#the return of the jedi novel

[gffa]

DEX FEELING GUILTY ABOUT TELLING OBI-WAN ABOUT KAMINO, GIVEN HOW IT LED TO DISCOVERING THE CLONES, WHICH LED TO THE GENOCIDE OF THE JEDI, LED TO A THOUSAND YEARS OF PEACE, REDUCED TO DUSH, THAT HE BLAMES HIMSELF FOR SOMETHING HE COULD NEVER HAVE KNOWN WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. AND HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW IF HIS FRIEND DIED ON THAT DAY, IF HE PLAYED A PART IN HIS FRIEND'S DEATH, THAT PRECOCIOUS YOUNGLING HE MET ON LEHNARA, OR IF OBI-WAN HAD TO LIVE TO SEE THE MURDER OF HIS ENTIRE PEOPLE AND CULTURE. HI THANKS STAR WARS I'M GONNA GO FLING MYSELF INTO THE SUN NOW THIS IS TOO MUCH TO HANDLE (Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi: "The Veteran")

[skywalkr-nberrie]

Definitely the wrong interpretation of Padmé’s character to say that she wouldn’t have stayed with Anakin had she lived. Of course, in the context that he remains Vader, it’s obvious she wouldn’t stay by his side then, she’d be actively against him. But a redeemed Vader, that’s once again Anakin Skywalker? There’s no doubt that her undying love for him overpowers all. He’d have a looooot to make up for, but Padmé is the kind of person who’d be on that journey alongside him. Padmé said it herself that they’d always be “one” no matter what happened. She was always ready and willing to forgive him no matter what he did, or where he went. She was always going to his, just as much as he was always hers.

And we see this very clearly even after what’s happened on Mustafar, and after Padmé found out that everything she heard was the truth. But there’s a reason why she still had unwavering faith in Anakin. She knew he still had goodness in him, and she wanted him back. She didn’t fight tooth and nail on Mustafar to bring him back to her, begging him to stop and tell him that she loves him, only to leave him in the end. She wanted him back more than anything. Why? Because she wanted to be with him. To run away to the lakes on Naboo, where she can live out her days with him and their kid(s).

❉ ❉ ❉

“The most powerful, the most repressed thought of all could have emerged from the darkness: Padmé … and her undying love for someone he once knew well. And despite all the terrible, unspeakable things he’d done in his life, he suddenly realized he could not stand by and allow the Emperor to kill their son. And in that moment, he was no longer Darth Vader.”

[Ryder Windham’s Episode VI: Return of the Jedi novelization]

[jon-mcbrine-author]

A hilarious lesson in forward thinking for your plots 😂

[marvelstars]

"Memories of molten lava, crawling up his back.. no. This boy had pulled him from that pit - here, now, with this act. This boy was good. The boy was good, and the boy had come from him - so there must have been good in him too. He smiled up again at his Son and for the first time, loved him. And for the first time in many long years, loved himself again. "

Return of the Jedi by James Khan

[azurecanary]

I could literally think of nothing worse

[jewishcissiekj]

Asajj Ventress (and Anakin Skywalker) on the Japanese covers of Clone Wars novels: The Cestus Deception, Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, and Jedi Trial

[skyguy8108]

It gets better! From the Return of the Jedi novel:

Luke only smiled. “You should have bargained, Jabba. This is the last mistake you’ll ever make.” Luke was unable to suppress the satisfaction in his voice. He found Jabba despicable—a leech of the galaxy, sucking the life from whatever he touched. Luke wanted to burn the villain, and so was actually rather glad Jabba had refused to bargain—for now Luke would get his wish precisely. Of course, his primary objective was to free his friends, whom he loved dearly; it was this concern that guided him now, above all else. But in the process, to free the universe of this gangster slug—this was a prospect that tinted Luke’s purpose with an ever-so-slightly dark satisfaction.

you ever think about how the twins destroying the Hutt presence on Tatooine avenged a grandmother they'd never even met

(support me on kofi!)

[sbnkalny]

Authored

rorylad

[thecosmiccircus]

Book Review: 'Star Wars: Return of the Jedi From a Certain Point of View'

Return of the Jedi is one of my all-time favorite Star Wars movies. The adventure and the feel-good ending always make me emotional, remembering the journey all these beloved characters have been on. Star Wars: Return of the Jedi celebrates its 40th anniversary with the newest installment in the From a Certain Point of View book series. The title comes from Obi-Wan Kenobi’s line in the film. When…

[intermundia]

to me this is one of the most important passages of the revenge of the sith novelization, as it contains a fundamental thesis of the prequels. the clone wars were designed to kill jedi. sidious put the order in checkmate before they'd even begun fighting. he used their compassion and trust against them by leveraging their sense of duty to push them into fighting a morally dubious war to protect innocent lives, tarnishing their galactic reputation. he gave them friends in the clones that were crafted to become their assassins. he spread the jedi out, thinned their numbers in years of brutal combat, and then when they were sufficiently weak, wiped them out.

the revenge of the sith required so much planning and moving from the shadows over decades to arrange the galaxy into a trap. the prequel jedi did not have the knowledge that we the audience have, they were operating out of a place of partial understanding and with the best of intentions. to hold them to a standard of omniscience and omnipotence instead of appreciating the genius and patience of the sith is unfair and missing the point. they're not perfect, but they are good. it is tragic that being good is not always enough, it is tragic to know that our best of intentions can come up short. it is tragic that evil can gain power and harm the innocent without repercussions.

this book is heartbreaking on a personal level, but also on a political and ideological one. it reflects the very real world when greed and fear hold sway over a population, where exploitation and oppression win. the jedi are slain and it is brutal to read, and a generation afterward struggling in the dark without them. however, star wars ultimately carries a message of hope: you can kill jedi, but you cannot kill compassion and community. wherever people love each other, there is light. the empire fell and the jedi returned because you cannot kill their ideas. so there is hope, but that doesn't change that it is an egregious crime in the prequels that they were slaughtered.

[gffa]

Brb gonna go punt myself into the sun real quick, Obi-Wan seeing Anakin in Leia in both the gentleness and fire of her speeches has me inconsolable. (Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi: "From a Certain Point of View")

[emptyjunior]

It looks like with the movies taking off, everyone is on the Dune train now!! Which is very exciting, I’m glad a bunch of new people are discovering this media and reading the books, but can I recommend you the David Lynch, Dune (1984) movie.

First of all, if you are invested in the lore of the books and the deeper messaging of the story, you’re going to need to turn that part of your brain Off. If you love kick ass shit and are willing to be slightly tipsy while you watch and have a great goddamn afternoon, this is the flick for you.

Now first fun fact I’m going to share with you. David Lynch (twin peaks, eraserhead director, celebrated surrealist) turned down the opportunity to direct Return of the Jedi for this film. A film that was devastatingly slow to make, changed hands multiple times, had a pricy VFX budget of $40 million and then made barely $31 million, David Lynch turned down Star Wars to work on it. And he did this when he had never read the novel, and did not even like or engage with sci fi media. THAT’S how you know we’re really in for something.

Now this film has some big names in it! We’ve got a young Kyle MacLachlan who is rocking some Devastating outfits:

We’ve got Sir Patrick Stewert as our Gurney and Sting, lead singer of the police, playing the 15 year old Feyd Rautha! If you wanted to see a grown man, sprayed orange, basically naked playing a free wheeling maniac you are in for a treat! And another fun fact, David Lynch also did not know who these actors were, he made a mistake and thought Patrick Stewert was someone else and when Sting said he was in the police he assumed he was in an organization of lawmen.

Now these characters are familiar to you, but let me get into the unfamiliar. Lynch made some directorial executive decisions throughout this film, for I suppose the ease of the viewer? I mean an adaptation is supposed to adapt so he went let me change some stuff up👏👏👏.

Those who paid attention to Jessica’s backstory may know about the Weirding Way. This is a martial arts style created by the Bene Gesserit, and practiced by Paul. It is more than just a fighting style but also an important philosophical concept, like Aikido or how Kung Fu has foundations in Buddhism.

You may also be familiar with the quote “My name is a killing word.” This inner monologue of Paul’s refers to how his title Muad’dub will be used to spur a holy war. A simple name is what people will die and bleed for, it will be what they scream as they cut down enemies.

Dark! Intense! That’s Dune, anyways in the novel it’s easy to take your time exploring these concepts. Introducing the audience to the religious ramifications of a simple name and fighting practice and how these things can have rippling repercussions upon a society like the Freman.

Now David Lynch didn’t have time for that! He had the belief (that may be right🤷‍♂️!) That watching a bunch of people kick each other on top of a sand dune would be Lame😭😭

So he made the choice for his film that “My name is a killing word” was to be taken Absolutely Literally and invented a device where if the freman said the name Muad-dib, shit would explode.

If they said Paul’s name, they could Explode Stuff. Let it sink in how rad that is. Hell yeah man, hell yeah. Imagine me interpreting religious text that way, imagine if I made a bible movie and the moral I took from a parable is that when Jesus asked for food and everyone donated fish, I concluded that Jesus was a mutant who had fish powers and could immediately conjure fish with magic and gave him fish death rays that shot out of his hands.

So that’s what you can expect from this interpretation, the weirding way now means everyone has Lasers its rad as hell.

Some other incredible choices made! This is a spoiler, but in the novels and the new films you can see the Freman collecting every scrap of water they can. Dr Liet-Kynes, the planetologist, reveals to us it’s because they have a long, multiple generation spanding plan to fix the planet. By introducing this water back they hope to reset the ecosystem over centuries of work. The reason they have been unable to do this is because a green planet would obviously not have worms and sand who produce spice, the most coveted drug in the empire, so imperial and harkonnen forces have been stopping this from ever happening. They want to be free from oppression so that they can start to work on slowly fixing their world, a project that plays out in Paul’s adult life and has its own dramas and complexities.

In Dune 1984??? The moment, the Moment Paul lays out his cousin and throws the final punch, it begins to rain in Arrakis. As if they were all under a magical curse and were just waiting for a teenager to come fight another teenager and then the water will come back. It’s so good, it’s so funny.

Also Pugs! House Atreides official Pugs! Paul has pugs in his lap!!

This is honestly an adaptation choice that I really really like! Paul is the result of centuries of selective breeding, this practice is an artform to the Bene Gesserit and a skill that they monitor closely. It produces bizarre and sometimes terrifying results and is the reason for Paul’s existence.

I think having an animal that was also created through selective breeding, was engineered from a wolf into an animal that can hardly breathe is an incredible metaphor! A smart and identifiable symbol for the audience, I think it’s a slam dunk and the new movies should have done it to.

Anyways can not recommend this film enough.

-The body suits the bad guys wear are made out of real body bags, that actually had been used.

-David Lynch to this day hates it.

-The original cut was four hours.

-The cast and crew were sick the Entire shoot with something they called Montezuma's Revenge, which was probably just food poisoning, side effects from the constant smog because they shot the whole thing on backup generators, illness from the cockroach infestation and terrible morale.

-Frank Herbert saw it multiple times and said he absolutely loved it.

-When they ride the worms, sick rock jams play.

If you love electric guitar, lasers, worms and will forgive me for not including all the trigger warnings cause Yes this film will gross you out, then go watch this movie.

[padmestrilogy]

i saw the tv glow (2024) dir. jane schoenbrun / revenge of the sith (2005) / rots novelization, matthew stover / "i saw the tv glow's ending is full of hope", emily st. james / rots first draft / justice smith unpacks the mysteries of i saw the tv glow / return of the jedi (1983)

[marvelstars]

Return of the Jedi by James Khan

"Ignoring pain, ignoring his shame and his weaknesses, ignoring the bone crushing noise in his head, he focused solwly and sightlessly on his will, his will to defeat the evil embodied in the Emperor"

Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader

[skywalkr-nberrie]

I just love how in the SW novels or any other extended content it’s more clearer that Anakin and Padmé specifically choose missions they know the other will be on to join. Whether it be Anakin as her guard, or Padmé as his ally.

We see in Forces of Destiny that Anakin tries to get missions as Padmé’s bodyguard.

So we can assume that this becomes a thing between the two of them 🤣 trying to hack missions they’re both on to be together more. I mean, if it was up to them? They’d be attached at the hip 24/7.

Even in TCW, we see Padmé making moves to get Anakin on the same missions she’s on, asking Yoda and Mace to send OW and “Skywalker” because she’ll be needing Jedi aid for her excursion 😏 and we see the same thing take place in Brotherhood, when Anakin and Padmé go out on a date. Though in the BH novel, she knows it’d be easier for her to secretly go on a date with her husband than spend time with him on duty where they’re still trying to hide from the gaze of others.

Well, you guessed it! This unspoken deal between them extends to even the other novels too! Like here in Secrets of the Jedi. Palps tells Anakin that Padmé personally chose to go on the mission that Anakin was sent on, despite that Anakin was afraid and didn’t want Padmé to come, we see how his mind later changes after talking it out with Padmé. He tells her that he won’t leave her side and she responds in kind by saying that this was exactly what she wanted. (For him to never leave her side.)

And later on in the same novel, now on the mission, Anakin decides he’s gonna do some exploring on the ship they ended up on. Right after Padmé not so discreetly says she’ll “join him” masking her reasoning with “mission investigation.”

Further into the novel now, Anakin advises Padmé to return to Coruscant for her own safety, requesting her, and silently begging with his eyes for her to listen to him. Triggering the topic between them of how they hate to be apart from one another and that it’s so hard to live this life, despite that they’ve already decided long ago that it was worth it to belong to each other.

Padmé wanted to stay on the mission and be alongside Anakin, but she inevitably listens to his plea and goes back.

However, the reasoning behind Padmé wanting to stay on missions with Anakin isn’t just to spend time with him, but also it’s also parallel to Anakin’s reason for wanting her to stay back and away from the danger. She can’t bare to be with him go away, and she can’t follow. She has to see him or else she’ll go “crazy” worrying over him. This is also one of the reasons why she drowns herself in work whenever she can’t join him. (Excerpt from Star Wars, Clone Wars Gambit: stealth.)

And this is why Padmé encourages Anakin to take her with him when he’s on missions, as shown here in Queen’s Hope.

They just never want to be separated from one another, and I just love a clingy and madly in love cute couple, okay! They’re made for each other!

[kcrabb88]

One thing that's clarified for me a few days after the Acolyte finale is the immense mismatch in the tone of Quimir's character post episode 5. In that episode we see him slaughter a bunch of highly competent Jedi, including a teenage girl who he refers to as "it." It was SCARY. I was scared. He pretended he was a kind of silly guy at first and then he was actually this monster beneath. After that episode, though, he just kind of ... was there. Sure he fought Sol, but he got his ass kicked. He was suddenly in a dark romance novel bathing naked and making big puppy eyes at Osha. That's not?? What I want from a Sith character in this time period? Manny Jacinto was amazing at being terrifying! Just let him!

The Sith of this time period were the line of Darth Bane. Right now, Tenebrous and Plagueis are out there with their piles of money quietly influencing galactic events and undermining the Republic and the Jedi by working with THE worse people you know to make conditions in the Outer Rim and other similar areas of the galaxy worse. They're like, the Peter Thiel of Star Wars, slowly making democracy crumble from a back room and creating so many problems that the good people in the senate and the Jedi are running around trying to fix those because they CARE. Like! In the Legends novel, Plagueis is out there medically experimenting on living beings to try and extend his own life. He force tricked another kid into throwing himself out of a window when he was like, five.

The Sith aren't Sith because a Jedi made a mistake once. The Sith of this period are enacting a 1,000 year plan of revenge because the Jedi took their power and their empire away from them. Like, that's just Lucas worldbuilding. The ability to make the Naboo blockade happen was because of centuries of dark influence. When a Jedi falls to the dark side, they don't have this "grand plan of the Sith" in mind. It's a different situation, and many of them return to the light. Anakin didn't fall because he wanted the glory of the Sith, he fell out of fear and did terrible things as a result. He came back (after the atrocities, yes, but he did). Quinlan fell for a short while desperately trying to take DOWN the Sith (both in legends and canon) so again, not a glory of the Sith thing, and he came back really fast. Even Dooku was never a Sith's Sith. He did awful stuff, but the Sith thing was more of an avenue for his arrogance in thinking he could replace the Republic with corporate power and that would fix everything.

But the line of Darth Bane? Those guys are fucken EVIL. They want to be evil. They were always evil. Palpatine is the culmination of a thousand years of planning, and he kills his own master to ensure he keeps it for himself--the ultimate show of being a Sith, honestly.

Anyway, I guess THAT is the show I thought I was going to get, full of political intrigue and the slow seep of darkness that connects to the prequels. But that's not what it was at all.