass.

And I am not surprised - they had to tarnish the image or Rey would never be able to shine from behind him. Again - not a great choice, just a way to hide creator's own inability to build something worthy of the original.

To add insult to injury the image is once again contradictory.

Luke Skywalker as we see him now is dead set on letting the Jedi legacy die with him and yet he goes extra lengths to preserve the first Jedi temple. What? If he wants it to die shouldn't he be the first one to torch it?

No - Yoda does it. Cause now Force ghosts can call down lightning bolts.

 As for Rey... She's once again learning by herself and when Luke finally agrees to guide her a bit she disregards it and goes against it to show how WRONG the OLD DUDE is.

She TRIES and it works... because trying now works... And Yoda agrees... Whaaaaaaa??? (Yes I made a huge leap here but she was "trying" and Luke didn't correct her immediately, she went against his instructions AND Yoda now supports her over Luke so... You get what I'm saying... I hope)

 And then there's... Soul-link of Rey and Kylo where they speak with each other mentally at random times cause a wizard (Snoke) did it!

Yes - we have Rey and Kylo who hated each other share an intimate moments every Thordamned occasion the scriptwriters had and it's shoved down our throats so that Rey can see good in Kylo... Along with his abs (I know he was jacking off when the link activated and you're not convincing me he didn't!)

 This supports my another theory - that Kylo will be redeemed in the third movie... With the power of vagina no less it seems.

I said bad things about Lines 1 and 2 but Line 3 is even worse than that - it's by far the most boring and insulting part of the movie...

 Sigh...

The Review is 6 pages long and I am not nearly done but I'll cut it short.

 I need to mention that Leia uses the Force in this movie - again without training and any shown guidance (I am getting it out of the way since people are gonna remark I didn't complain about her but I do complain about Rey and for that reason - the bullshit kid pulling the broom at the end! Now everyone can just forcepull without training! Why not!?)

 There is a lot shoved down our throats in this movie.

The moral message - wealth is bad, guns are bad. There is no good side in war. Wealthy people are responsible for animal cruelty. Kids are always innocent and used by adults...

Really? This is what you want to go with in a Star Wars movie?

 Inability to hold a mood in the movie is also prevalent - we get serious situations interrupted by comedy... Or really weird, weird choices.

There's the infamous milking scene (please don't make me elaborate) which was really unnecessary.

And then there's the scene in the initial battle where some girl on the rebel bomber dies to release the bombs (that drop WWII bomber style... Gravity in Space? How does it work?).

The girl is holding a pendant as she dies and it actually left me confused for a bit.

 There was an extreme amount of focus given to that pendant for a previously unknown character...

I was confused - what's that? Is it important? Why is it here? Who is she? Did I miss something? Something in the EA game that's required to understand the movie?

No - the answer is given like 10 minutes later but such a thing should NOT happen.

You should NEVER confuse your viewers with such scenes.

 For example - if a dying person gives a pendant to a friend and that friend later finds the sibling with an identical pendant - that's basically the same motif executed correctly.

Giving the viewers only an extended dramatic eyeful of the pendant without context is BAD.

 I am also insulted by the handling of Rose's character for the movie (who is Rose? You asked a good question - she's Lando replacement but goofy).

She spends a day with a guy who proves to be nothing more than a comic relief and falls in love with him after failed Disney adventure that gets people killed.

In the end she stops his Heroic Sacrifice claiming that they can only win the war with love and not by killing bad guys...

Fucking stu...

 BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

 That was the sound of the canon Finn was about to stop from firing - it just doomed you all and your allies are going to die! Good work Rose - you're a fantastic hidden agent of the First Order.

 There’s also an surprising amount of paraphrasing of lines from both the Original AND Prequel trilogy. Like no 10 minutes of the movie can go without a recall to the previously existing ones. Write your own fucking lines!

And then Luke Skywalker dies by Force exhaustion.

Cause he has to die in this movie... Oh and Rey is a Jedi already and saves everyone after the Falcon reenacts the Run inside the 2nd Death Star part of the Return of the Jedi.

  That's it.

That's this goddamn movie.

  Good parts?

Music was not so bad - actually quite more memorable than TFA.

I liked the space battles... The parts where Laws of Physics were not being brutally raped.

 I am actually guilty of looking for explanations to some things:

1) Starships can be heard on the surface of the planet if the electromagnetic pulse fro mthem leaving hyperspace is resonating with the atmosphere - causing the sound to be created.

2) A ship going FTL can cause damage to objects on it's way if it exits the hyperspace without slowing down - that's the idea behind the relativity missiles.

 Things I couldn't explain:

1) Imperial Destroyer is visible from the planet's surface and it's the size ot a Death Star from the original movies.

2) Laser beams in space traveling on parabolic trajectory.

3) Bombs being dropped like in planetary bombers - they just fall as if there was gravity.

 I also liked how they poked some fun on the issues people had with TFA - it was cute... As if they were aware of what they did wrong...

Ehh...

  I am done.

The Sequel Trilogy is not salvageable.

 EU is officially canon - at least just for me. Fuck you Disney!

And for all fans of the sequel trilogy angered by what I said I’d like to post a GIF or image of that “Salt” guy from Crait but unfortunately I can’t find any (ok - I got one gif but it’s too big for tumblr). I’ll fix that later.

 EU Luke: “Yoda and Ben were great teachers, yet even they lost students. I can still sense good in him. There’s always hope, Kyle, remember that.”

This is the Luke Skywalker I want to remember - the only one I want to remember.

[thegirlwholied]

Hiya! Since you're my go-to lover of SW Extended Universe, I was wondering if you had any recs for where to start reading within the EU and/or what some of your favorites are?

I legitimately have Star Wars: The Essential Reader’s Companion on my coffee table at the moment (since on May the 4th I grabbed a pile of visual-guides etc. from my library to rapidly study for a bar’s Star Wars trivia night) so this is inevitably going to be one of those My Time Has Come!!! posts.

Short answer is YES and there will be Choose Your Adventure Options.

Big Caveat, though, aka the cream & sugar with which to take this answer:

- Most of my Star Wars reading took place between ages 9-14 & the limited rereading I’ve done has mostly been post Rogue One & mostly skimming; this also means we’re talking Ye Olde EU here & at that mostly pre-2004 EU.

Also? A thing to know about the EU?

A lot of the “entry points” are kickoffs of 9-book series… or a 19-book series…or trilogies, including one with a sequel duology. So do you want:

Standalone?

Series Starter?

Short Stories?

Comics Instead?

Total Random Sampler if you want to go In Media Res to the nth degree?

All right, let’s go. ;D

Standalone.

Han/Leia focus?

For solid Leia characterization as well as banter-romance, some finding-out-Shmi-Skywalker-exists prequels shenanigans, & a plot about art from Alderaan (and secret Rebel codes), Tatooine Ghost.

For a Glorious Hot Mess… okay no probably don’t read Courtship of Princess Leia, but please do read this article on it.

Other focus?

Truce at Bakura - very sci-fi-y, very Imperial v. Rebel bidding for planetary political support plot-y, immediately after Return of the Jedi. Bonus for Anakin’s Force ghost visiting Leia… but I forgot more than I remember of this one so can’t vouch for much without a reread.  

Series Starter.

For ladies with lightsabers, villains who like art, and crazy clone stuff before anybody knew what the clone wars were supposed to be:

Heir to the Empire, 1st in the Thrawn Trilogy: the “It is Known” of the EU.

It was the real-life kickstarter of the main books, & the classic answer to your question. And it is hyped for reasons; while half of them are Zahn’s original creations (Talon Karrde, Mara Jade, Thrawn himself, Pellaeon, plus just New Republic & politics), a lot of it is just solidly managing a Han&Leia&Luke who feel and talk like their movie selves.

(Also, you’ve probably heard of Mara as Luke’s wife and pretty importantly? Very much not so in this trilogy, which is not to say the tension isn’t there. You could time jump the 10 years right to the Hand of Thrawn duology where the romantic tension is more Overtly There, since the in-between 10 years can be more or less handwaved as ‘New Republic & Jedi Academy Adventures Occurred’).

But my personal series pick:

X-Wing: Rogue Squadron. A 9-book series (+ a recent 10th follow-up feauring. one of Wedge’s daughters, which is on my to-read list since Allston, who wote 4 of the 9, may be my favorite EU writer).

The first 4 books are one Rogue Squadron arc; the second 3 are a separate trilogy (Wraith Squadron); next two are follow-ups but also kind of standalone adventures & I think the last, Starfighters of Adumar, may be the best beloved.

I’m a big judge-novels-by-their-first-sentence person, and the EU novels are…rarely great by that measurement. But Rogue Squadron starts with You’re good, Corran, but you’re no Luke Skywalker, which really is an excellent introduction to how this tie-in material is going to roll and to a brand-new Star Wars character (particularly as Corran’s reaction to that statement from Wedge tells us most of what we need to know about him & his biggest flaws on p. 1.)

Yes, lots of space battles; yes, almost all totally new characters aside from Wedge Antilles (but the “cameos” are great, when Luke & Leia etc. do show up); has its boys’ club feeling moments (most of our main ladies are love interests for one of the main pilots; even my beloved Wraith Squadron has The Girl™ syndrome). But the plots are about as good as the EU gets, and I have badly wanted this to be a TV series since I was small.

+, by book 2 of the X-Wing series you get 3 Star Wars ladies all in the same room talking to each other: Mirax Terrik (smuggler), Iella Wessiri (basically a detective who became an Intelligence officer), & Winter (many things, including Leia’s original BFF, but mainly undercover operative). And there’s 4 other plot-significant female characters I can think of in that book alone (2 on the good side, 2 less so), as well as a really excellent Leia cameo scene.

Alternate starting point: Just go with X-Wing #5, Wraith Squadron, as you don’t really need the first 4 to follow, & it laces much more humor in with the action, with added focus on 2 pilots from the original trilogy (Hobbie & Wes Janson, & this is why everyone loves Janson) as well as Wedge. Fewer ladies, although Tyria Sarkin is pretty darn great.  

Controversial starting point: From what I’ve seen of EU fandom, folks either love the New Jedi Order or hate it, and while (like most Star Wars books) it has Certain Things I take issue with… I mostly loved it, and Vector Prime, which kicks off the 19-book-series, was part of why.

Of the Solo kids, Jacen & Jaina had their own series (Young Jedi Knights) and Anakin had his own (Junior Jedi Knights); in the adult books, they’d mostly been little and played minor roles either a) being adorable or b) being kidnapped. Here is where they’re suddenly part of Real Galactic Shenanigans and the crisis of their generation kicks in.

It also marked the end of all’s well that end’s well era in Star Wars books, for, as Han puts it (thank you, Goodreads quotes):

“I had built this bubble around us. Around all of us-you, me, Chewie, the kids, Luke, Mara, even Lando. Heck, even the stupid droids. We were all in it, you know. In it and safe, a cozy family. Nothing could hurt us—could really hurt us.”

Also feat. Jaina Solo being the best damn up-and-coming pilot in the galaxy able to fly circles around her brothers.

Short Stories

Good option if you want a taste of the Primary EU authors’ styles without committing, and if you like shorts in general. (There’s a huge new short story anthology coming & I’m cautiously interested, since I remember these as fun):

Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, Tales from Jabba’s Palace (you can meet Mara Jade here if you don’t want to commit to the Thrawn trilogy), Tales from the New Republic (includes the novella-length “Interlude at Darkknell” briefly feat. Bail Organa’s personal messenger “Aach” and more finding-out-about-the-Death-Star-plans shenanigans)      

Comics Instead

Rogue Squadron had a comic series too, completely separate from the novels/set earlier, & while I never read all (outlet mall had a bunch of the graphic novels for $2 and I swooped them up when I was 12), I’ve reread the ones I have, plenty. Would definitely recommend.

(Rogue One feels, with this comics quote, from the best lady pilot of the comic series: “Sometimes the only way evil can be defeated is by the selfless, sacrificial efforts of good people. We can only hope that when our time comes, the cause is as noble and the need as great.”)

And I remember liking the Mara Jade: By the Emperor’s Hand graphic novel.

Crazy Sampler Option

Where *I* started: Junior Jedi Knights: Vader’s Fortress, 9th birthday gift.

Surprise to me, Star Wars books exist! Surprise, Han and Leia have kids and one of them is Anakin Solo, age eleven, with the weight of being named after the ‘good man who was’ Anakin Skywalker on his shoulders & also ice blue eyes; surprise, he is now the love of my nine-year-old life.

Surprise, this is actually the 5th book in the ongoing Junior Jedi Knight series but the in media res did not phase me (helped by 90s-style reintroductions).

…in fact it made me like it better than I might have starting from the top. Maybe because I love mysteries, maybe because I’ve always gotten my books from libraries first & foremost & so would just grab whatever was available, I have started many a series, both accidentally and on purpose, with a book that was Very Much Not the First In the Series; if I like it, I usually backtrack.  

Absolutely No One suggests Junior Jedi Knights as a starting point… But. Adult!Me still gives an approving nod to some Really Nice Things here:

-this was my intro to the Luke’s Jedi Academy on Yavin 4, and I will forever love the aesthetic of his Jedi Academy being in the temple from A New Hope

-the best pseudo-Yoda-figure in the EU, with huggable Muppet-ready design.

-Immediately passes the Bechdel test thanks to conversation between Jedi instructor Tionne & Anakin’s BFF Tahiri (the Childhood Friend Romance Trope is strong in this series)

-Tionne herself, who names her ship Lore Seeker because she’s all about history and bought said ship “for a song” (traded an ancient song about the ‘very first Randoni merchants and the vaults where they hid their wealth’).

-I totally don’t still have this book and have it open in front of me at all what no

-You know how in Harry Potter Dumbledore writes a very nice letter back to Petunia explaining why she can’t come to Hogwarts? Luke… is not Dumbledore. Luke deals with Uldir, teenage son-of-two-cargo-pilots & stowaway who shows up on Yavin 4, desperate to become a Jedi despite zero Force talent, by letting him stay & participate in what training he could.  

-the plot: Vader kept Kenobi’s lightsaber (because of course) and they go to retrieve it at Vader’s Fortress.

- no lava because Mustafar wasn’t in-canon yet but yes otherwise it could basically be Vader’s Fortress from Rogue One exactly. Same aesthetic! You could consider this his Other Castle. The summer cottage.

-Anakin Solo finding Vader’s “bedroom” aka creepy sleeping cylinder, complete with tiny hologram of Luke Skywalker

So yes my randomly-ordered suggested-just-dive-the-heck-in sample pack, based more on “here are my favorite Star Wars book people and why I love them”, would include:

- Junior Jedi Knights: Vader’s Fortress

- Young Jedi Knights: Lightsabers (aka pay attention to what you’re doing kids or you might get your arm cut off or worse be the one to cut off the arm of the girl you like)

- the Mara comic if you’re not quite feeling All of the Thrawn 

- Rogue Squadron: Blood & Honor comic (because it is the one place you’ll get the full storyline on ‘who are these Fel people who keep coming up?’, meet Corran & Iella in their CorSec days, & Plourr gets to be great.)

- “Interlude at Darkknell” - it’s Stackpole (X-Wing writer) AND Zahn (Thrawn) co-writing, so you get a feel for them both, AND it’s short (…+ ”Aach”

X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar, if you’re only going to read one of the nine

New Jedi Order was By No Means designed for any to be read as standalones and so I think delving in out of context would be an Experience but… If I Had to Pick One… 

I would cheat like a scoundrel & pick 2 and say the Enemy Lines duology, for both plot & dialogue & the best take on the Old Guard of the Rebel Alliance At War Again, but especially the dialogue (as quotable & memorable throughout as the EU gets).

[writebetterstarwars]

Hiya Jacen. I'm lost as to where to start with the EE. Do you happen to have or know of a masterlist of it?

I’m assuming you mean the EU? Ooh boy. I’ve been using the timeline of Legends books and the timeline of canon books on Wookieepedia but, as you may notice, the Legends timeline has just so many books in it. The list is absolutely massive (if you’re also looking for comics and short stories, that’s a different list), so I’ll try to break it down a bit for you, starting with Legends.

The first eras, Before the Republic and Old Republic, are just so ancient that I’ve never been personally interested in them. Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void, the Old Republic series, and the Darth Bane series are probably the most popular books from back then, and together they make up most of those eras.

The Rise of the Empire era is something I’m much more familiar with. The Jedi Apprentice series makes up a good chunk of it, and it’s one I would personally recommend (although I’ve been known to read anything involving Obi-Wan). The Clone Wars and Republic Commando series are both ones I’ve heard recommended but haven’t yet read, as well as the Last of the Jedi series. There are several great individual books in this era, some of which read like extra episodes of The Clone Wars – a few that come to mind are Rogue Planet, The Approaching Storm, and Kenobi. This era has a whole ton of worldbuilding details, so it’s definitely worth going through. It also has the three prequel trilogy books which, while I do love the movies, are better than the movies. For the record, I would sell my soul for the Revenge of the Sith novelization.

Rebellion era includes the novelizations of the three original trilogy movies, all of which are pretty good. I can recommend Allegiance and Truce at Bakura, but it’s been a while since I read anything from here.

New Republic era, I could go on and on about. The X-Wing series is a great one if you’re into the inner workings of the Republic and some of the minor characters and such. The Thrawn Trilogy, I must say, contains some of my all-time favourite books. The Jedi Academy Trilogy and the Corellian Trilogy are also good ones. I would recommend going in order of the books here, if you’re willing, because they’re all nice stories and they have plenty of background information. If anyone wants more recommendations from this era, I’ve read every single novel marked in blue on that list. Whoops.

The New Jedi Order era is made up almost entirely of one series, incidentally called the New Jedi Order series. It’s a good one, but if you don’t like major character death or committing to such a long series… maybe don’t. Again, I’ve read way too much from this era for my own good.

Legacy era is made up mostly of the Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi series. They’re good, especially the former, but they can get depressing. Plenty of major character death, others getting their lives ruined, everyone is getting older. It’s very nostalgic and contrasts sharply with the tone of the newer books, both Legends and canon.

Speaking of canon, there are also newer books that aren’t included in the Legends list. Some of the ones in the canon list haven’t come out yet, but the ones that have, I’ve heard good things about. So far I’ve read Dark Disciple and Ahsoka (I can highly recommend Ahsoka, it’s exactly my kind of story). I know others here have read Catalyst, and I’m sure someone’s read the Aftermath series and/or Bloodline, so if you’ve got anything to say about those ones it’d be great.

Uh, yeah, that got long and a bit off-tangent, but I hope it makes the EU a little bit more navigable. I started with all the post-Empire stuff, but I don’t think it makes a huge difference where you start. Also, both those lists are organized by in-Universe dates, so you can probably fit the canon books into the Legends ones. If anyone sees anything I’ve missed, or has any info for anon here, please don’t hesitate!

Good luck!

~ Jacen

[thebookbeard-blog]

December is for Star Wars.

At least that's what I decided at the end of 2015 after watching The Force Awakens, a movie that re-kindled a love and passion that had been dormant since my teenage years. I went back to the theater three more times. I left each showing feeling like a kid, in the best of ways. I was, at almost thirty years old, Star Wars trash once again -- a label that I happily and readily accepted. I began to consume more SW-related pop culture. I started watching Star Wars Rebels, which in time I came to realize captures the spirit of the original trilogy better than almost anything else. I started reading some of the comics being put out by Marvel at the time, chiefly Kieron Gillen's Darth Vader run, a brilliant piece of storytelling on its own. Then I started to explore some of the books set in the Star Wars universe. 

The trash of the thing.

The first SW book I ever read was Claudia Gray's Lost Stars. My expectations were low: Star Wars is such a visually rich setting, after all, and I had doubts as to how well it would translate to the written word. If anything, I only expected a fun romp through the Star Wars universe. I certainly didn't expect it to be an arresting and heart-wrenching piece of fiction. But it turned out to be both. I loved it enough that it was the first book I picked as a favorite read for last year. And I loved Gray's writing enough that I would eagerly pick up whatever she wrote for the expanded universe next. The fact that this happened to be a story that focused on Leia increased my interested only by a hell of a lot.

Bloodline features and older, wiser, slightly weary Leia, still serving in her function as a Senator for the New Republic. At the beginning of the story, tired of all the ceremony and hypocrisy of politics, she's determined to retire from it all, but not before engaging in one last diplomatic mission which she hopes will do some actual, genuine good for the galaxy -- not to mention serve as one final adventure. That this adventure should prove to uncover a vast and deep conspiracy that threatens not only her personal safety and reputation but the fate of the entire galaxy should really come as no big surprise -- this is a Star Wars story, after all.

Gray's portrayal of Leia is beautifully nuanced, and balances the political and personal aspects of the character with grace and aplomb. This is a Leia that is a brilliant and savvy politician, as well as a bad-ass who knows how to handle a blaster and is ready to throw down at a moment’s notice.

Leia lifted her blaster, losing her sights on Rinnrivin’s guard — and targeting the central strut of the tunnel support directly overhead. One bolt held the entire thing together. That bolt was no larger than a child’s fist. At this range, in semi-darkness, perhaps one shot in a thousand might be capable of destroying that bolt. But Leia made the shot.

In short, the very same Leia that we all know and love. The same Leia that the late, great Carrie Fisher brought to life. Gray's capable prose does her more than enough justice.

The story is made all the more interesting by the fact that it deals heavily with politics, something that the prequels tried to do with very mixed and muddy results. It’s one of the more fascinating aspects in Bloodline however, and the intrigue and West Wing-like drama of it all carries the story through. That the political landscape of the novel happens to look very much like our own just adds a more surreal and slightly ominous layer to it all. 

Gray has gone on record to say that Bloodline wasn’t written as commentary, but it's pretty hard, especially after the events of last November, not to view the story as a reflection of our current reality. Part of the reason that Leia wants to retire has to do with the Senate devolving into a two-party system -- parties that are themselves fragmented into conflicting fractions. She laments how "every debate on the Senate floor turns into an endless argument over ‘tone’ or ‘form’ and never about issues of substance." And try to read this bit of dialogue and tell me it doesn't sound like something you’d find on a recent think piece.

“Surely you won’t deny the New Republic is committing mistakes of its own.”

“Not the evils of tyranny and control.”

“No. The evils of absence and neglect.”

And, of course, there’s the now viral quote at the close of the book that has gained new relevance in light of yesterday's marches:

“The sun is setting on the New Republic," Leia said. "It's time for the Resistance to rise.”

Indeed. 

Bloodline is both a brilliant character portrait and relevant social commentary. Claudia Gray can write Star Wars like no other and I will read anything she writes in this universe.

After dealing with the heady but heavy themes of Bloodline however, I figured I was due some for some warmth and comfort. At which point I usually turn to a Rainbow Rowell book.

I love Rainbow Rowell. I love her quirky and clever and passionate writing (if there was a book equivalent to Gilmore Girls, it would be a Rowell book). I love her amazing and uncanny ability to make you fall for a character in almost no time at all.

This same talent is brilliantly showcased in Kindred Spirits, a slim novella that, over the course of sixty-two pages, manages to have more character development than most sprawling, brick-sized novels.

It's an unfair gift, really.

This is a story about three Star Wars geeks camping out in desolate line in front of an Omaha theater for the premiere of The Force Awakens. It is lovely, and it is charming, and it is so wonderful. I finished the story in one sitting, desperately wishing there was a full-length novel featuring these characters that I could immediately pick up. Heartwarming and beautiful.

And so December rolled around once more, and with it another Star Wars film, because Disney will never be stopped.

But of course I loved almost everything about Rogue One: I loved its beautiful and beautifully diverse cast, I loved its relentless and brutal pace, I even dug its CGI missteps. It's a dark, dark film, to be sure, but it also seems very apt and timely. Rebellions are built on hope, etc.

I picked up the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story novelization by Alexander Freed because I kept coming across good reviews. I was skeptical -- I had tried to read Alan Dean Foster's adaptation of The Force Awakens and found the writing style so tedious that I couldn't get past the first chapter. Thankfully though Freed doesn't seem to suffer from this: his writing style is relatively spartan and straightforward, which serves this kind of story well. Even so I was still very much surprised at how much I enjoyed reading this, and even more surprised at how much more depth it managed to add to the story. 

One of the main criticisms about the film is that we don't spend enough individual time with the characters too feel much of anything when they meet their ultimate fate. Which is fair: movie's are all about the external after all, whereas in books and comics you can delve more into the character's feelings and motivations -- literally get inside their heads. This is what Freed does in the novelization, and to great effect. We get so many details regarding each character's background, personality, and motivation.

Cassian stashed his paranoia in the back of his brain -- out of the way but within easy reach.

Jyn knew the sounds of occupation well. They were the sounds of home.

Baze did not limit his targets to those who might spot the blind man, but he kept Chirrut under observation nonetheless; where the Force would fail Chirrut, Baze would not.

And it does affect how you feel about the characters as the plot happens to them. This is made most evident in K-2SO's final scene, an already heartbreaking moment in the film, but here Freed adds one last final touch that makes is all the more tragic and all the more beautiful. Totally evil stuff, but good nonetheless.

This device isn't limited to the characters either: for the more technical aspects of the plot we get things like communiques and log entries interspersed throughout the story, and they are also used to great effect. In a particularly brilliant entry, we get to find out just how Galen Erso, with the help of sheer bureaucratic nonsense, ensures the flaw he engineered in the Death Star reactor remains in place. A detail that is both morbidly hilarious and also incredibly realistic.

I do think that one of the things that makes the movie such a visceral experience gets totally lost in the translation, however, and that is much of the action. Freed does a serviceable job, but the action still very much slows down and lack urgency and tension. Darth Vader’s big scene is an absolute show-stopper in the movie, for example, whereas here it reads as very much anticlimactic. 

But that is admittedly a minor criticism that applies mostly to the third act, and I do think that the material and information that was added to the story more than makes up for it.

Highly recommend reading this before you watch Rogue One for the eight time.

It was raining. It didn’t rain in L.A. It was raining in L.A. and I was Princess Leia. I had never been Princess Leia before and now I would be her forever. I would never not be Princess Leia.

And then there's Carrie. Oh Carrie.

December was a particularly tough month in a particularly tough year. Too many artists I admired passed away, and then halfway through December I went a personal loss that left me dazed and numb. Then Carrie Fisher died, and it all struck me as once, and I was just sad for a long while.

I had downloaded The Princess Diarist shortly after finishing the Rogue One novelization. It seemed like an appropriate follow up, and I've been meaning to read Fisher's stuff for years anyway. It stayed unread on my tablet for a bit (the aforementioned personal loss took any desire I had to read much), but I picked it up immediately after learning of Carrie's death. It seemed like the appropriate thing to do.

The Princess Diarist is about Fisher looking back on diary entries she had penned in the late seventies, during the filming of Star Wars. It's a meditation on fame and growing up in Hollywood and being young and growing old. It's a wonderful read. Raunchy and hilarious and clever; whimsical and melancholy. Brutally honest and full of life truths. I highlighted a great many passages:

The crew was mostly men. That’s how it was and that’s pretty much how it still is. It’s a man’s world and show business is a man’s meal, with women generously sprinkled through it like overqualified spice.

I looked at her aghast, with much like the expression I used when shown the sketches of the metal bikini. The one I wore to kill Jabba (my favorite moment in my own personal film history), which I highly recommend your doing: find an equivalent of killing a giant space slug in your head and celebrate that.

Back then I was always looking ahead to who I wanted to be versus who I didn’t realize I already was, and the wished-for me was most likely based on who other people seemed to be and the desire to have the same effect on others that they had had on me.

I don’t just want you to like me, I want to be one of the most joy-inducing human beings that you’ve ever encountered. I want to explode on your night sky like fireworks at midnight on New Year’s Eve in Hong Kong.

Because what can you do with people that like you, except, of course, inevitably disappoint them?

I wish that I could leave myself alone. I wish that I could finally feel that I punished myself enough. That I deserved time off for all my bad behavior. Let myself off the hook, drag myself off the rack where I am both torturer and torturee.

I was sitting by myself the other night doing the usual things one does when spending time alone with yourselves. You know, making mountains out of molehills, hiking up to the top of the mountains, having a Hostess Twinkie and then throwing myself off the mountain. Stuff like that.

Trying relentlessly to make you love me, but I don’t want the love -- I quite prefer the quest for it. The challenge. I am always disappointed with someone who loves me -- how perfect can he be if he can’t see through me?

I call people sometimes hoping not only that they’ll verify the fact that I’m alive but that they’ll also, however indirectly, convince me that being alive is an appropriate state for me to be in.

I had feelings for him (at least five, but sometimes as many as seven).

Time shifts and your pity enables you to turn what was once, decades ago, an ordinary sort of pain or hurt, complicated by embarrassing self-pity, into what is now only a humiliating tale that you can share with others because, after almost four decades, it’s all in the past and who gives a shit?

This is a joy of a book, but it still made me sad. Sad that I never got to read and appreciate her written work while she was alive. Sad because the beautiful gem of a person who wrote these true beautiful things was now gone, drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra, and we'll never, ever see her like again.

“Carrie?” he asked. I knew my name. So I let him know I knew it. “Yeah,” I said in a voice very like mine.

Good night, Space Momma. Thank you for you voice. Thank you for being so unabashedly you.                                                                                           

[aroaessidhe]

Hey! Do you have any book recommendations for YA books with faeries or Sidhe?

Yes! I love fey/sidhe so much. Some of my favourites are..

The Wicked Lovely series by Melissa Marr

The first book is a bit ‘stereotypical ya fantasy romance’ but if you get past that it’s. so good. probably the series that made me consciously realise that I really love faeries

Tithe/Valiant/Ironside by Holly Black

I haven’t read these in ages, but they’re great. I think I saw someone recently describe them as ‘the original gritty ya urban fantasy with faeries’ which is…. about right

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

Set in the same universe, but a bit more… fairytaleish? Probably one of my favourite standalone books.

Sinners/Veiled by Eka Waterfield

an aroace faery drug lord who cares more about fashion than people and tbh that’s all you need to know (it’s great)

Ash and Huntress by Malinda Lo

Ash is a lesbian cinderella retelling, and Huntress is set in the same world but earlier. 

Sons of Thestian by M.E.Vaughan

A complex epic fantasy with faeries (including one of the main characters)

The Wind City by Summer Wigmore

Set in New Zealand and based on Maori mythology including patupaiarehe - which are very similar to faeries.

The Iron Fey/Call of the Forgotten by Julie Kagwa

Based on the idea that in the modern age a new type of faerie comes into existence - Iron fey, who are like….techology elementals as opposed to nature elementals? And the second series is (I think, it’s been so long since I read them) about super old fey that disappeared because they were forgotten.

Phaethon by Rachel Sharp

A similar concept (but still unique) - new, 21st century iron faeries, who release a new type of phone which two hackers realise is actually powered by a faerie. This only just came out, I read it a couple days ago.

Mechanica by Betsy Cornwell

A cinderella retelling set in a kingdom that previously had contact with faeries but now they’re mostly hated - only has small aspects of faerie magic but I believe in the sequel and prequel there will be more.

Seven Black Diamonds by Melissa Marr

A different kind of modern faery story, where humans are at war with fey, about seven half fey who are undercover as normal humans under the orders of the faery Queen.

A History of Glitter and Blood by Hannah Moskowitz

Not so much about traditional fey/sidhe, but this is a really interesting book, about the last four faeries in their city - they’re immortal (the even-if-you-cut-them-into-pieces-they’re-still-conscious kind of immortal) and glittery and trying not to get eaten.

Peter Darling by Austin Chant

Peter Pan comes back to neverland as an adult, falls in love with hook. He’s also trans! Not super about fey, but Tinkerbell and the other faeries are there, and slightly creepy and insect-like, and very cool.

Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

A girl who grew up being friends with the Goblin King’s sister is stolen by goblins. She goes to get her back. Similar to the movie Labyrinth (but in a good way!)

Liminal by A Sieracki

A short story about a trans girl given a quest by her faery godparents.

Knife by R.J Anderson

I started reading this series when I was 12, so not sure if it’s YA? But it’s urban fantasy, and the faeries can change between small and human size.

Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

It’s been ages since I read these, but from what I remember faeries play a big part (as well as other mythological creatures)

Shadowhunter Chronicles by Cassandra Clare

I have such a love/hate relationship with these books lmao but the newest trilogy (The Darkest Artifices) has even more faeries than the other ones so. there’s that.

Here’s my goodreads shelf with these plus a few more.

And If anyone’s a webcomic fan…..

Ignition Zero

A beautiful traditionally drawn webcomic about college kids and faeries and spirits. And it’s complete!

The Weave

About a girl who gets a new job and is suddenly mixed up in the faerie world. 

Peritale

A magicless fairy trying to prove she can be just as good of a fairy godmother as anyone else. (Do humans want fairy godmothers? Well...)

Some self promo.......

Mistlands

A half fey girl from New Zealand gets caught up in the world of the fey. Ongoing and often on hiatus (sorry)

Overgrown

a short comic about a girl who goes for a walk in the forest and gets trapped in a faery realm. She has to complete three quests to gain her freedom (but that’s if she even wants to go back to her normal life...) This one’s complete! It was my uni final honors project.

[aion-rsa]

Halloween Comics: The Weird History of Michael Myers on the Page

https://ift.tt/2NH2Era

Like many horror icons, the dead-eyed Michael Myers of Halloween fame has also dabbled in stabbing people on the comic book page.

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Feature Gavin Jasper

Halloween

Oct 14, 2018

Horror Movies

31 Days of Horror

Michael Myers is the understated horror icon, for better or worse. He’s the architect of the whole slasher genre and while John Carpenter's Halloween is an undisputed classic, he doesn’t stand out as much as his fellow supernatural murderers. He’s the less-exciting Jason Voorhees, even if he came first and had his shit figured out by the first movie (as opposed to Jason’s three).

I guess Michael stands out less because he was never part of anything excessively dumb. Oh yeah, he had a bunch of lesser sequels that culminated in being beat up by Busta Rhymes and there’s that Halloween III fiasco, but he never fell into the pop culture trap of other '80s and '90s boogeymen. He didn’t show up on Arsenio Hall’s show or appear in a Fat Boys music video, for starters.

By the time we did get a silly Michael Myers moment, it was his goofy cameo in Rob Zombie’s Haunted World of El Superbeasto in 2009, merely a month or so after the last actual Halloween movie.

Since Michael was rarely as outlandish as his cinematic brethren, it made sense that it took so long for him to finally make his comic book debut. Freddy showed up in the late '80s, while Jason showed up in the early '90s, and Michael arrived in the year 2000. By this point, Halloween H20 had already come and gone, so the movie series was nearly dead already.

Released by Chaos Comics, Halloween #1 was written by Phil Nutman and Daniel Farrands with art by David Brewer. It follows Tommy Doyle, the boy confronted by Myers in the first movie who later went on to beat him down a bunch with a pipe years later in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. In other words, our hero in this story is Paul Rudd.

He’s mostly here to frame the issue, which is about Michael Myers’ beginnings. Tommy is obsessed with making a name off of Michael’s reign of terror and gets his hands on Dr. Sam Loomis’ old diary. From there, he reads about young Michael’s time in the mental institution, seeing as Loomis goes from wanting to help the mentally-distant boy to realizing that he’s evil incarnate.

Watch Halloween Movies on Amazon Prime

It’s done surprisingly well. These kinds of prequel stories are always a touchy concept because they can easily go wrong. If Michael is 100% evil, then it’s a boring and meaningless story. If he’s created from his environment, you run the risk of humanizing him too much and making him look like less of a threat. Here, Nutman and Farrands blur the line and ask the question, “Could Loomis have saved him?”

Loomis mentions the other young inmates, all older than Michael. Coincidentally, that kid Blair is neither referenced or shown other than this intro. Weird. Especially because this flashback story doesn’t outright spell it out that Michael is behind all the murder and mutilation. Sure, Loomis believes he’s behind it and we know he’s a bad egg, but they could have easily tied Blair into it and made it a red herring thing.

Otherwise, the story is about Michael being put in an unwinnable situation where his roommates are not exactly a good crowd to be stuck with. But, just like Rorschach in Watchmen, they discover that they’re the ones stuck in there with him.

Once the issue comes close to running out of pages, we get a scene of Michael attacking Tommy. Since Tommy has enough plot armor, he is able to defeat Michael in a moment reminiscent of the ending of the first movie.

Months later, we get Halloween II: The Blackest Eyes with Phil Nutman and Mickey Yablans writing and Jerry Beck drawing. It picks up where the previous story left off with Tommy deciding to end Michael Myers once and for all.

This story isn’t so hot for the most part, partially because they spend a lot of time going into the whole cult backstory. The stuff about curses and druids always weighed down the Halloween franchise in the eyes of many. Luckily, there’s enough Michael action to make up for it, where he stalks Tommy, the sheriff, and the grown-up versions of the kids that bullied Tommy in the first movie, who are now hell-bent on burning down the abandoned Myers house.

Several months after that, we’re given Halloween III: The Devil’s Eyes by Phil Nutman and Justiniano. It begins with Tommy locked up in an asylum, mainly as a cover-up for all that druid crap that went down in the previous issue. He escapes and teams up with Lindsey Wallace, the other kid being babysat in the original movie.

Since this comic is released late 2001 and Halloween H20 came out a couple years earlier, they finally talk about the elephant in the room: Michael Myers is totally supposed to be dead, right? Like, Laurie Strode chopped his head off. Sure, Myers can heal from a lot of stuff, but the movies at least give us the illusion that there’s some kind of limit to it. He’s not like Jason, who can cartoonishly return from absolutely anything.

Even Halloween: Resurrection went with a different out, saying that Laurie killed the wrong guy. That movie wouldn’t be out for over half a year compared to this comic, so that raises questions. Are they going to go with that same explanation? Can Michael Myers come back from decapitation? Is there someone else under the mask? Hell, is it that Blair kid somehow?

further reading: Halloween (2018) Review

It’s a strong finale to the Chaos Comics trilogy, though it does get a laugh out of me for Nutman just crossing his arms and going, “Yeah, I know this doesn’t fit into the movies. Screw it.”

Though it turns out there’s a reason for that. Daniel Farrands, writer of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, was at one point asked to pitch a follow-up to Halloween H20. The studio didn’t go with his pitch and instead, he just told Phil Nutman about his ideas and there we go.

Man, why can’t we get a comic based on Peter Jackson’s unused Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Lover screenplay? I’d read the hell out of that.

After the Chaos Comics stuff, there was only one voice of Halloween comics. Stefan Hutchinson wrote about all of Michael Myers’ exploits from 2003 to the end of 2008. For a Halloween convention, he made Halloween: One Good Scare, featuring muddy art by Peter Fielding.

It’s a good one-shot, all things considered. It follows the never-before-mentioned son of Dr. Sam Loomis, who followed his father’s footsteps and works at the sanitarium. Things get interesting for him when Lindsey Wallace has herself committed, insisting that Michael Myers is still alive and now he’s after her. This comic comes out post-Resurrection, so it asks the question of what Michael even wants anymore now that he’s succeeded in wiping out his family.

It’s a necessarily dire story that could have probably used a bit more of Michael in action, but succeeds in the end by rolling out some grade-A dread with a cliffhanger that’s never followed up on and doesn’t need to be.

In 2006, Hutchinson teamed up with Marcus Smith for the one-shot Halloween: Autopsis, released by Paranormal Pictures. It tells the story of Carter, a young photographer obsessed with images that “show the truth” because his father was a projectionist who died while Carter was watching Night of the Living Dead and that totally ruined movies and pictures for him.

...I don’t really get it either.

Short version is that he’s obsessed with photos of Michael’s victims.

The stuff with Carter isn’t so great, but the comic is redeemed by his stalking of Dr. Sam Loomis. See, it’s worth noting that Hutchinson’s comic world takes place in a continuity where only the first movie, first sequel, H20, and Resurrection happened. All the nonsense from parts four-through-six are off the table. That means that Loomis’ hastily-edited stinger death in Curse of Michael Myers didn’t happen.

further reading: Halloween - A Legacy Unmasked

As Carter spies on Loomis regularly, he feels pity for him. As he puts it, Loomis is no arch-rival of Michael Myers. He’s just another victim, living a sad existence where he knows his failure has lead to countless deaths.

Carter’s search for Michael leads to the obvious fate and we’re told that the story will continue in Halloween: Sam. Sam would be released as a PDF in 2008 on the now-defunct Halloweenmovies.com site.

Again, Marcus Smith is on art duties, but the story is mostly prose. It tells the story of the Halloween movies from Loomis’ point of view, ending prior to Halloween H20. It ultimately shows the final days of Loomis, who has grown so weary from his investment in Michael to the point of suffering a heart attack.

Michael appears before him for one last confrontation where Loomis is too tired and weak to fight for his life, but is able to at least get into Michael’s head a little bit and point out how empty a being he is. According to Loomis, Michael’s first kill was his peak and no matter how brutally he murders anyone else, it will never capture the same magic. It's the closest thing to taking a loss that Michael does in the entire Hutchinson run and even then, not really.

In 2008, Hutchinson would do a handful of Halloween comics for Devil’s Due Publishing. The main one is a four-issue miniseries called Halloween: Nightdance, featuring art by Tim Seeley. Rather than bringing in characters from the various movies, it starts anew with a fresh set of characters. The best I can compare it to is the six-issue Friday the 13th comic Wildstorm released. It feels refreshing because it takes its time.

The one-shots and two-parters speed through everything a bit too much at times. Here, we actually get to know our victims and the tension is allowed to build.

Our protagonist is Lisa, a teenager who was locked in a cellar by Michael, along with a little boy named Daniel she was babysitting at the time. They were freed by a search party days later. Although Lisa doesn’t get to see Daniel anymore, he still sends her crude cartoon drawings every day. Things take a dark turn when these drawings become disturbing, like showing Lisa naked and covered in blood.

As you can guess, the unstoppable man in the William Shatner mask is looking to finish the job.

It builds on the modus operandi that Hutchinson introduced in One Good Scare. Michael Myers isn’t 100% about simply showing up and killing everyone in sight. Well, for the less-important people, sure, but what he really likes is confronting his prey, leaving them alive, and then coming back after their fear has ripened.

Next is Halloween: 30 Years of Terror, a double-sized one-shot featuring five short stories. They mostly feel a bit half-baked. “Trick or Treat,” drawn by Danijel Zezelj, is about the old couple who Tommy Doyle and Lindsey Wallace run to during the end of the first movie. While leading to some cool imagery, it ends just as quickly as it begins.

Jim Daly’s “POV” shows Michael murdering a beauty queen for kicks, mainly because that kill has been referenced in other Hutchinson Halloween stories. It’s not really a story. Just a sequence with a gimmick.

Brett Weldele’s “Visiting Hours” is about a girl who has been haunted by young Michael’s gaze for decades and awaits in the sanitarium for him to one day kill her because she’s too crippled by fear to do anything else with her life.

“Tommy and the Boogeyman,” drawn by Jeffrey Zornow and Lee Ferguson, is a weird one. It shows what Tommy Doyle’s up to in this continuity where Paul Rudd’s performance never happened. Part of the short story is a comic-within-the-comic about a cross between the Crypt Keeper and a tarantula, who acts as a more charismatic slasher villain.

Then we see that Tommy is apparently...Joe Quesada? Huh. Anyway, he draws Michael Myers comics.

Then there’s “Repetition Compulsion” with more great Tim Seeley art. It’s another Dr. Loomis thing, once again showing off how Michael is one step ahead of him at all times.

The final Halloween comic is Halloween: The First Death of Laurie Strode with art by Jeff Zornow. The three issue miniseries is supposed to be the link between the end of Halloween II and Laurie’s status quo as of Halloween H20, with Loomis faking a car accident and allowing Michael to believe she’s dead.

It’s a pretty weak comic, all in all, although I love the quick shout-out to Halloween III.

The second issue ends with Laurie watching in horror as Michael kills Jimmy, one of the survivors from Halloween II. That’s all she wrote because Halloween: The First Death of Laurie Strode #3 was never released. There was also hype for a miniseries called Halloween: The Mark of Thorn, co-written by Jeff Katz and meant to be released in 2009, but that got deep-sixed too.

Just as well, really. Hutchinson had nothing left to say. I’ll give him credit, he was able to build a continuity and use his different stories to fill in the blanks, but First Death of Laurie Strode shows the big flaw in his world. He’s too in love with Michael Myers and cares too little about everyone else.

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Laurie comes off as too much of a mopey victim to want to follow. Dr. Loomis is a pathetic loser, constantly railed on for being a failure. Nearly everyone is murdered horribly. And Michael? He’s practically Batman.

And not the good Batman. I mean the hacky, overly-competent Batman who is 100 steps ahead of everyone and never gets punched.

One thing I’ve noticed about reading all the Freddy and Jason comics is that the writers are too into the villains to the point that protagonists aren’t allowed to survive. People survive the movies all the time, but in comics, they have to die violently to tie up these imaginary loose ends. The difference is, Freddy and Jason eat shit all the time, even in these comics where they always win. They’re overpowered, so they’re allowed to get knocked down because it's only temporary.

Hutchinson’s Michael Myers doesn’t get knocked down. Outside of bringing up the explosion at the end of Halloween II, he refuses to ever show anyone getting the drop on Michael ever. The dude is nigh-unkillable. It's okay to let him get hit with a wrench or a car every now and then. He can take it.

At least that initial Halloween comic from Chaos let Tommy outfight him. Yeah, Michael gets back up and wanders off, but we at least get to see someone fight back. It’s rather nice.

So yeah, the Halloween comics have their moments, but they usually try to play it safe too much. Sure, the curse stuff from the middle movies fell on its face, but at least they were trying something creative. Mix it up, man.

I will say this. Despite the comics taking place after the events of Halloween: Resurrection, Michael still never, at any point, chooses to seek out a rematch against Busta Rhymes. Hutchinson’s Michael Myers truly is a smart guy. He knows when he’s beat.

“Trick or treat, motherfucker!”

Gavin Jasper should probably start writing next year's History of Evil Dead Comics article right now because that thing’s going to be ten volumes long. Follow him on Twitter!

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2018 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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[jimmythejiver]

In short, it's against my nature to ask for help, even when it would benefit my own interests. I'm going to try to change that. Does anyone have recommendations for blogs that post these fandoms?:

DC Comics: Specifically The Flash, Green Lantern, Justice league International, Golden Age Justice Society (Alan Scott's my one true Love) DC CW shows: The Flash mostly, Legends, Arrow are fine, but no SnowBarry, Olicity, or Karamel ships. Marvel Comics All eras, Anything that's not movie, or tv related (don't have Netflix, just antenna): No Hydra Cap, Fascist Tony, Genocidal Wanda, or Devil pact Peter Parker garbage.

Star Wars Original Trilogy, general lore and speculations whether it's Canon or not and it's fandom history. Honestly don't want to trip on the landmine that is the old EU ( a lot of stuff to sift through, only some gems), the prequels (too many people try to justify why they're great, I was nine when Phantom Menace came out, not an old 70's kid, bored me, same with Attack of The Clones, rewatching them hasn't changed my mine, sorry), or the current era and it's discourse on Kylo fucking Ren. Fuck him.

Final Fantasy: Any era’s fine, but I’m most fond of VIII and X. Still playing XV when it has updates.

General Interests World History, Silent Era Hollywood, Golden Age Hollywood, The Jazz Age, Mid-Twentieth Century Culture, Jazz Music, Sound Recordings, Old Technology, Rock/Soul Music, Traditional Animation and Cartoons, Comic Book History, Pre-Golden Age Sci-Fi, Golden Age Sci-Fi, Hardboiled Novels, Detective Novels, Pulp Magazines, Architecture, Writing, Reading Recs

(Will Edit More In Later)