Spotlight: Star Wars – Wedge Antilles

Forgive the numerous Star Wars posts, readers, but the franchise has been on my mind quite a bit lately. My posts about the forgotten heroines from a galaxy far, far away and subsequent interactions with the young ladies who run The Elven Padawan have re-ignited my hibernating interest in these stories. And once my interest in a story has been reawakened, it is hard for me to get it under control.

This is why I began thinking quite a bit about Wedge Antilles, the focus of today’s Spotlight! article. In my early days as a Star Wars fan I was always impressed when, after Wedge’s X-Wing is damaged during the trench run on the first Death Star, Luke told him to break off before he got killed. In marked contrast to his relationship with Biggs Darklighter, Luke barely knew Wedge before going out to attack the giant battle station. They hardly met before being thrust into combat together.

Still, despite their short acquaintance, a viewer can hear the genuine concern in Luke’s voice when he tells Red Two to bail out of the trench run. That scene always stuck with me; in spite of the fact that they didn’t really know one another, Luke Skywalker truly cared about protecting Wedge Antilles. Considering he lost his childhood friend not long afterward, that says a lot about the budding Jedi Knight’s character.

My regard for Wedge in the films at the time was, clearly, less about him and more about Luke. Thinking back, this blogger really only “met” and came to like Wedge Antilles during her first read through of Timothy Zahn’s novel Vision of the Future, from the Hand of Thrawn duology. During Vision, Antilles’ character was on full display. His dry humor, his dislike of politics mixing with military matters, and his leadership and tactical abilities caught my attention at once. Through Zahn’s writing this blogger also came to admire Wedge for his loyalty, his strong sense of right and wrong, and his genuine concern for those under his command.

I also appreciated the fact that Wedge hadn’t lost his optimism. Despite everything he had been through, in the old EU Antilles still believed in and hoped for happy endings. He had far more depth and personality in the books than the films had suggested. Subsequently, he stopped being just a face in a cockpit when I watched the movies. In that strange way all good fictional characters have of endearing themselves to audiences, he became something close to a real person for me.

Obviously, this blogger has not lost any respect for his character over the years. Hearing that he would appear in Star Wars Rebels, I was glad to know that at least this old favorite, unlike several others, wasn’t going to be completely forgotten in the new timeline. However, my enthusiasm for his presence in the new stories was tempered by the fact that so much from the first EU had been discarded. I sensed that the people running Disney/Lucasfilm weren’t going to let Filoni and crew bring the Wedge I knew into the new Star Wars timeline.

That isn’t to say that Wedge’s appearances in Rebels weren’t enjoyable. He sometimes came across as a bit foolish in certain scenes, but there were other times when some of the Antilles I knew shone through the changes. It was still Wedge being Wedge (for the most part), and this blogger could like his animated representation for that. The only thing I would have tweaked in Rebels was his brief career as an Imperial pilot. If the Rebels writers could have written Wedge as an undercover agent and recruiter who needed extraction, the episode would have made more sense to me.

The reason I say this is that, in the original stories, Wedge casually hated the Empire and wanted to keep off its radar. Due to the insurance payout he received after his parents’ deaths aboard the family refueling station, he was able to do this by buying his own ship. For a couple of years following the loss of his parents, Wedge ran legal freight around the galaxy. But because of the Empire’s economic stranglehold, finding legitimate, good paying jobs was hard work for independent freighters – especially young ones like him.

In the old timeline, Wedge would cite this economic hardship as his reason for joining the Rebel Alliance. The truth, however, was far different. While working as a cargo pilot Wedge fell in love with a girl named Mala Tinero. She supported the Alliance along with her father and, though Wedge agreed with their ideals, he wasn’t inclined to join the fight against the Empire just yet. That only happened after Mala, her father, and the village where they lived were bombed to atoms when their link to the Rebellion was discovered.

Due to the fact that he was making his first delivery in months that week, Wedge wasn’t with Mala and the others when this occurred. He got back in time to find the Imperials still swarming over what remained of the village. Infuriated and heartbroken, he shot down several TIEs before spending the next few days dodging patrols while trying to find Mala. But it soon became clear that his sweetheart was dead. Devastated, Wedge finally joined the Rebels on Yavin IV, becoming roommates and good friends with Jek Porkins and (drumroll, please) Biggs Darklighter.

From there, Wedge proved his capabilities as a pilot. Han Solo, Tycho Celchu, and Baron Soontir Fel, all legendary pilots in their own rights, recognized Wedge as a skilled flyer. One of his commanders even went so far as to say that Wedge flew “as crazy as Solo,” a high compliment indeed. These combined skills earned him more and more responsibility, meaning that Wedge unintentionally climbed through the Rebellion’s ranks faster than a man his age would have. This put him in position to found Rogue Squadron – a starfighter group that became the troubleshooters for the Rebellion and New Republic – later on with his new friend, Luke Skywalker. It also sharpened his skills as a leader and tactician.

After Luke left the military to restart the Jedi Order, Wedge remained a fighter pilot, refusing promotions in order to stay on the front lines so he could command the Rogues. This meant that most of his subordinates also refused to move up the ranks, since they wanted to stay with their commander. On one occasion, in order to avoid being promoted, Wedge actually engineered his own demotion so he could keep leading his squadron. That can’t have been easy – or particularly safe. But he did it and got away with it. 😉

L to R: Wedge Antilles, two unidentified (to this blogger) Rogues, Corran Horn, and Tycho Celchu.

While the original Wedge Antilles was generally willing to obey orders, he wasn’t afraid to break with the New Republic when he thought the leadership was being stupid. After Ysanne “Iceheart” Isard took over the bacta-producing world Thyferra, the New Republic hierarchy refused to move against her. Corran Horn, who flew under Wedge’s command as Rogue Nine and had been a captive of Isard’s, quit the military to go after her. This wasn’t because he wanted revenge on her but because he had promised the other captives she was holding – one of whom was General Jan Dodonna – that he would come back to rescue them.

Seconds after Corran quit, Wedge resigned his commission as well. It’s a mark of his character that all but one of the Rogues immediately followed him out of the military and into the fight for Thyferra. (The lone hold out wanted to join them but couldn’t due to politics and family ties.) Appointing Wedge as their leader, the Rogues hooked up with the anti-Isard resistance on the planet and recruited other rebels to help them oust her from power. The campaign took some time – I’m not really sure whether it was an intense few months or a couple of years. In the end, though, the Rogues successfully freed Thyferra. Upon winning the “Bacta War,” as Wedge had dubbed it, Antilles and the rest of the Squadron were allowed back into the New Republic military.

A couple of original Expanded Universe writers mentioned that Wedge’s morality was something they liked about him, and I have to say that it impressed me, too. Though prone to explosive bursts of anger and inclined to take revenge on those who harmed him or his friends/family, Wedge didn’t let pain, grief, and anger rule him completely. Yes, he chased down and killed the pirates who murdered his parents by disengaging prematurely from their fueling station. And, yes, he did kill the TIE pilots who murdered Mala in anger. There were other instances where he took similar actions against different villains, too. But in each case, Wedge didn’t let his desire for vengeance completely control him, showing honor and mercy in his dealings with the enemy even when he didn’t necessarily feel like offering either to them.

In many ways, Wedge had a sense of honor and morality that was in line with the Jedi code. As Wedge once explained it, he killed not because he enjoyed it, but because by “burn[ing] down” the Empire and other enemies, he ensured that innocent people got to “stay happy.” This attitude made it very hard for him to accept unavoidable collateral damage caused during big battles. It also left him feeling guilty when he had to watch members of both Rogue and Wraith Squadrons fly to their deaths.

Looking at him now, I think that one of the reasons why I like the original Wedge Antilles so much is that he was a Jedi Knight at heart. The fact that he stood out to Force-sensitives like a torch only cements this idea for me; Wedge is said to have “projected a strong presence in the Force” which was indicative of “vitality and a focused mind.” For a non-Force user to “glow” so brightly that even a Jedi has to reach for a set of sunglasses to look at him shows that Wedge was no pansy or push over.

This is why I have trouble reconciling “original Wedge” with the new timeline’s treatment of the character. According to this video here, the broad strokes of Wedge’s new history match up with the original – but that’s in the broad strokes. In the new books, Antilles apparently tells someone that he joined the Rebellion because the Empire hurt his family and the girl he loved. This has led some to think that the crew of the Ghost is the family Wedge is talking about, and that the girl he loved is Sabine Wren.

There are several reasons why I am not comfortable with this idea. Although Wedge worked with the Ghost crew a fair bit in Rebels, there was no obvious indication during his appearances there that signaled he was specifically a member of “their” family. If there was, I either missed it or forgot it. And while one could argue that he and Sabine had chemistry, I can’t see them actually clicking. They have incompatible personalities; she’s too fierce and he’s too steady. It’s like expecting a firecracker and a hearth fire to get along well together. If this is what the new timeline actually did to these two characters…. I have to say that it is not going to work for me.

In the new timeline Wedge is also supposed to have founded Phantom Squadron, which is probably a callback to the original EU’s Wraith Squadron and the new timeline’s Ghost crew. Other than that, I think Wedge just sort of disappears in the new stories. Whether he vanishes quietly or in a blaze of glory (my money is on the latter), really doesn’t matter; what matters is that this isn’t the Wedge I know and like. This means that I have zero interest in “new Wedge” going forward.

While some might say that it is unfair for me to do this based on comparisons between the new and old Star Wars histories, the fact is that in my case, it was inevitable. Besides, when a franchise as popular and universal as Star Wars disowns forty odd years of canon stories to rebuild the franchise from scratch, they can’t expect people not to weigh the two timelines against each other. Having done this, I must agree with the assessments made by many other fans; from my perspective, Disney/Lucasfilm is turning the vibrant, colorful worlds of Star Wars into a relatively bland and shallow universe. With the exception of Rebels and Rogue One, none of the new Star Wars material I’ve read or seen comes close to matching the original EU’s depth and energy.

This isn’t a spur of the moment decision. I have read some new timeline books, and I can point to certain problems I had with them. As detailed here, I ran into things in a couple of these novels which irked and disgusted me. While others might consider these to be minor problems or to be small, isolated changes in a bigger picture, they are nothing of the sort to me.

The reason these alterations are not insignificant to this blogger is that they illustrate a wider, bigger, and very disconcerting (to me and others) disparity between the two timelines. Up until the Yuuzhan Vong War, there was an animating spirit which enlivened the old EU – one that is missing from the New Timeline. The fact that it’s missing isn’t obvious at first; I got hooked by the writing in Lost Stars until the second sex scene occurred. Having found Star Wars books to be free of such things in the past, Claudia Gray’s second “romantic interlude” in Lost Stars threw me out of the story fast and hard. I only finished the story because I was half-hoping it would get better.

All it did was get worse.

Now I will not say that the old EU was perfect. My dislike of and outright hatred for the original EU’s Yuuzhan Vong War and following stories is well-documented. The only thing I find acceptable about the original timeline’s Yuuzhan Vong War books and following media was the addition of Ben Skywalker, Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker’s son, to the storyline. The rest of stories which followed the Yuuzhan Vong War are detestable trash. It is true, too, that I still like Rogue One and Star Wars Rebels (up to season four, anyway). The New Timeline didn’t completely disappoint me in these areas; these stories were what gave me hope Disney/Lucasfilm could do honor to the franchise.

Unfortunately, the rest of the Disney/Lucasfilm’s New Timeline has dashed that hope, and not simply through its lamentable handling of the Skywalker saga. I not only agree with others who believe that Luke, Leia, and Han have all been terribly abused by the new writers, I believe this disrespect has trickled down to their treatment of great secondary characters like Admiral Ackbar and Wedge Antilles. The excuse some Disney/Lucasfilm execs have probably used on fans like me who complain about these disheartening changes to the Star Wars brand is that the franchise is called “Star Wars.” It’s about a galaxy where war is a constant. “Of course people are going to die in Star Wars!” these execs shout at me and other fans, “You’re all idiots for expecting your heroes to live forever. Everyone dies, especially in wars. That’s real life!”

My answer to that multi-layered insult is yes and no. Yes, people die in wars. Yes, heroes cannot live forever – not here, anyway. They have to pass beyond the curtain of death to reach eternal peace, life, and happiness, the rewards for their long years of service to the Greater Good in the physical world. I recognize and understand this. In point of fact, I embrace it.

But since Disney/Lucasfilm wants to play the “perpetual war” card, allow me to lay out an Idiot’s Array in answer: all of human life is a war. Every human being born into this world is engaged in a private war with himself or herself, with the world, and with the devil. To live is to go to war. And in order to get through these personal wars, which end only at our deaths, we need heroes to inspire us to keep fighting when everything seems hopeless and pointless. Fictional “people” who succeed despite the challenges facing them, who “could have turned back lots of times, only they didn’t,”  to paraphrase Master Samwise Gamgee. Without the help of such fictional reminders, most of us would have cracked under the pressure to “take the quick and easy” path a long time ago.

The original EU writers recognized and understood this, at least prior to the Yuuzhan Vong War storyline (though some knew it even then, but were prevented by Lucasfilm’s editors from doing what they knew was right). Human life, human history, is a battle – a continuous war – against the physical and interior manifestations of evil. While I am inclined to believe that Filoni and Zahn still understand this truth, I am convinced that the majority of the new writers have forsaken the truth and The Truth for another agenda entirely.

Wedge and Iella Antilles

I’m sorry if my opinion hurts your feelings, readers. But this is what my various encounters with both SW timelines has led me to believe. Reminiscing about and studying Wedge’s original depiction in comparison to that of his new timeline counterpart is what put this difference between both universes into perspective for me. I know that plenty of people aren’t going to agree with the opinion I have voiced here, but this is what I think. With a few notable exceptions the new Star Wars timeline is, to me, a weak imitation of the original.

That’s not a fun thing for this writer to admit. However, as Kyle Katarn said, “The truth hurts, but lies are worse.” It’s time I stopped dancing around the point and stated my position clearly: I am officially done with the New Timeline. Disney/Lucasfilm is not supporting the truth; therefore, I cannot and will not support them.

This means that the new timeline’s Wedge Antillies is not the one I am – or will ever be – looking for. The Wedge I am looking for is ensconced in an X-Wing cockpit, frying TIEs and leading the Rogues. He’s happily married to Iella Wessiri, whom he finds more attractive as time passes. He is planning to tell his daughters to wear blasters when they reach dating age, just in case they run into a problem. He is also waiting to hear his friends Luke, Han, and/or Leia say, “Hey, I need a favor…” because whenever they call on him, things get interesting real fast.

If you want to “meet” the Wedge I like so much “in person,” readers, you can start with his “Legends” Wookieepedia article here. If you would prefer to skip that, try Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy and Hand of Thrawn duology. (Neither set of books requires any kind of Warning for Younger Readers. Although he has his faults, Zahn writes squeaky clean stories.) Wedge’s parts in the trilogy are brief but well rendered, and he shines very brightly in the Hand books. Jedi Search is another good place to “meet” Wedge, too.

Until I can read and review more books starring my favorite EU Rebel/New Republic pilot, these are my only recommendations for you, readers. So, ‘til next time –

May the Force be with you!

Best Friends Forever.

Book Review: Star Wars: Jedi Search by Kevin J. Anderson

And here we have another promise kept, readers! Today I will be reviewing Kevin J. Anderson’s Jedi Search. The first in a trilogy focusing on the founding of Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Academy on Yavin IV, there will be some Warnings for Younger Readers below. I don’t think they are particularly big red flags myself now, but I remember being very sensitive about the content of the books I read as a 10-15 year old. Because of that, I might not have read this novel when I was that age.

This leads me to note that, while Jedi Search might be the type of book a child in this age range would decide to avoid reading at the moment, they might want to keep it in mind for a future date. Speaking from experience, this writer knows that after a while young readers build up defense mechanisms which allow them to enjoy stories that contain mild to middling unpleasant content. What would have scandalized my fourteen year old mind doesn’t elicit a blink from me now. This will likely be the case for most other young readers at some point; as we learn more about the light and shadow battling for dominance in the real world, the unpleasantness we find in fictional fare becomes less shocking for us.

With this caveat stated, let’s turn to Jedi Search itself. The story starts out with Han Solo and Chewbacca heading to Kessel on a diplomatic mission. In order to keep the valuable spice produced on the planetoid from being sold to all and sundry (plus the Empire), the government wants to bring Kessel into the New Republic. And because Han used to smuggle spice between Kessel and Nar Shaddaa, it makes perfect sense to appoint him the official envoy to whatever hegemony has set up shop on Kessel since the war finally ended.

Han’s not exactly thrilled to be going back to Kessel. Last time he was there, he picked up a spice shipment for Jabba the Hutt, then had to dump it when he couldn’t escape an Imperial patrol. The alien who ran Kessel at the time, a Rybet named Moruth Doole, was the one who handed the spice over to Han. Privately, Solo suspects the alien double-crossed him and Jabba by calling the Imperials. It was rumored that Doole curried favor with both the Empire and the crime lords in this way; he provided both the smugglers and the Imperials with the valuable spice, sometimes by betraying the smugglers to the Imps. This way he earned money on the spice and the smugglers, since the Empire would pay him for handing over wanted criminals.

No one ever proved this, however. It’s all just speculation. And Han figures enough time has passed that Doole – if he’s still in charge of the mines – will be happy to talk about setting up a similar sort of arrangement with the New Republic. The guy’s a business man, after all; the only thing he cares about is lining his pockets. Why should he care who is paying him?

It’s a reasonable assumption. But Doole isn’t a particularly reasonable alien. No sooner does Solo hail Kessel with his diplomatic message than fighters are scrambled to attack the Millennium Falcon. Han and Chewie do their best to escape, but it’s no good. They are brought down and captured by Moruth Doole’s pirate forces, which he established after the fall of the Empire to help him keep control of Kessel once he and the nastier prisoners took over the mines.

And he is really mad at Han.

See, it turns out that when Han dumped that load of spice, he wasn’t the only one the Hutt put a price on. Doole got one, too. Except that in his case, Jabba didn’t put a bounty on him; he set a death mark on the Rybet. As a result Doole had to dodge several murder attempts, one of which left him nearly blind. Determined to have his revenge and frightened by Solo’s thoughtless threats of official reprisal from the New Republic if he and Chewie aren’t released immediately, Doole decides to imprison the two in the spice mines.

Back on Coruscant, Leia and Mon Mothma are busy trying to get the planet Carida to join the New Republic. Their efforts are hampered by the Caridans themselves, who are still pro-Imperial. Carida used to be the home of the Imperial Naval Academy, and there’s a determined Imperial power structure still in place there. This means that the Caridan ambassador can throw tantrums and force concessions on the Republic government without fearing reprisal from his own administration. Eventually, though, he runs out of excuses to cause delays and has to agree to visit the New Republic – where he actually manages to become an even bigger pain in the neck.

On top of this, Jaina and Jacen – who are now two years old – are due to re-join their parents in a few days/weeks (I can’t remember which now). Having spent the first two years of their life in a protected location under Winter’s care, the twins were hidden in order to protect them from the Dark Side and the Empire. But their time of hiding is finally at an end, so Leia’s preparing to welcome them home at the same time she’s dealing with politics and missing Han.

Meanwhile, Luke makes a speech to the New Republic Senate asking for permission to officially restart the Jedi Order. After the assembly gives him their full-throated approval, he sets off to track down a few thin leads he has on some possible Force-sensitives. The first of these Force-sensitives – Gantoris – is the leader of some survivors from a crash on the dying world of Eol Sha. It takes quite a bit of work to recruit Gantoris because he is proud, independent, and he claims to have seen “a dark man” in his dreams who leads him to his own destruction. Gantoris thinks Luke is that man, and so he has the Jedi work to prove that his intentions aren’t evil.

Luke eventually does gain his trust. Unfortunately, he does so with some very flashy displays of his Force powers. Promising to send a ship to take the few remaining colonists from the dying world, Luke sets off to find his second potential student.

This time the possible Jedi he’s looking for is an older man named Streen, who lives in Bespin’s Cloud City. Streen’s aware he’s got a special ability, but he doesn’t know how to control it. This means he senses people all the time, so for years he has lived in seclusion high above the City. Here he avoids the pain and embarrassment sensing others’ emotions causes him and them. Luke promises to help him “stop sensing people all the time” but finds that, since neither of his prospective students is happy in a crowd, he needs to set up shop in a place that’s unpopulated. So he heads back to Corsucant to ask for Leia’s help locating a world where he can train new Jedi in peace.

Meanwhile, Han and Chewie are trying to figure out a way to survive the mines and to escape them. In the process, they make friends with a kid named Kyp Durron. The son of political dissidents the Empire imprisoned, Kyp and his parents were sent to Kessel when he was eight years old. His fourteen year old brother, Zeth, was forcibly conscripted into the Imperial Navy and sent to Carida.

Kyp Durron

You would think that this would be as bad as it got for Kyp, but it actually gets worse. His parents were killed by smugglers in the mines before his eyes, leaving him utterly alone in the dark, surrounded by very unfriendly people. When Doole re-took control of the planetoid from the Empire and set out to become the sole proprietor of Kessel, he “forgot” to free Kyp (and probably several others). They have been used as slaves in the mines ever since.

With Kyp’s help, Han and Chewie finally manage to escape Kessel. In the process they learn that the boy is Force-sensitive and received some rudimentary training in the ways of the Force from the Jedi crone Vima-Da-Boda. Chased toward the Maw, a cluster of black holes between Nar Shaddaa and Kessel, the three have to dive straight into the gravitational maelstrom to escape Doole’s forces, relying on Kyp’s Force-sensitivity to safely pilot their pilfered ship. The harebrained scheme works…

…But it also lands them smack dab in the middle of a secret Imperial installation run by Admiral Daala.

And that’s all the plot spoilers you are getting, readers! Personally, I find Kevin J. Anderson’s style annoying, although he is not so bad when he’s writing the Young Jedi Knights series. But when he’s writing for Han, Leia, and Luke, I want to reach through the book and shake him.

Part of the reason his depiction of Luke annoys me is due to the fact that Jedi Search takes place after the Emperor Reborn story arc. In the old EU Palpatine discovered how to avoid becoming one with the Dark Side of the Force immediately after death. Maintaining a toe-hold in the physical realm, he eventually put his spirit into a clone body and tried to rebuild the Empire. When the Emperor “returned” and began wrecking the fragile New Republic, Luke stupidly decided that the best way to stop him was to pretend to join the Dark Side.

The result is obvious in Search. Luke pulls in his Jedi hopefuls by speaking of teaching them about power and by showing off his own abilities in the Force. His wanton use of power is terrifying; the Force is a Jedi’s ally, not his/her servant. Luke’s dabbling in the Dark Side, however well-intentioned, taints a lot of his actions going forward here and in other books. This led to some very big, very bad consequences for the new Jedi, the Republic, and Luke in particular during the old EU. Reading this book, I can see why Zahn took every opportunity in Specter of the Past and Vision of the Future to verbally slap Luke upside the head for his poor choices (and possibly Anderson and other EU authors as well).

In regards to Leia and Han, in my opinion Anderson doesn’t let Leia seriously worry about her husband for at least half the book. Instead, he leaves her convinced that Han is using his assignment to visit Kessel as a chance to goof off, completely forgetting that their twins will be coming home soon. Anderson lets this attitude of hers persist for far too long, in my opinion; the fact that Han was overdue to report back to Coruscant at least via holocomm should have told Leia that something was wrong within a few days. Instead, it takes getting hung up on by Doole, plus a couple of more days/weeks (I’m not sure which it is now) of communications’ silence for her to realize that Han’s in trouble.

On the bright side, Han came through this story pretty well. Since he’s stuck on Kessel the day that Jaina and Jacen arrive on Coruscant to stay, his frustration and anger at missing their return makes him attack the guards. His action is not that of a man frantic to escape an unjust situation but of a desperate father who wants to go home to see and hold his children. It’s a very touching, realistic moment, and it’s one of my favorite scenes in the book.

Despite Anderson’s limitations as an author, he does tell a good story. He also ably presents us with the newest Imperial antagonist, Admiral Natasi Daala. Hidden by Grand Moff Tarkin in the Maw for eleven years to protect the installation where the Death Star and other super weapons were designed, she’s a hard, nasty woman. She was probably like this in her early life, but her years of training at the Caridan Academy only made matters worse. In the old EU the Imperial military was virulently anti-alien; it was only a little less anti-woman. Daala is the only known female admiral in the Imperial fleet in the old EU – and her appointment was a secret one.

Admiral Daala

As a result of this policy, Daala was mocked by the male students at the Academy and looked down upon by her male instructors. Out of pure frustration, she created an “online” persona at the Academy after graduation where she could get noticed and put her tactical skill to use. Intrigued by her suggestions and tactical prowess, Tarkin investigated. He discovered Daala’s real identity and took her under his wing – and, despite being a married man, he also took her as his lover. Locked in the Maw for eleven years since he left to command the Death Star, Daala has let her red hair grow well past regulation length, but that’s the most feminine thing about her.

This woman is nasty, readers. She strikes me as someone who has burned every emotion but fury out of her mind and body. To be frank, I think she’s nearly insane. Though tactically capable, Daala’s attacks tend to lack finesse. She charges out of the Maw like a raging tigress screaming for blood, making Governor Ahrinda Pryce look like a push over and Ysanne “Iceheart” Isard appear completely serene by comparison. This is one villainess I would not want to meet in a dark alley at night, readers. She is unpredictable, vicious, and ruthless.

Now for those Warnings for Younger Readers which were mentioned above. To be perfectly honest, I think that Jedi Search rates less than a one on the scale of objectionable content. That, however, is my voice of (relative) experience talking; young readers should judge for themselves if they are ready to read this book now or not.

With that in mind, the first thing I want to cover is the sex references in the story. There’s a point in Search where Moruth Doole goes to a private prison room in the upper levels of Kessel where he keeps a large number of female Rybet slaves. Although he regularly abuses these alien women, we don’t see him force himself on any of them, or get many details about what that would entail. He just goes in to pick one out of the group for an afternoon of “fun,” and the rest is left up to the reader’s imagination – if they let it go in that direction. I don’t, and so the scene has no bad implications for me.

Then there are Daala’s reminiscences about her relationship with Tarkin. These aren’t detailed; Anderson leaves the reader to fill in the gaps with his or her imagination, using a few words to paint a very general picture. The closest we might come to an explicit reference is a brief mention by Daala that she chose “well built and attractive” men from her Star Destroyer crews to be her bodyguards because they allow her to have sexual fantasies. This mention is one sentence in length and her bodyguards are never seen or described again, making it a bare blip on my sensitivity radar these days.

Also, Lando appears in this novel and ends up tracking down a gambler whom Luke suspects is Force-sensitive. The man isn’t Force-sensitive, however; he is a con artist who got in deeper than he bargained on going. When a rich duchess advertised for a husband this gambler – Tymmo – rigged the lottery she was using to choose a suitor so that he could win the competition in order to marry her and retire. What he didn’t anticipate was the fact that, since her people mate for life, she’s a bit…enthusiastic in her daily gestures of affection. Tymmo eventually found he couldn’t stand her attentions, so he ran away. He mentions the duchess’ gestures of affection only in passing after Lando catches him, making them really easy to skim over.

On the gore front, this book probably rates a three for one scene. This moment comes when Moruth Doole remembers how he captured the Imperial commander of Kessel and worked him to the bone in the mines. Once the man’s spirit was broken, Doole fed the Imperial several spice worms, froze him in carbonite, and hung him on the rear wall of his office to die. It’s a pretty brief scene, but it packs an emotional punch and makes a reader dislike Moruth more than they already do.

The next most disgusting moment comes when Doole, who uses his larval offspring to process the glitterstim spice, decides to kill one of them because it’s starting to show some spirit. He can’t have a spirited young Rybet trying to oust him from power, and so he regularly murders the larvae when they begin to outgrow their usefulness. There’s also a heat absorbing monster in the book which Han, Kyp, and Chewie escape from while fleeing Kessel through the mines. It doesn’t actually chew on its prey – just spears them and drains the heat/life energy from them. So although this creature is scary, it doesn’t actually kill in a graphic manner. Rereading the book again for this review, I have to say that I actually find the concept behind the monster kind of interesting.

If I had read Jedi Search as a 10-15 year old, I’m not sure that I would have said then that these items were small potatoes in the objectionable content department. Having encountered far more precise depictions of death, dismemberment, and sex in various other works though, the brief scenes in this book no longer bother me. So if any young readers in this age group checking out this post feel that Jedi Search isn’t good for them right now, I understand completely. All I’m doing is sharing my opinion of it and suggesting that they come back to the book whenever – or if ever – they feel they can handle it.

Jedi Search isn’t this writer’s favorite original Expanded Universe novel, true. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth reading every now and again. If you decide to check the book out sometime, then I can tell you that it’s not bad. It’s not great, but it’s not bad.

May the Force be with you, readers!

Book Reviews: Star Wars Rebels – Ezra’s Gamble and The Rebellion Begins

“Thanks for doing the heavy lifting!”

As you know, readers, Star Wars Rebels was a dark horse for this blogger. I figured I would watch the first episodes and be so disgusted, upset, or unimpressed with it that that would be the end for me. Watching it wouldn’t bother me any faster than ignoring it would.

However, my early assessment of the show could not have been more wrong. I quickly fell in love with this series, primarily because of the two Jedi who formed the core of the story. Han Solo is great, Mandalorians are cool, and Wookiees are wonderful, but the Jedi are the pièce de résistance of the Star Wars universe for me. I cannot say why the Jedi are my favorite part of this mythos. All this blogger can say for sure is that she loves ‘em. So the fact that we were getting two new ones in my favorite era of Star Wars – that period around the time of A New Hope – was the hook which pulled me into the series.

Since the show has concluded, I thought it best to review these two short children’s novels which tie into the series. If you are not a die-hard Star Wars fan bent on satiating a hunger for new fare, you probably will not be too interested in them. I like the series enough that it does not matter to me if the books related to it are churned out for children. Yes, they have their limitations; but they are also well written and they satisfy my desire for decent stories starring Jedi. I will take what I can get, especially since this new timeline offers us precious little in the way of enjoyable stories – particularly about the space knights I love so much.

The first novel is Ezra’s Gamble, by Ryder Windam. This author is a “hired gun,” if you will. He has written several different novels in franchise universes for kids. The ones I remember off the top of my head were related to the Transformers films. Those were not books I would describe as great, but that may have been due to intereference from the people running the franchise rather than poor writing on the author’s part.

Ezra’s Gamble is much better than his Transformers books, which felt more stilted than the first three movies in the franchise. I would guess Mr. Windham is a Star Wars fan and possibly an afficianado, since he writes in a style similar to Timothy Zahn’s. I did not sense our time and place intruding on his story at any point in the narrative, either, which made the book far more enjoyable than Star Wars: The Lost Stars. (There will be more on that travesty of a novel below.)

A prequel to Star Wars Rebels, Gamble begins with Ezra selling tickets to an illegal gladiator fight on Lothal. He manages to fleece his customers of the valuables on their persons while he does this. But said items – and the cash he receives for the tickets – are lifted from him by his mentor and the man who got him involved in selling the vouchers. This would a Xexto by the name of Ferpil Wallaway.

Meanwhile – and you bounty hunter fans will love this – Bossk is approaching Lothal in the Hound’s Tooth to collect a reward for a gambler named Shifty. Turns out that Shifty jumped bail on another planet and fled here for some reason. The Imperial on duty at the spaceport, who calls himself Lieutenant Herdringer, gets Bossk an unwanted escort to the surface. Before terminating their conversation, Herdringer adds that he does not want any shooting when the hunter goes after Shifty.

Well, the Hound’s Tooth lands, and Ezra takes a peek at the ship. This gets Bossk’s attention, leading to a conversation between them. Smelling a chance to make some extra money, Bridger offers to be the bounty hunter’s local guide, since Shifty is supposed to be at a place called Ake’s Tavern and the Trandoshan has no idea where that establishment is. Bossk hires him after some haggling and fussing, then acts like he forgot Shifty’s name in order to make Ezra enter the building ahead of him.

Bossk does this to distract the assassins hired to protect Shifty. Apparently, someone has a lot to lose if the gambler is caught and taken back to face the music. In the ensuing chaos, Shifty is killed. After this, Ezra and Bossk are forced by circumstance – and the future apprentice’s good heart – to work together to find out who set the bounty hunter up.

This is a good book, one that speed readers, afficianados, and most people who love reading can race through in a day. The fact that it is written for children really does not diminish the quality of the story. Mr. Windham studied up on his setting very well, melding the Bounty Hunter part of the old Star Wars EU seamlessly with Rebels. He also tosses out words from the old EU like “ferrocrete,” which made reading the novel a lot more fun.

Best of all was Windham’s handling of Bossk. I have never “met” this bounty hunter in the original EU novels, but I have read about him in my New Essential Guide to Characters. From what I can tell, fans of this Trandoshan will not find fault with his depiction in Ezra’s Gamble. He seems almost unchanged from his previous deportment here.

Next we have the novelization for Star Wars Rebels’ introductory film/episodes: The Rebellion Begins, written by Michael Kogge. This book is not quite as good as Ezra’s Gamble, but it is not bad because of that. It starts out in a different place than the show does; there is a build-up to the opening scenes viewers of the show saw when Spark of Rebellion first aired, adding context to the story and characters.

Since I do not want to spoil the beginning, all I will say is that you have to go through a prologue and two chapters before reaching the point where Spark of Rebellion officially begins onscreen. Ghosts are a motif throughout the book, and Agent Alexsandr Kallus gets some interesting moments here as well. By far, I like this novel most for how it deals with Kanan, showing his reticence and giving us a good idea of why he is so afraid to use the Force.

Hera comes through this novel well, as does Ezra. Zeb is presented in a good light, along with Sabine, though there is not as much depth for her as I would like. This is probably due to the fact that the book was written before her history was revealed, which means that Mr. Kogge did not have enough info on her to give us hints about her past. So while the story is quite satisfactory for someone just coming in to the series, it is rather annoying for a reader who has watched the show from the beginning to roughly half of its final season.

I wish they had more books like Ezra’s Gamble and The Rebellion Begins out on shelves. Mr. Kogge and Mr. Windham proved here that they can write good Star Wars fiction. I think that, if they were turned loose on this era of the mythos, they would do the prior EU writers proud – more so than the authors of The Lost Stars and the new novelization of A New Hope have. These writers did little for the franchise except to wrap current political arguments in Star Wars dressing, which is NOT what authors are supposed to do.

An author’s job is to entertain his or her audience by telling great stories about good beating evil, not stories where a Rebel and an Imperial can fall in love and yet remain divided by one’s firm adherence to her oath to the Empire. Even Rebels’ writers had Kallus change sides when he learned the truth about the Empire, for Pete’s sake! Stories like The Lost Stars are supposed to end with the guy getting the girl, but this is not what happened in that “novel.”

(Warning for Younger Readers: The Lost Stars includes three completely unnecessary sex scenes. One of these practically qualifies as a rape, in my opinion, despite the fact that the woman involved told the man, “Don’t you dare stop.” I have never heard of a pre-Disney Star Wars story which approved of such behavior, as The Lost Stars seemed to do. Such books may have been written in the old EU, which means that I missed them. However, my impression from studying up on and personally reading older Star Wars fare was that even in a galaxy far, far away rape was rape, period, and that it was not to be accepted or approved of. EVER.)

Also, in my opinion, the latest junior novelization of A New Hope all but ruined Princess Leia for the next generation of readers. For some reason, the author of that book spent paragraph upon paragraph having Leia whine about how everyone expected her to be a demure little princess who could not take care of herself. Pardon me, readers, but that is pure Bantha fodder. Yes, Leia surprised everyone when she snatched the blaster rifle from Luke to shoot at the Stormtroopers in A New Hope. There is, however, a perfectly logical reason for that which has NOTHING to do with Luke, Han, or any other man believing she could not take care of herself because she was a woman.

Remember that Luke lived a sheltered life on Tatooine. He had no more idea that princesses were trained to fight than Han had any idea of how to run a moisture farm. As it is, Han had been around the block many times, so he knew women who could and would fight. He just did not stop to think that anyone would take the time or have the inclination to teach a princess to fight, anymore than most of us automatically expect rich or important people in today’s world to pay for their children to be trained to defend themselves.

We do not expect this because most of these people do not insist their children learn self-defense. It is not because we think their children – both sons and daughters – could not be taught to fight. It is because so very few of them are taught the art of combat that we therefore expect so little of them. The same applies in this case to Han and Luke. The precedent for rulers of any kind teaching their children – whether they are princes, princesses, lordlings, etc. – to fight is so low that even in a galaxy far, far away, a farmboy and a smuggler can be taken by surprise when a noblewomen picks up a blaster and starts shooting with the skill of long practice.

Luke and Han’s surprise does not make them misogynists. It shows Luke’s naïveté and Han’s lack of refinement. Neither of these things makes them evil members of the patriarchy bent on keeping women down. It shows them being human, being men – something which is particularly interesting in regards to the scruffy scoundrel most people would automatically write off as a bad guy.

But now, in the New Order of the Cosmos, we cannot have men being gallant to women for the sake of their womanhood or even for the sake of the men’s own sacred honor. Nooo, we have to have female characters fuming about being “patronized” and “dominated by the patriarchy” before “overcoming it and proving” that they are just as good as men. That is all Leia does in the latest junior novelization of A New Hope – and it is absolutely infuriating.

Ezra’s Gamble and The Rebellion Begins do not have such stupidity in their narratives, which is another reason why I enjoy reading them. These books tip their helmets to the EU writers who kept Star Wars alive after Return of the Jedi left theaters, and they do the new characters in Rebels immense credit. Despite their limitations, I find these short novels worthy reading when I need good entertainment and a Star Wars fix.

If you do not like them, or they are not to your taste, I am sorry to hear that –although I accept the fact that they will not appeal to everyone. I thought it worth mentioning them, however, since they pay tribute to Star Wars instead of dishonor. Too much of the new material does the latter these days, which is why it is good to spotlight the better media produced for fans. Despite the ending for the final season, I think Rebels – and these two books preceding the series’ start – fall into that category.

Until next time, readers, may the Force be with you.

Spotlight: Star Wars’ Forgotten Heroines, Part 2

Welcome back, readers! Once more we fly into the breach to learn about Star Wars’ forgotten heroines!

I know I am repeating myself here, but the fact that Disney ditched these women still astounds me. After forty years of build-up, the new owners for this beloved franchise cast aside characters they could have used in new stories. Even if they declared everything after Vision of the Future non-canon, there would have been enough leftover material to spawn new books, several dozen movies, and more than enough subject matter for TV shows like Rebels.

Every time I sit down and really think about it, I look sideways at Disney and say, “Why? Why waste all of that good material? You had a gold mine here, and you shut it down because….well, why did you shut it down?”

Several people have theories about why Disney dropped the old EU, but I won’t bore you with a recital, since these posts are supposed to be relatively cheerful. I already alluded to my own opinion in the post about the final season for Star Wars Rebels, which has not changed. I doubt it ever will, sadly. But the fact is that what’s done is done, and there is no point trying to alter it.

Yes, I know there are people petitioning for Disney to redo Episode VIII. While I sympathize with them, since Carrie Fisher is (hopefully) residing in a galaxy far, far away now, there is no method by which that film can be redone while including her. Disney has already signed an agreement stating they will not use CGI to bring Leia back into the franchise, and even if a cast and crew could be found to remake the rest of the movie, working in Fisher’s existing scenes to a new movie would take a lot of work. It might not result in a good film, either.

More to the point, there’s no way in Mustafar that the kingmakers in Hollywood would let a remade Episode VIII into theaters. Most of the “important people” in Tinseltown have hated Star Wars and the majority of its fans since the first film came out, and many will go on hating it and us ‘til the day they die. I’m sorry, but there’s just no way around that or The Last Jedi. The only things which those of us who dislike the new films have got are the original movies, the original EU, and stories by some bright creators who want to do homage to the original movies.

With that in mind, let’s go back to the listing I started yesterday. One of the best ways to keep the original Star Wars alive is for its fans to show the old EU to new readers and prospective fans, which is why I wrote these two posts. So, without further ado, let’s look at some more of the leading ladies from the original SW timeline:

Jan Ors: Jan Ors was a Rebellion operative/spy who reported directly to Mon Mothma. While in a Rebel asteroid base, she was one of several Rebels captured – but not executed – by Imperial Stormtrooper and future Jedi knight Kyle Katarn. Although on opposite sides in the war, Kyle immediately felt a connection with Jan, as she did with him. This led him to spare her life and the lives of most of her compatriots. It was after this act of mercy that Kyle learned his father, Morgan, had been killed in a “Rebel” strike on their homeworld of Sulon.

At first, this made Kyle extremely hateful toward the Rebellion, including Jan and her friends, whom he met again before he was to enter Imperial service fully. It was during a brief fight with Ors’ companions that Kyle was to have his eyes opened to the truth; during the conflict, Jan name dropped Sulon, catching Kyle’s attention. She was able to prove to him that his father – who was a Rebel sympathizer and supporter – had been killed by the Empire, not the Rebellion.

Jan Ors and Kyle Katarn

Kyle immediately defected after this, helping Jan and her fellows escape back to the Rebellion. There he became an agent who specifically answered to Mon Mothma, running missions she would trust to no one else. Kyle soon proved to be a one-man wrecking crew, carting up to six or more heavy weapons during his missions. Jan accompanied him on some of his assignments, one of the most famous being his operation to stop the Empire’s Dark Trooper program. In that event, she was his “mission officer.” This basically meant that she sat in front of enemy lines and, after giving Kyle needed info, watched with a bag of popcorn while he cut a swath of carnage through enemy ranks.

From what I have read, we never got to see Jan run her own missions very often. Usually, when she appeared, it was because she was being rescued by Kyle. This wasn’t because she was an incompetent agent and couldn’t handle her own; the reason she needed rescuing so often was because everyone who wanted Kyle Katarn knew the best way to get him angry was to threaten or “kill” Ors. During her own missions, it seems, Jan didn’t have near as much to worry about. She was a good shot and a capable fighter – at least where the average Imperials were concerned.

Throw in Dark Jedi, though, and she was out of her depth. On those occasions she very wisely did the sensible thing, which was to sit down, shut up, and pray Kyle would find her before the bad guys decided she was more trouble than she was worth. Because he was Force-sensitive, Kyle always managed to find her, despite the fact that her friendship with him was what usually got her into these messes.

None of this is what led Jan to turn down Kyle’s repeated offers of marriage, though. No, she turned him down because they were both fighters involved in the myriad wars which afflicted the Star Wars galaxy following Return of the Jedi. Any day could be their last, and Jan didn’t want to have Kyle for a brief space of time only to lose him a day, a week, or an hour later. It is also probable that she knew that, whenever she was captured or appeared to “die,” Kyle skirted dangerously close to the Dark Side in order to rescue/avenge her. If she actually died in combat with an enemy, the last thing Jan wanted was for her death to make him into one of the monsters they fought so hard against. Better they stayed friends; that way, whatever happened wouldn’t hurt as much as if they were man and wife.

Since Kyle was originally one of the agents who stole pieces of the plans for the first Death Star, there is no compelling reason explaining why he and Jan were not included in the film Rogue One. The writers could have written the story so that Galen Erso was Galen Ors, making Jyn the twin or older/younger sister of Jan Ors. If they had gone that route, the story would have been twice as interesting and complex as it was; remember, in the original EU, Jan worked directly for Mon Mothma. The film writers could have maintained this for the movie; in order to protect Jan from general interest, Mon Mothma could keep the younger woman as her private agent.

It would have added extra tension for Jyn’s story, too. Say the sisters were both “dumped” by Saw Gerrera, but one returned to the Rebellion (Jan) while the other rebelled in her own way (Jyn). Throw Kyle into the mix to play off of the wayward Cassian Andor and Jan, and the writers have got a boiling kettle of emotions to play with. Then, at the end, Jan and Kyle are the only members of the Rogue One team to survive the mission, emailing the plans to Leia moments before hightailing it back to Yavin for their next assignment. Boom, you have material for more fill-in movies starring Jan and Kyle as they deal with the aftermath of the Rogue One mission and Kyle’s Jedi adventures. It’s a win-win all the way around.

But the new guys didn’t do that. Bummer.

Mallatobuck: Mallatobuck is here because I do not know if she survived the switch to the new timeline. In the original EU, Chewbacca married Mallatobuck several years before A New Hope. Together they had one son, Lumpawarrump (yes, that is really his name, and yes, Lowbacca was a better choice). I do not know too much more about her, having not encountered her anywhere outside my New Essential Guide to Characters. I understand she was in the less-than-appealing Star Wars Christmas Special, but really, that show was not her fault. If, as I suspect, Mallatobuck did not make the new timeline’s cut, we are down yet another interesting character.

Vima-Da-Boda: Descended from the famous ancient Jedi Nomi Sunrider and her daughter, Vima Sunrider, we first hear about Vima-Da-Boda in Kevin J. Anderson’s Jedi Search. A Jedi from the pre-Clone Wars Order, Vima went mad after her own daughter fell to the Dark Side. She ended up in the spice mines of Kessel, where she met and gave rudimentary training to the future maverick Jedi Knight Kyp Durron. It was apparently enough for the kid to pull off mind tricks on the people running the mines.

Somehow, Luke or one of our other heroes found Vima in time to solicit her help fighting the reborn Emperor Palpatine (that part is complicated). Later on she became an instructor at Luke’s new Jedi Academy, seemingly recovered from the despair-induced madness she suffered when she lost her daughter.

The old EU was initially more flexible about Jedi breaking the ban on marriage before the Purge than the new one is. Corran Horn, as we saw yesterday, was descended from a long line of upstart Corellian Jedi. New Jedi Knight Kam Solusar’s father, Jedi Master Ranik Solusar, caused a real upset in the old Jedi Council when he married and fathered Kam, who was old enough to run off into Wild Space rather than die in the Purge or become a Dark Side follower of Palpatine.

And during the years between the Jedi Purge and the Rebellion, there were surviving Jedi like Kanan Jarrus who just plain ignored the ban because it did not matter any more. All of this makes Vima’s descent from a long line of Jedi women rather unsurprising. It was actually one of the things I really liked about the old EU; by the time of the Purge, Jedi were practically banned from marriage. But when Luke’s new Order came on the scene, they could break with that ban because, like the original Jedi Knights millenia ago, they were starting almost from scratch.

I would have been REALLY happy if the writers had kept this aspect of the original EU for the sequel films. It is still mind-boggling to me that they wiped out Luke’s new Jedi Order prior to TFA. What would be wrong with having new Jedi from the books Force-jumping out of drop ships into the melee on Takodana? The writers could have gotten Kyle Katarn, Corran Horn, Kam Solusar, and lots of other cameos into that film and Episode VIII easily in that manner.

But they didn’t do it. *Sigh.*

The Dark Woman: This Jedi, who wielded a purple lightsaber like Mace Windu and Jaina Solo, was so devoted to the Force that she renounced her very name in its service. A Jedi Master, the Dark Woman trained Ki-Adi-Mundi to Knighthood but failed to take care of future bounty hunter Aurra Sing. Her inability to train Aurra, while not entirely her fault, made her unpopular with the Jedi Council.

Nevertheless, two years after the Battle of Naboo, the Dark Woman took over the training of A’Sharad Hett, the son of the great Jedi Knight Sharad Hett. A’Sharad had been raised among the Tusken Raiders of Tatooine and was Ki-Adi-Mundi’s apprentice until he accidentally brushed the Dark Side. At that point, the Dark Woman stepped in and took over his training.

I do not know how things ended for A’Sharad – I hope he lived to meet Luke at some point in the old EU – but I know that the Dark Woman died on an Outer Rim world shortly before the Battle of Yavin. Rumor has it Mara Jade was the one who located her, but it was unquestionably Darth Vader who killed her. Aurra Sing must have been disappointed, since she had already accepted a contract on the Jedi Master’s life just before Vader found the Dark Woman. Sing joked she would have killed her former master for free, since she was still smoldering over the woman’s perceived abandonment of her years earlier.

The Dark Woman is here primarily because I do not know if she made it into the new timeline. Apart from the fact that she is interesting on her own, I would really like to know if her last apprentice survived the Purge by going back to live with the Tusken Raiders. There would have been a very interesting story there if he had – not to mention another new candidate for Luke’s Academy.

Tahiri Veila: Like A’Sharad Hett, Tahiri Veila was raised by Tatooine’s Tusken Raiders. They killed her parents on their homestead but, for some reason, the Sand People decided Tahiri was worth keeping around. Luke eventually discovered her and brought her to Yavin IV, where she and Anakin Solo quickly began a Romance Reel. Captured and brutally abused/brainwashed by the Yuuzhan Vong, Tahiri was eventually rescued by Anakin. The two never got past their first kiss; Anakin died a little later in order to destroy creatures the Yuuzhan Vong had designed specifically to hunt Jedi.

This must have really upset Tahiri, since Jacen was later able to take her as his Dark Side apprentice. Even after being redeemed from the Dark Side, Tahiri never went on to become a full Jedi Knight. Instead she became a bounty hunter, which I think was a total waste of her potential by the writers for those stories. Seriously, why didn’t the writers for the new timeline have Tahiri and Anakin married by The Force Awakens? It would have been nice if they had had a child or several children, too.

I have always thought it was highly unfair that the old EU writers never let Leia and Han have more than one grandchild to carry on the Solo name after losing both their boys. It is one of (several) things I had half-hoped the new timeline would correct. Giving Anakin and Tahiri a child would also have prevented her from falling off of the Light Side bandwagon, something else which has always upset me. Truly, readers, I think the destruction of Star Wars began toward the end of the old EU, as will be demonstrated when we look at the next heroine on our list….

Tionne Solusar: The near-human wife of Jedi Knight Kam Solusar, Tionne could use her voice and music to amplify her Force powers. In the Young Jedi Knights series, Luke liked to cede the floor to her so she could teach his students Jedi history by singing it. According to the books, her voice was spell-binding; listeners did not quite see visions of the past when she played and sang, but neither could they find the heart to interrupt her or take their minds off of whatever lesson she was teaching.

I do not know much about Tionne. She was an under-used heroine in Star Wars long before the new timeline. Recently, I learned that during Jacen Solo’s Dark Side reign, Tionne was killed and mutilated by his forces. Her husband, Kam, was in the same battle. Though he was left for dead, he didn’t die, but I sure don’t envy those who had to tell him about Tionne. And if he saw what was done to her – blogger winces – Good Lord, that was even worse for the two of them.

If this brutal end for Tionne Solusar does not prove that the Star Wars haters had already gotten their talons into the franchise before Disney bought it, I don’t know what does. There was no reason for the authors to murder Tionne like this – none. It was done out of pure spite to the franchise and its fans. That was my big problem with Star Wars from the Yuuzhan Vong War onward; characters were killed off either for shock “value,” to add “gravitas” to the universe (how can you get more grim than “planet destroying, man-made moon”?), or as a way to demoralize and dishearten new readers and old fans.

Everything people are complaining about in the new film trilogy started with the old EU’s Yuuzhan Vong War. This is why I find the new films even more disappointing than most others do; Disney had a chance to clean up the mess the novel writers were making with the new trilogy. But instead of seizing this opportunity with both hands, they let it pass.

There is no excuse for that, readers. None whatsoever.

Moranda Savich: Moranda Savich is the last heroine on this list that I will discuss in detail. A pickpocket and information courier for Talon Karrde’s organization, Moranda played a big role in Vision of the Future, trying to help Wedge Antilles and Corran Horn find out who wanted to sabotage the Bothawui planetary shield generators.

Spunky and sharp, with a whiplash wit and keen mind, I am pretty sure Moranda bit the dust before the book ended. She was a lot of fun, and I was sad to lose her. So having a young Moranda Savich chasing around the galaxy in Rebels at some point would have been great for me. I get the feeling there were a lot of stories behind the old, grandmotherly woman we meet first in Specter of the Past.

Oh, well, what’s done is done, and there is no undoing it now. *Sigh.*

Well, readers, that was a long post, wasn’t it? I am going to finish this article with a list of heroines I do not know enough about just yet. Others I know a little something of, but because they are in a video game (KOTOR), I will let those who are interested pick the program up and play it to encounter them personally.

Right now, I am off to plan my next torture routine – ah, I mean, post. So here are the Honorable Mentions from Star Wars’ very, very lengthy list of heroines. You can look them up at your leisure, or wait for me to get around to writing about them in the future. That will probably be a long wait, though, so you may want to check ‘em out yourselves:

Gaeriel Captison Thanas, Callista, Siri Tachi, Xaverri, Lorana Jinzler, Teneniel Djo, Anja Gallandro, Releqy A’kla, Tash Arranda, Aril Nunb, Lieda Mothma, Sera Faleur Darklighter, Mirith Sinn, Dr. Qwi Xux, Mission Vao, Nomi Sunrider, Vima Sunrider, Jori Daragon, Bastila Shan, Tendra Risant Calrissian, Jysella Horn, Rianna Saren – and many, many more I cannot yet name, but which I hope to know in the future.

May the Force be with you, readers

Spotlight: Star Wars’ Forgotten Heroines, Part 1

One of my first thoughts when I heard the announcement for the new Star Wars timeline was, “What about all the characters in the old EU? Are they going to bring them back? It should be easy to do – and really cool. Then we could ditch the stupid Yuuzhan Vong War and a lot of the ludicrous events which followed it while keeping all the good stuff.”

Even as I thought that, however, I knew the new owners of Star Wars were not going to do this. It makes a certain amount of sense for them to wipe the slate clean, of course; Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill are not young enough to translate the Thrawn Trilogy to the silver screen, and we have already lost Carrie Fisher. It would be foolish to try and film movies where Han and Luke would have to run around like they did in the original trilogy. This I can readily understand and accept.

What I cannot comprehend is the owners’ decision to scrap all the valuable Expanded Universe characters developed through hundreds of Star Wars novels and memorabilia over the last forty years. Marvel has been around almost twice as long as Star Wars and we are still running off to theaters to watch several of their original heroes in action. If Marvel can do this, why couldn’t Star Wars?

None of this is not to say that I wish Rey and Finn were not present in the new Star Wars films, or that we had not had Star Wars Rebels. My only point is that the original timeline, up to the Yuuzhan Vong War, could have been maintained. This would have allowed a new sequel trilogy to be filmed using characters from the Expanded Universe while permitting the additions of Rey, Finn, and the Rebels crew to the canon.

This is most true with regards to the heroines in Star Wars. Many critics are thrilled with all the women being shown in the new films; everyone who is anyone in the big media/academic circles is yowling, “YAY, a galaxy far, far away is now finally run by women!” What they miss (or ignore) is the fact that a galaxy far, far away never actually lacked for strong female characters in the first place.

And yes, I do have proof to back up this assertion. Below is the first half of a list of the heroines who could have been part of the new timeline, if the people in charge of Disney/Lucasfilm had wanted them to remain therein. Along with the biographic information on these heroines, I have included a few words about how the women could have been used in The Force Awakens, Episode VIII, Star Wars Rebels, and Rogue One. First up on this list is none other than…

Jaina Solo Fel: Han and Leia’s only daughter and oldest child, Jaina was a fun, magnetic, amazing character. Named for her paternal grandmother, Jaina was five minutes older than her twin, Jacen. Described as having her mother’s looks, her father’s confidence, and the family’s innate piloting skills, Jaina was said to have taken after her Uncle Luke the most.

Having read The Crystal Star and two sets of collected Young Jedi Knights stories, I can say that I see the resemblance. Jaina was as beautiful as Leia and had her father’s tendency to overconfidently say things she later regretted, but the member of her family whom she really took after was Luke. Stubborn and strong-willed, she displayed early on a sense of responsibility and idealism that matched her uncle’s. Good with machines and possibly the best of the three Solo children at flying, Jaina eventually achieved the rank of Jedi Knight in the old EU. She also became a member of the prestigious X-wing fighter contingent that her uncle and Wedge Antilles founded: Rogue Squadron.

Jaina possessed a lightsaber with a purple blade like her aunt, Mara Jade Skywalker. This color of lightsaber, according to the video here, means that the Jedi holding it can use both Light Side and Dark Side techniques without going over fully to the Dark Side. I do not see why the writers behind the new Star Wars trilogy couldn’t have had Jaina shooting down TIEs over Takodana while flirting with Oscar Isaac, who should have been cast as her love interest Jagged Fel, not Poe Dameron.

Now, this does not mean that Rey would have had to be replaced with Jaina; she could have remained the lead character while Jaina could have been a secondary character in the story. Jaina could have been fighting the First Order with the rest of the Jedi and New Republic forces as a Knight and an X-wing pilot while Rey was revealed to be Luke’s long lost daughter or something. Along with Isaac’s character, Fel, Jaina could have been a member of the new Rogue Squadron, with her nickname of “Sticks” being used several times during the dogfights.

Doing this would have allowed other writers to create spin-off films and books focusing on Jaina Solo, broadening the Star Wars franchise and winning new fans for it. I cannot understand why no one in Hollywood thought to keep Jaina and her two younger brothers for the new timeline, since it would have given them so many golden opportunities to (a) tell good stories and, (b) make boatloads of money off of old and new fans. *Sigh.* Oh, well…

Winter Celchu: Winter was introduced to Star Wars fans in the Thrawn Trilogy. A childhood friend of Leia Organa while the princess was being raised on Alderaan, Winter had long white hair and enough regal bearing that she could easily pass as the X-Man Ororo Munroe/Storm’s sister from another mother.

Growing up with Leia in the palace meant that Winter was often mistaken by visitors for the real Princess of Alderaan. This was because she lacked Leia’s fiery, rambunctious nature. Where Leia would flare up and fight, Winter would stand by and stay quiet, acting more like a model princess than her best friend did. She was a calm woman who never let on what she was thinking to most people. Only Leia could read her accurately ninety percent of the time – and that was without relying on her Force sensitivity!

The one character I know of in Star Wars with a perfect – a.k.a. photographic – memory, Winter went to work for the Rebellion along with Leia. But because of her memory, she rarely engaged the Empire in combat; most of her service was done in acquiring supplies or information for the Rebels. She only had to enter a warehouse or see a file once to remember it clearly for the rest of her life, allowing her to tell the Rebels which crates to grab or to accurately recite the information they needed. Winter had several codenames during this time, but her most famous moniker while she worked in Rebel Supply was Targeter.

Because of her job in the Rebellion, Winter was not on Alderaan when it was obliterated by the first Death Star. More than any other survivor of that doomed world, however, its destruction pained her constantly. With her infallible memory Winter could recall every detail of her homeworld’s annihilation, along with all her feelings about it and the approximate number of people who were on the planet when it blew. No one ever meant to twist the knife further into her heart by bringing the planet up, but even casual mention of Alderaan would cause a flicker of pain to cross Winter’s face, which was otherwise a mask of tranquility.

When the Rebellion became the New Republic, Winter returned to become Leia’s aide/lady-in-waiting. While fulfilling her duties as an assistant (and secretly recording every conversation or meeting Leia had to sit in on for her), the two maintained their old friendship. When the Solo twins and Anakin were born, Winter fostered them at hidden locations until they were about two years old, so that the children could not be taken and corrupted by Dark Siders or the Empire. For this reason Winter was loved as much by the Solo heirs as by Leia and Han.

At some point, Winter married fellow Alderaanian survivor and Rebel fighter pilot Tycho Celchu. Tycho flew with Rogue Squadron as late as the Hand of Thrawn Duology, and he may have married Winter because she soothed his heart. Tycho’s fianceé died along with his family on Alderaan, leading him to join the Rebellion. Sometime after Return of the Jedi, he was caught by the Empire, which tortured him in an attempt to break and brainwash him.

Though Tycho never cracked under the pressure and eventually escaped to rejoin the New Republic, no one trusted him for a while. In fact, he was put on trial when his friend and squadron mate, Corran Horn, was shot down by the Empire in such a way that it appeared Tycho had murdered him. Only Corran’s reappearance a little later, alive and unharmed, saved Celchu’s career. The man had a lot of anger issues, which may be why he was paired off with Winter.

While she probably would not have fit into Rogue One, I think Winter could have appeared many times in Star Wars Rebels. Her perfect memory would have provided the Ghost crew with ample help stealing supplies. It would also have been fun to see someone calmer and harder to rattle than Hera sitting beside her in the cockpit during a chase scene. 🙂

Sadly, as far as I know, Winter was thrown out of Star Wars canon when the new timeline was created. Apart from the Thrawn Trilogy, you can find more of her in Timothy Zahn’s novel Scoundrels. There she has a big part and a point of view you can follow along with. She really is a worthwhile character, readers, and I wish they had not removed her when creating the new timeline.

Mirax Terrik Horn: Mirax was the wife of a former Corellian Security agent and Rogue Squadron pilot Corran Horn. Corran was a Jedi Knight descended from a long line of Corellian Jedi who consistently and repeatedly broke the Order’s ban on marriage without trouble. Mirax Terrik Horn may have been slightly less well-known than her husband in the old EU, but she was no less of a fighter.

It is probable that Mirax never dreamed she would marry Corran, since he was the son of the man who sent her father – smuggler and known Rebel sympathizer Booster Terrik – to the spice mines of Kessel for five years. Booster never thought his daughter would marry Corran, that’s for sure. But when the Force-sensitive Horn began flying with Wedge Antilles and the Rogues, he met and became close to Mirax Terrik.

Outside of the Hand of Thrawn Duology, I have never really “met” Mirax. But from what I have read about her, she struck me as a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails woman who was even more sympathetic to the Rebellion/New Republic than her father. She and Corran married before the Thrawn Trilogy, when he was just beginning to learn about his Jedi heritage. More battles elapsed before he could go back to home to her, so Corran was sincerely looking forward to the peace of being with his wife. This made it a nasty shock when he discovered that, during his absence, Mirax had mysteriously disappeared.

In order to find her, Corran threw himself into Force training at Luke’s new Jedi Academy on Yavin IV so he could acquire the skills he would need to locate Mirax. Needless to say he was successful in recovering Mirax, and the two went on to live quite happily together, running around the New Republic on separate missions between their times at home. They had two children – a son named Valin, a family name for Corran, and a daughter named Jysella – who followed in their father’s footsteps and became Jedi Knights.

Disney’s erasure of the old EU sadly prevented Dave Filoni from bringing Mirax, Booster, and the rest of their crew into Rebels. I think there would have been plenty of story material for the writers here, as the Ghost crew worked with pirates and smugglers who were actually in the fight more for the cause than for the money. I would have loved to have seen Mirax, Booster, and crew rushing around to help the fledgling Rebellion get up and running in Rebels, dang it, and so would a lot of other people!!! Rrrgh….

Iella Wessiri Antilles: Iella Wessiri’s career started in Corellian Security. Married to a man named Diric Wessiri, the two were partners with Corran Horn in “CorSec,” and all three were fine agents. They were so fine, in fact, that when Imperial pressure on CorSec became too much for them, they escaped Corellia together and joined the Rebellion.

But unlike Corran, Iella and Diric did not become part of a fighter squadron. I don’t think they even joined the ground troops. No, they put their CorSec training to more immediate use as Rebel/New Republic agents (spies). Wedge Antilles first ran into Iella while undercover in Imperial City, where she was also spying for the nascent New Republic.

If you are wondering how Iella could have married Wedge when she was already married to Diric, it is a heartrending story. Diric and Iella’s jobs for the Rebellion/New Republic often separated them. More to the point, while they were loyal to each other, the fact is that their marriage was not very strong. Their love was not particularly deep, but that did not mean they fooled around with other people (though Iella came close once).

On one of his missions, Diric was captured and brainwashed by Ysanne Isard, the former head of Imperial Intelligence. After this, she had him work against the New Republic he had sacrificed so much to enter. Worst of all, Diric was completely aware of what he was doing while being absolutely unable to stop himself.

Ysanne “Iceheart” Isard

This situation could not go on, and it didn’t. Diric was eventually ordered to kill an Imperial officer captured by the New Republic – one whom his wife had been assigned to guard. He pulled the mission off, hiding his identity under a hood that prevented Iella from recognizing him. She shot her husband through the heart after he killed the Imperial, discovering her fatal error moments later, when she pulled his hood off.

Iella was naturally distraught and tried to apologize, but Diric used his last breath to thank her for freeing him from Isard’s brainwashing. This meant, naturally, that Iella had quite the bone to pick with “Iceheart,” as Isard was known. When the wannabe Empress tried to retake her captured Star Destroyer/prison-and-brainwashing center, the Lusankya, Iella was waiting for her. She shot Isard dead, bringing the former director of Imperial Intelligence down for good.

After this, Iella kept working for New Republic Intelligence, until she met up with Wedge Antilles again at Adumar. It was during this mission that they decided they were a good match, leading them to tie the knot a little while later. From what I can tell, Iella really loved Wedge. Their marriage was much stronger and better than her marriage to Diric had been. They had two children together, both girls: Syal and Myri, named for Wedge’s older sister and his friend Mirax Terrik Horn.

Myri was groomed by Iella to follow in her footsteps as an Intelligence officer. She went on to become a freelance investigator who made a fortune gambling daily on the casino deck of Booster Terrik’s ship, the Errant Venture. Meanwhile, Syal followed her father and became a top X-wing pilot. Despite the fact that he could not be around a lot while they were growing up, it appears both girls knew and dearly loved their father. Even after becoming a pilot and serving under Wedge for some time, Syal continued to call him “Daddy” – no matter who was around to hear her do it.

I have not managed to “meet” Iella yet, which really bugs me. If they had been able to include her in Star Wars Rebels I would have been ecstatic; she is an amazing character who could have done a lot with the Ghost crew. I have hoped to run across a story in which she has a part for years, but so far I still have not had that luck. Can anybody point me to a novel or comic book wherein she has a part, please?

Syal Antilles Fel: Syal was older than Wedge Antilles by ten years. Their parents ran a refueling platform above Corellia, but it was a job that Syal considered boring. So when Wedge was seven years old, she left home – without saying a word to her parents or her brother – to become a holofeature actress. She used the stage name Wynssa Starflare and created quite a career for herself in the holofilm industry, prior to and during the Rebellion era.

This meant, naturally, that she wasn’t home when a CorSec patrol spooked a smuggler who had just pulled up to the family refueling station. Wedge was with family friends Booster and Mirax Terrik that day, so he wasn’t home, either. But he got to watch the smuggler disengage from the station prematurely in order to escape the CorSec patrol, which resulted in the entire complex exploding. Both of Wedge’s parents, Jagged and Zena Antilles, died in the blaze while evacuating people from the platform.

After this, Wedge became a member of the Rebellion while Syal remained an actress. She had intended to return home at some point to visit her family, feeling bad for running out on them with no explanation. But she never got back to apologize to her parents; though the tragedy had little effect on her career, it naturally upset her a great deal. This is probably one of the reasons why she became so devoted to her own husband and children after her marriage.

Some time before Endor, Syal met Imperial Major and Baron Soontir Fel. The “Red Baron” for the Galactic Empire, Fel’s flying and fighting skills were already legendary when he met his future wife. A year after they first began dating, Fel proposed to Syal, and they got married a little while later. But before they wed she told Fel her true name, adding the fact that she was the sister of a Rebel currently serving in the fight against the Empire’s tyranny.

Instead of telling the Empire about her, Fel helped Syal set up a contingency plan which would allow her to safely disappear if her connection to Wedge should ever be discovered by Imperial authorities. After the Battle of Endor, when Ysanne Isard took over the Empire and allowed corruption to run rampant in the government, “Iceheart” sent Fel and his squadron to defend the Imperial world of Brentaal. It was a hopeless battle for the Imperials and Fel knew it. His paramount sense of duty, however, led him to fly the mission anyway.

Fel’s squadron was decimated in the fighting, and he himself was finally shot down by his brother-in-law’s fighter squadron. The Rogues took him into custody only for him to say something along the lines of, “You can’t capture me – I’m joining you!”

The minute Fel switched sides, Syal went into hiding with their two sons, Davin and Chak. They fled moments before Ysanne Isard’s agents could grab them in order to use them against the Baron. Fel and the Rogues spent ages working to find her and the boys, which they eventually managed to do. This allowed Wedge a chance to get to know the sister he barely remembered, since his parents did not want to discuss Syal after she left.

Unfortunately, their brother/sister reunion was short-lived. Syal’s husband proved to be such an annoyance to Isard that she went to Thrawn and asked him to get the Baron out of her hair. Thrawn wanted Fel’s tactical genius and flying skills for his own reasons, so he formed the plan Isard used to eventually capture the legendary pilot.

With Thrawn’s help, Fel then arranged to have Syal join him in the Unknown Regions. The two went on to have six – yes, six – children together. The oldest were Davin and Chak; then came Jagged, who was named for his maternal grandfather. Jagged eventually married Jaina Solo in the old EU and became the head of what remained of the original Empire. His descendants maintained control of the Empire for three generations after his and Jaina’s reign.

It makes no sense to me why Jagged, Jaina, and their marriage were not kept for the new Star Wars films. Keeping this relationship in the universe would have allowed for an abundance of stories for the Antilles, Solos, and Fels, along with a lot of material for Rebels. It would also have been interesting – and fun – to watch Hera matching her skill with Soontir Fel’s. That guy could fly!

Shada D’ukal undercover in the Mos Eisley Cantina.

Shada D’ukal: Alongside the Noghri and the Mandalorians, in the old EU there is a lesser known – but no less impressive – warrior group that is made up entirely of women, as far as I know. Hailing from the burned out world of Emberlene, the Mistryl Shadow Guards work as bodyguards and assassins in order to feed and clothe the millions of refugees who scrape by amidst the ruins of their destroyed homeworld.

Shada appears briefly toward the end of The Last Command, but she has a much bigger role in the Hand of Thrawn Duology, and gets a few mentions in Survivor’s Quest as well. Her first appearance, however, is in one of the short story collections under the lable Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina. I have never read those – but that doesn’t mean I do not know how Shada’s history with the Rebellion predates our glimpse of her in The Last Command. 😉

In the Thrawn trilogy, Shada had just begun her bodyguard assignment to a smuggler chief named Mazzic. Apparently the Eleven (the rulers of Emberlene and the commanders of the Mistryl), thought Mazzic’s organization would bring them more opportunites in the future. Shada did her duty and stuck by the man for twelve years, despite the fact that she hated the fringe in general and, by the Hand Duology, believed that she had wasted the past dozen years of her life in service to a crook.

None of this meant, however, that she wanted him to be murdered. So when her old friend and fellow Guard, Karoly D’ulin, caught her taking up a position to protect her employer while he cut a deal with another smuggler, Shada was surprised and suspiscious. She went from suspicion to disappointment when Karoly explained that Mazzic was no longer her concern, then added that he wouldn’t be anyone’s problem in a little bit. Turns out, Shada’s old partner and a number of other Mistryl had been hired to help kill Mazzic.

Unlike the rest of her fellow Guards, though, Shada still believed in right and wrong. She defeated Karoly and killed the assassin, saving Mazzic’s life. But this act of justice and honor put her in the Eleven’s crosshairs, since doing the right thing meant she had defied their direct orders. Disobedience only had one punishment in the new Mistryl order: death.

Shada is a very interesting character. Though cynical and jaded, she did not lose her firm appreciation for principle and her determination to be virtuous. Even after twelve years “wasted” serving a no-good smuggler, Shada continued to believe in the values which first attracted her to the Mistryl’s service twenty years prior. She does not abide by wrongdoing or vengeance, even when it could save her life.

And boy, can she kick butt, readers!

If you want to know more about Shada D’ukal, pick up Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina or the Hand of Thrawn Duology today. I wish the writers for Rebels or Clone Wars had included the Mistryl in some of their stories. This is an organization I want to know much, much more about!

Tenel Ka Djo: Tenel Ka hails from two original EU cultures which are matriarchal, but that’s about the only similarity between them. The daughter of Prince Isolder from the Hapes Consortium and the Dathomirian Force-witch Teneniel Djo, Tenel Ka was technically a princess of higher galactic standing than Leia Organa Solo. The Hapes Consortium, a matriarchy run by their Queen Mother, consisted of sixty-three planets. That’s right; I said planets – sixty-three (63) of ‘em. Everything important on these worlds was run by women. Men were second class citizens/slaves in the Consortium.

That was roughly the same case on the primitive world of Dathomir, which in the old EU books is entirely different from the one seen in The Clone Wars TV show. In the original Star Wars EU, Dathomirians were close enough to human that you could not tell the difference between them on sight. In fact, the original Dathomirians were probably fully human. They were also able to use the Force to tame the Rancors that lived on their world so they could use them as war mounts. Yeah, they were a very tough bunch. 😉

Dathomir in the old EU was run by matriarchy, as it was in The Clone Wars. But in the old EU, not all the Force-sensitive Witches on Dathomir were Dark Siders. Only the Nightsisters specifically used the Dark Side. The rest of the witches were either Light Side users or they did not tap into either side of the Force enough to qualify as servants of the Light or the Dark side.

Tenel Ka would never have been born if, five years after Endor, Leia Organa had not traveled to Hapes to negotiate their entrance into the New Republic. Having grown apart from Han Solo at that time, she opened the negotiations with the Queen Mother’s younger and only surviving son, Prince Isolder. Isolder grew fond enough of Leia that he was about to propose marriage to her when a jealous Han Solo intervened. He kidnapped Leia and ran off, Prince Isolder hot on his heels. The three ended up lost on Dathomir not long after this, where Han’s harebrained scheme to rewin Leia’s affections actually worked. The two were married not long after this.

Before that happened, though, Luke followed the three of them to Dathomir and was “captured” by Teneniel Djo. On Dathomir, when a woman “captured” a man, she did not just physically detain him. That was usually a precursor to marrying said man! Luke managed to wriggle out of this trap when Isolder somehow arrived. It was love at first sight (or something like that) for Isolder and Teneniel, and he took her back to Hapes. He then had to put his foot down when his mother, the Queen, tried to talk him out of the match. (Not an easy thing for a man to do in a matriarchy, that’s for sure.)

You now have some idea of Tenel Ka’s origins. The product of two matriarchies with radically different technological levels, Tenel had the deadpan attitude of Hapan royalty mixed with the fierce strength and warrior spirit of her mother’s homeworld. She split her childhood between Hapes and Dathomir, adopting the customs of her mother’s people rather than her father’s. She liked to wear a lizard scale shirt and pants and she wore her red hair in elaborate Dathomirian braids. When she went to Luke’s Jedi Academy on Yavin IV, Tenel would do calisthenics in the morning before going indoors to listen to the latest lesson.

Jaina and Jacen fell in with Tenel when they arrived on Yavin, and it was soon apparent to anyone with eyes that the older Solo boy was head over heels in love with the princess. He would tell bad pun jokes in her presence to try to make Tenel loosen up and smile, since she kept herself outwardly impassive. For her part, Tenel kept her royal heritage a secret from the twins and their other friend, Chewbacca’s nephew Lowbacca, up until the four built their first lightsabers. Tenel took some shortcuts in the manufacturing process, which allowed her saber’s blade to die in the middle of her practice fight with Jacen. As a result, he accidentally cut off her left arm above the elbow.

Tenel was immediately rushed home to Hapes to be outfitted with a cyborg prosthetic, which she Force-fully refused once the shock finally wore off. She got by, as far as I know, with her left arm ending in a stump for the rest of her life. Tenel Ka eventually made a new lightsaber with a turquoise blade and learned to use that effectively with only one hand.

Years later, after the Yuuzhan Vong War, Jacen and Tenel Ka finally became an item. This resulted in Tenel giving birth to a daughter, Allana, about the time Jacen went over to the Dark Side. He redeemed himself somewhat after his death by appearing to Tenel as a Force ghost, screaming a warning about a poison someone had set off to kill both her and Allana. Tenel and their daughter escaped the poison, but she decided that the life of a Hapan heir was no life for Allana. Before the old timeline was cut off, their daughter was living happily aboard the Millennium Falcon with her grandparents, Leia and Han Solo. To date, she is the only grandchild I know they had by either of their sons in the old EU.

I don’t see why the writers didn’t keep Jacen’s descent into the Dark Side a part of the new timeline. That way, instead of having Ben Solo/Kylo Ren, we could have had Jacen Solo/Kylo Ren. Tenel could have appeared in Episode VIII with the Hapan navy to help the Resistance/New Republic forces escape the First Order. Like in the books, the writers could have had her give Allana to her grandparents for safekeeping, as they all did their best to keep the New Republic from burning down around everyone’s ears. But unfortunately that is a story for an alternate universe, not for this one.

Whew! Well, readers, I am wiped. Tomorrow I will come back to finish telling you about the some other heroines from the original Star Wars timeline. I really, truly do not understand why Disney’s leaders condemned them to “Legendary” status for the rest of time; they could have gotten so much mileage out of these heroines, inside and outside of the new film trilogy…..

Oh, well, what’s done is done. Until tomorrow, readers, may the Force be with you all!

Book Review: The Hand of Thrawn Duology by Timothy Zahn

Star Wars: The New Essential Guide to Characters (the edition published in 2002), was my first introduction to the franchise’s original Expanded Universe. While my parents had copies of several Star Wars EU novels and encouraged me to read them, I was young enough at the time that the volumes appeared too large and adult for a child of my age to understand. So I left the books sitting on the shelf, planning to dive into them when I was older and had a better chance of appreciating them.

Then, on a trip to the library, my father found The New Essential Guide to Characters. It was in the “for sale” shelves, so he picked it up and bought it for me – even though I was not truly interested in it at the time. Not long after he purchased it, however, I cracked the tome open to at least look at the pictures.

Over the years, “looking at the pictures” became “reading the profiles.” Gradually, I began to understand the Star Wars timeline outside of the films, which were my only source of Star Wars material up to that point. (Hey, I was a child! How many rambunctious tweens and teens do you know who prefer a good, big book to watching a movie?) But even as I began to put the Expanded Universe and film timelines together, I did not necessarily realize which characters were where and did what.

That all changed when I finally read Mara Jade Skywalker’s file. A New Hope, as I have said elsewhere, was the Star Wars film I loved best when I was young. Han getting frozen in carbonite kind of turned me off of the sequels until I was in my early teens, so the rest of the trilogy was something of a mystery to me for a while.

So when I learned that Luke had actually gotten married after Return of the Jedi, and to a woman who hated him and had vowed to kill him, I was thrown for a bit of a loop. I struggled with the idea for a bit, but eventually came to accept it, reading and rereading her profile along with all the others.

After a couple of years doing this, I decided enough was enough. Mara sounded pretty cool, from what I had read. So if she was this interesting in a character summary, she had to be twice as amazing “in person” – that is, in the novels. Not long after this I picked up one of the books I had been offered as a child and started reading, learning quickly that the Guide had undersold Mara Jade completely. She didn’t live up to her reputation; she exceeded it.

What does all this have to do with the Hand of Thrawn Duology by Timothy Zahn? Well, if you remember your own days as teenager, you remember that we sometimes start at the end or the middle instead of the beginning. I did not meet Mara in the Thrawn trilogy or even in Specter of the Past. I just jumped right into Vision of the Future and started reading.

The book knocked my socks off, readers. To this day, I would say it is my favorite Expanded Universe novel, and none of the new timeline books have beaten it. I rather doubt they ever will.

Specter of the Past is the first book in the Duology. It starts, naturally enough, with a Star Destroyer. (Zahn always follows the original films’ format by showing us the Empire ahead of the Rebellion/New Republic.) Admiral Gilad Pellaeon watches the Chimera try out a new computer said to be able to predict an enemy’s attack pattern and then destroy their opponent while the ship is cloaked. Using Preybirds instead of TIE fighters, a number of Imperial pilots “assault” the Chimera before the ship cloaks. Then it engages its fancy targeting computer and counterattacks, firing off five hundred shots.

Five hundred shots plus a handful of fighters – how do you think the test went?

Badly, that’s how. Out of a pitiful number of targets, the Chimera’s blind shooting only “destroyed” one Preybird. Yeah, that is pretty pathetic, even by our standards.

Though the captain of his ship, a man named Ardiff, thinks the display is fine, Pellaeon is not pleased. The ship fired five hundred near random shots and only one fighter was “destroyed.” Besides which, Preybirds are not military fighters – even the New Republic did not use them during the Rebellion era. The fact that the Empire, which has been reduced to eight sectors at this point, is relying on Preybirds as fighters means only one thing…

The war is over. And they’ve lost.

Meanwhile, Han and Chewie have gone on a diplomatic mission to Iphigin to try and straighten out a trade dispute between two alien species, the Ishori and the Diamala. Leia, who has stepped down as President of the New Republic, is currently on Wayland getting some well-deserved R&R with their three children. A Calibop named Ponc Gavrisom is now President of the New Republic. Nevertheless, he immediately went to whistle up Leia’s help in solving this minor problem, despite the fact that her vacation has only just begun.

Well, Han Solo is not going to stand for this. He intercepts the message before it can reach his wife and goes in Leia’s place – without telling her what he is doing, of course. Before you accuse him of being a misogynist, readers, or say he thought she couldn’t handle the job, consider this: Leia is on vacation. She is, for the time being, not active in the day-to-day politics of the New Republic. She has also been handling one crisis after another for ten years and, now that she is no longer running the New Republic, should she have her rest and relaxation disturbed over one little trade disagreement?

I do not think Leia deserves that, and neither does Han. Rather than run and tell her about the fuss, he decided to handle it quietly on her behalf. If that isn’t gentlemanly – not to mention romantic – behavior on his part, then you can paint me as red as the Errant Venture and call me a sap.

Besides, Han has thought things through this time and come prepared. Not long after he and Chewie arrive at Iphigin to handle the trade dispute, Luke and R2 appear in the former’s New Republic X-wing. They trade some small talk before Solo explains that Chewie will handle the Ishori part of the disagreement while Luke takes care of the Diamala. He developed this plan because the Ishori think well when they are screaming in fury, while the Diamala would give Jedi and Vulcans a run for their money when it comes maintaining their calm.

The plan is a sound one – but it hits an unexpected snag. The Diamala do not want anything to do with Luke, stating that Jedi who use as much power as he does inevitably fall to the Dark Side. Surprised – and somewhat miffed – Luke becomes Han’s advisor instead as the negotiations start…

…But at the end of the day, they have accomplished exactly nothing. The two species do not appear interested in getting along, leaving both our heroes with nothing except headaches for all their trouble.

However, it soon turns out not to be a total waste of a day. While they are trying to figure out a way to solve the mess, the men receive a message about an incoming freighter Iphigini Customs has been told is carrying contraband. Something about this gets Han excited, and after the call is terminated, he tells Luke the smuggler is just a distraction. Pirates blow the whistle to the authorities on a “smuggler” carrying contraband into the day side of a planet while they hit a night side target. Because Customs is running to take in the “smuggler,” they cannot get back to the night side of the planet to stop the pirates before they have grabbed whatever they want and run off.

But he and Luke can get there in time. They head for the Falcon and the X-wing to deal with the pirates, allowing them to burn off their frustration about the trade negotiation. But before the battle begins, Luke experiences a disturbing vision of the Emperor and another, more ancient Sith Lord he faced as a spirit, staring at him through the X-wing’s canopy. And they are laughing at him.

Meanwhile, on Wayland, Threepio tells Leia that Han ran off to handle a diplomatic matter. At first put out, Leia lets it go and decides it is better to just enjoy her time on Wayland with the Noghri and her children. Unfortunately, her vacation is interrupted by a Devaronian poking around where he should not be. The Noghri call her in to handle the matter, which she seemingly does….

…Until the guy drops a smoke bomb near Jaina and Anakin to cover his escape.

(L to R) Anakin, Jacen, and Jaina Solo

Anyone with sense knows that threatening the Solo children is a big mistake, so this Devaronian obviously lacks sense. Leia takes off with a Noghri escort to bring him in, only to get some unexpected help from Talon Karrde and Mara Jade. The two are on Wayland to hire Noghri bodyguards for some of Karrde’s informants – the ones who typically work in dangerous areas. The three learn when they capture the guy that the thief intended to sell a data card with a damaged document on it.

This soon proves to be a recipe for disaster. The document in question not only threatens the peace of the New Republic, it could start another galactic civil war. Only this time, the Republic will not be fighting the Empire for their freedom. This time, they will be fighting each other in a pointless attempt to get even with the past.

Our heroes scramble to prevent this, but things go from bad to worse when Luke has another Force vision. This one includes a picture of Mara, apparently dead in a cave somewhere. Not long after he has said vision, Mara disappears on a planet in Wild Space. Instead of sending someone else to get her, however, Luke leaves his friends and family to handle the New Republic’s problems while he goes in alone to rescue her.

This is where Vision of the Future takes up the tale, and where I leave you, readers. I will not spoil anything else about these wonderful books, which are now old friends to me. If you do not enjoy the Hand of Thrawn Duology, I am sincerely sorry to hear that. They are truly great tales, though, and they deserve to be read at least once.

Before I go, I would like to add that at first Mara and Zahn’s constant remarks about Luke using too much power made no sense to me. As I said, my first experience of the Expanded Universe came through The New Essential Guide to Characters. There was not much there about Luke overusing the Force.

It was only when I read some novels in the Star Wars mythos besides Zahn’s that I found out what he was chastising Luke for doing – and thereby the other writers for the EU. Seriously, I enjoy the old EU more than the new timeline, but some of the writers for those books seemed to think being Force-sensitive means Jedi can get away with anything. Reading Jedi Search and the Young Jedi Knights series by Kevin J. Anderson was fun – except for the way he had Luke use the Force. Good grief, the difference between Light Siders and Dark Siders is that Dark Siders use the Force to gain power. Jedi rely on the Force as an ally, as a guide to get through life. They don’t master the Force – they serve it.

Zahn’s message must have hit home, because the novels following Vision of the Future took his stance toward the Force rather than Anderson’s haphazard treatment. Jude Watson may have been one of the authors who followed his example almost to the letter. Her The Last Jedi series for young Star Wars fans felt very similar, to me, to Zahn’s work. This was especially true in regards to the hows, wheres, and whyfores of the Force and Star Wars tech.

Well, that is it for now, readers. All I have to say before I go is that I hope you enjoy the Hand of Thrawn Duology. Remember, the Force will be with you, always.

Star Wars: Rogue One

If you guessed that I have at last seen Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, readers, then you have good deduction skills. Yes, I saw Rogue One a day late and a dollar short. But after the less-than-exciting The Force Awakens, I was a little leery of any Star Wars fare.

I enjoyed the trailers for the film – I even reposted one from borg.com here at Thoughts on the Edge of Forever. I wanted to see Rogue One. I wanted to like it. But I did not want to spend money on a film I would later wish I had not paid good cash to see. So I waited and saw it on DVD.

It was a great movie, and it belongs right up there with the original Star Wars trilogy, in my opinion. Yes, there were a few small things about it that I did not like – Leia’s CGI face was kind of scary, and I never got to see the Ghost escape the Battle of Scarif. But since Hera and Chopper have appeared in Lego Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures, I guess our Rebel band got through the battle safe and sound.

On the whole, the film was a hit with this viewer. Cassian and Jyn came off as sullen more often than not, but their supporting cast more than made up for this. Chirrut Îmwe, Baze Malbus, K2-SO, and Bodhi Rook were great fun. I would have to say that Îmwe was my favorite. From his Force mantra to his, “Are you kidding me? I’m blind!”, Îmwe was one lovable character. Yoda would have found him an apt pupil.

K2 would probably be my second favorite, partly because he is portrayed by actor Alan Tudyk, the pilot of Serenity in Joss Whedon’s Firefly series. The other reason I liked him is because he came off perfectly as a sassy former Imperial droid you could not force to behave. Despite that tough shell, though, he also proved to have a soft side, such as when he apologized for smacking Cassian and when Jyn handed him a blaster in the Imperial base on Scarif. And watching him kill Stormtroopers was a scream – for them more so than for me!

Baze was my third favorite and the perfect counterpoint to Îmwe. Where Îmwe is the true believer despite all the evidence that calls for despair, Baze is the former believer who has become a cynic due to the heavy losses he has suffered since the Empire came to power. I have to admit, I really wish I could have his blaster mini-gun as well!

My fourth favorite would probably be Cassian. Raised in the Rebel Alliance, fighting the Empire from the (rather unbelievable) age of six, he is a Rebel assassin and spy. He also happens to hate most of his job. There is very little warmth in him at first; as I said above, he and Jyn tend to come off as grim for most of their time on screen. This is kind of irritating, which is why Îmwe and K2 are higher on my favorites’ list.

But considering that Cassian and Jyn have dealt with the Empire’s brutality and the often necessarily nasty tactics of rebelling against it, there is very little reason for either of them to smile or joke or be lighthearted. Îmwe and Baze have suffered losses at the Empire’s hands, but they have never had to compromise their moral compasses when fighting it. K2 is a droid built to kill, much like the Knights of the Old Republic’s HK-47, so he regards battle as just another day at the office. Bodhi is new to the Rebellion. He has also never stepped outside of the “law” prior to Galen Erso’s urging to defect to the Rebellion. Cassian and Jyn did not have any of these luxuries.

Jyn was not a bad character, though after a while I did become a little bored with her. I enjoyed the scene where, after her father has been killed and her Rebel escort has returned to the ship, she raises her hand – only for Îmwe to catch and hold it in the manner of a friend. He was silently reminding her not to return death for death, and I thought it was a very touching gesture. Yes, Cassian was going to kill her father. Yes, the Rebel Alliance bombed the base in order to kill him. But killing Cassian would not undo any of that, which is why Îmwe took her hand to stop her from losing her temper.

Finally, we come to the Battle of Scarif. What a fight! I loved every minute of the X-Wings zooming around and zapping TIE fighters to atoms. I have not winced, jerked, and bucked in my seat while watching a Star Wars battle since I was young and viewing A New Hope for the millionth time.

Speaking of which, the reused footage of Red and Gold Leader from A New Hope was great. I almost squealed with delight as I recognized the actors. I could tell that the footage was original – I watched A New Hope almost as often as I watched 101 Dalmatians or Peter Pan when I was small. I made the trench run with Luke and the other Rebel fighters zillions of times, so I knew Red and Gold Leader very well by sight alone. Finding them in Rogue One was a treat!

The other wonderful – and amazing – thing about the Battle of Scarif was the land battle. As someone I know pointed out, the footage of the Rebels fighting in the jungle was reminiscent of the way American soldiers fought in the Vietnam War. The way the troop ships dropped Rebel fighters onto the beach was a parallel of the deployment of soldiers and Marines in the jungles of Vietnam, too. The Rebels charging across the beach resembled Marines running up the beach on Iwo Jima and the soldiers storming the beaches of France on D-Day, but the drops by the troop ships were unmistakably based on Vietnam deployments.

Some of the Rebels’ gear, too, resembled the uniforms used by American soldiers during Vietnam. Several of the unnamed Rebels’ helmets and jackets were the same style as Vietnam War helmets and uniforms used by American soldiers during that conflict. The door gunner shooting at the AT-AT Walkers was also a direct nod to Vietnam door gunners. I was proud to see these parallels. It is high time our Vietnam veterans were acknowledged like this and I think it is a compliment.

Finally, no review of Rogue One would be complete if I did not mention the winks and nods the writers added to let us know that the cast of Star Wars Rebels lives beyond their fourth season. At least, Chopper, Hera, and the Ghost survive the series’ final season. When Cassian shows Jyn the force of Rebel assassins and spies he has collected to help her steal the Death Star’s plans, someone can be heard paging “General Syndulla” over the PA system. Hera Syndulla, captain of the Ghost and Phoenix Sqaudron’s fighters, is at some point raised to the rank of general during or after season four of the television series.

Chopper can also be seen by the keen-eyed when the Rebel radio operator charges out to speak to Senator Mon Mothma. This is after the Rogue One crew begins their attack on Scarif. I missed Chopper in the film, sadly, but I had already seen him on the Internet during one of the Rebels’ Recon episodes. And I did hear him grumbling while watching the film. Huzzah!

Just like Chopper, I also could not keep track of the Ghost for most of the space battle above Scarif. This upset me because I could not see if the Ghost had escaped before Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer arrived and began blasting the Mon Calamari carrier to bits. My friends went back to the battle scenes after we had finished the film and replayed them in slow motion so I could see the Ghost. (I have very kind, patient friends who put up with A LOT from me.) With the film slowed down I was able to see the Ghost in action for much of the fight. As in the television series, she was protecting the carrier in the fleet rather than swinging farther out into the battle with the star fighters.

However, we never get to see the Ghost jump to hyperspace before the Executor, Vader’s flagship, arrives. I am still a little upset by that, I admit; I would have liked to see them fly away from Scarif safely. But c’est la vie!

I was also not as impressed by Darth Vader’s “temper tantrum” aboard the Mon Cal cruiser, as others were. But I can just picture what some of the Rebel crewers had to say when the scene was over and the director called “Cut!”: “Killed by Darth Vader. BEST DAY EVER!!”; or “This is so going on my resume!”; and the perennial, “I feel fulfilled!”

All in all, Rogue One was just as good as I hoped it would be. I was bummed that the main cast died, so I do not think I will be watching it as often as I once watched A New Hope. But I did enjoy the film, and I do wish I had gone to theaters to see it on the big screen. Those, however, are minor quibbles. This was a great movie, and I highly recommend it to you, readers! So remember –

The Force will be with you, always!

Spotlight: Star Wars Rebels – Agent Kallus

You may or may not have seen my post “Star Wars Rebels’ Zero Hour and Season 3 Review.” It was a long post. In that article, one of the things about Rebels’ season three which I noted was Agent Kallus’ defection to the Rebellion from the Empire. Some people were surprised by his change of heart this season, and I admit to being taken aback that he became the new Fulcrum.

However, I was not in the least bit astonished that he turned Rebel. If you are in the mood to look up my previous posts on Rebels, you will find in one or two of them that I mentioned a belief that Kallus would change sides. I knew right from the start that Kallus had “the heart of a Rebel.”

Of course, this begs the question: How did I know?

A friend asked me that a little while ago. It is a good question, one I cannot answer in a scientific manner. I knew when I saw the first advertisements for Rebels that Kallus would be an Imperial goon; that he would be an antagonist. I knew that his name comes from the word callous, which means “being hardened and thickened…feeling no emotion; feeling or showing no sympathy for others: hard-hearted.” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)   But even as I watched Spark of Rebellion, I looked at Kallus and thought, “You’ll be a Rebel someday, pal. Just you wait and see!”

How did I know? There were lots of little giveaways, I think. Not many people would notice them, especially among the show’s target audience. I have been a child before. I know how they see things. I gave up on lots of characters fighting on behalf of evil as a kid, only to be blindsided with shock when they became good guys later on. It is totally understandable that kids would see Kallus as nothing but a hopeless baddy, irredeemable and undesirable. One even gave him the nickname WAFAR: Walking Advertisement for a Razor, in reference to his huge sideburns.

Despite helping to create the moniker and adopting it myself, I did not see Kallus as a hopeless villain, and below are some of the reasons why.

From the get-go, I noticed that Kallus did not mind going into battle at the head of a legion of Stormtroopers. When Vader steps on the scene, he is usually the central point of the conflict. He is neither with the Stormtoopers nor goading them on from behind. If there are Stormtroopers present when Darth Vader enters the scene, they are in the background, firing at the heroes. Vader takes center stage whenever he shows up.

Kallus was different. He was not in front of the Stormtroopers, like Vader typically is, he was in the front line with them. This is also a departure from the aloof attitude demonstrated by most Imperial officers. They are all safely behind the Stormtroopers when they appear on screen. We have never really seen an Imperial officer, agent, or other bigwig dive into the thick of a fight against the Rebels. The obvious reason for this is that the Imperials are perfectly willing to dish out the pain, but they are not willing to experience it themselves.

Kallus is different. He is willing to fight. He is willing to brawl. Whether he is using a blaster, his Lasat bo-rifle, or his own fists, he enjoys the thrill of combat. He is not afraid of getting hurt, though he is not reckless and does not wish to get himself killed. Nevertheless, from the start it was obvious that he enjoyed a good scrap.

This, I think, was my first hint that Kallus had the makings of a Rebel. Another hint was that he was not prone to preening, as most Imperials in Star Wars are. I do not recall seeing Kallus boast over anything he did while with the Empire, even his successes as an ISB agent. One Star Wars encyclopedia claims that he turned down numerous offers of promotion in order to stay on the front lines. So he did not have an unhealthy, inflated opinion of himself. Hmm, not your typical Imperial reaction to success, eh, readers?

To the observant viewer, this shows that Kallus is not interested in power or advancement in the Imperial bureaucracy. He is interested in his job as an ISB agent because he enjoys it. He wants to be on the front lines, fighting what he thinks is the good fight. His scrupulous attention to his job, his lack of interest in prestige and power, his love of combat because he is at his physical peak, hinted that he had a sense of honor. Though he kicked a Stormtrooper down a Kessel mineshaft and did some other, similarly nasty things, Kallus definitely possessed an aura of real dignity which is lacking in most of Star Wars’ Imperial characters.

Hint number three about Kallus’ eventual change of heart was that he was smart. Most Imperials are so busy trying to “get ahead” in the Imperial power structure that they have lost whatever imagination they had before they became part of the Emperor’s machine. You watch them while they are working on the bridge of a Star Destroyer or some such place, and they are all vying for “their fair share” of the glory. This means that they never look beyond their own nose. Because they are so busy looking out for good ol’ Number One, they do not understand the Rebels.

The Rebels would never leave a man behind if they could find a way to save him. Kallus realized this at the start of the series and, like Grand Admiral Thrawn, he began to profile our heroes. He did not do it through studying art, as Thrawn does, but by assessing their actions in combat.

There are benefits to both kinds of deduction, obviously. Thrawn’s fascination with art and what it shows about a particular artist’s or species’ mindset is a superpower all by itself. It is what allows him to make such great, overarching plans. If there is one thing Thrawn is proud of it is his intellect, the fact that he is the smartest man (or Chiss) in the room, and so he holds all his subordinates and enemies in contempt. Kallus’ understanding of the Rebels is based more on their performance in combat, and so he never held them in complete contempt.

Kallus is not a genius, like Thrawn, but he is intelligent. He analyzed the Ghost crew’s patterns of attack and would be ready to meet them when they came running to the bait he had set up. His hand-to-hand battles with the Ghost crew, particularly Zeb, taught him their personal strengths and weaknesses.

In a way, this knowledge gave him a more realistic and basic picture of the Rebels than the one Thrawn has drawn up. Thrawn understands how they think; Kallus knows why they think the way they do. Thrawn is detached from his knowledge of the Rebels. With very, very few exceptions, he has not engaged them in personal combat. He has studied their tactics, yes, but he has done so through secondhand reports. Though thorough, these reports do not equate to actual experience.

Kallus has not engaged the Rebels simply with his head but by fighting them physically. He knows, therefore, that they will do the totally unexpected, not because of a picture they painted on a wall or a mask they left lying around. They will do the totally unexpected because they are determined to survive long enough to get a Rebellion against the Empire up and running. If someday they have to die so that a Rebellion can be born, then they will do it. But if they can find a way to survive they will take that chance, however slim or insane it seems to be. That is all there is to it.

Thrawn thinks he can synthesize thousands of years of art and battle tactics into an efficient metric by which to plan out the perfect battle. To an extent, he is right. But what Kallus knows and what Thrawn has not recognized is that heart beats brains every time. The Ghost crew’s determination to win, to look out for each other, trumped his every plan to bring them to face what he believed was justice. And all of his plans were remarkably neat, for an “average” Imperial. So how can someone so smart get beaten so often by people who, logically, should be easy to defeat?

The writers finally answered Kallus’ question in The Honorable Ones. After bushwhacking the crew in an Imperial factory orbiting Geonosis, Kallus follows Zeb as the Lasat tries to return to the Ghost via an Imperial escape pod. The two end up fighting while the escape pod jettisons, damaging the controls in the process and landing on an ice moon as a result. Zeb is knocked cold by the landing while Kallus breaks his leg.

The episode is actually nothing special, from the point of view of the plot. Two enemies who hate the other end up stranded together and have to work with one another if they hope to survive to rejoin their respective forces. We have seen this device used time and time again. It is not a particularly spectacular plot and, if handled badly, it leaves an awful taste in viewers’ minds.

But The Honorable Ones pulls it off very well – and not just because of all the “freak-out noises” Kallus makes. Having watched Zeb for so long, we know how he is going to react when he realizes that Kallus cannot fight because of his busted leg. Kallus, however, believes that Zeb will take the first opportunity to kill him. He repeatedly tries to get his hands on a weapon, but Zeb disarms him and does not hurt him, in spite of pointing out how easily he could kill the ISB agent.

Zeb then makes a crack about how Geonosis is supposed to be a desert planet. He knows very well that they are on one of the planet’s moons – a frigidly cold one, at that. But in order to ease the tension of their situation, he makes a joke about it. Kallus misses the joke and takes him seriously. He lectures Zeb as though the Lasat was a child, asking how he could be bested time and again by an ignoramus like him.

Zeb’s curt reply – “Get a sense of humor, Agent!” – must have surprised him. Due to a bad experience with a Lasat mercenary some years before, Kallus held all Lasat in contempt. Because of this past encounter with a member of Zeb’s species, he probably knows more about the Lasat as a race than anyone but Zeb and Thrawn. This hatred of his for the Lasat blinded him to their better qualities.

So Zeb pointing out that he was joking and Kallus not grasping it is one of the things that makes the Imperial agent sit up and pay attention. Zeb is not a genius but neither is he stupid. He was having a bit of fun at their expense, like any soldier who still held hope of rescue would. If Zeb had been a human or a fellow Imperial, Kallus might have understood that his comment was a joke. Instead, his bias blinded him to Zeb’s sense of humor.

Throughout the episode Kallus slowly learns to take off his dark glasses and look at Zeb as he is and not how his hatred has painted him. What he finds is an intelligent, honorable Lasat who is tactically bright. He also realizes that Zeb has something he does not. Several somethings, actually…. He has friends. Friends he believes in and trusts to come for him no matter what. Friends he knows will risk their lives for him because they have done it over and over again. Friends he will in turn risk his life to protect and help.

Kallus has no friends, not because he does not want them, but because they do not want him. With the Imperials, friends are extra baggage. They can get you demoted or put you on the chopping block for their mistakes. The Galactic Empire of Star Wars reminds me a great deal of Lewis’ description of Hell in The Screwtape Letters. Almost everyone in the Empire loves nothing greater or better than himself. They all hate each other to some extent and cannot wait to show up the person sitting next to them so they can climb the ladder to the Empire’s upper echelons.

And in The Honorable Ones, this is what Kallus finds out. He finds out that he has not been fighting for the right side at all. He has been working for an evil Empire, doing evil deeds in its name.

The way this is shown in the episode is when he apologizes to Zeb for what happened on Lasan. The initial mission statement was not to massacre the Lasat. At least, this was not the mission statement that Kallus and everyone below him saw. The Empire meant it to be a massacre from the beginning, but they knew that not all of their soldiers would gleefully agree to exterminate an entire species. So the Empire had to feed them this idea that they were fighting just one little battle but it spiraled out into an inevitable world-clearing assignment.

Kallus bought the lie hook, line, and sinker because he already hated the Lasat. Though he admired an individual Lasat’s honor and courage by accepting that warrior’s bo-rifle before the latter died, he did in general despise the species. It made him willing to listen to and obey the Empire’s lies even when part of him balked and said, “Maybe this isn’t actually the right thing to do.”

The real clincher comes at the end of the episode, when Kallus watches Zeb’s reunion with the Ghost crew from a distance. The kids rush up to Zeb, shouting with relief, while Hera offers the milder, “You had us worried,” line. Kanan’s brash, “I told you he was all right,” is the more manly way of expressing relief. It is clear that the crew is genuinely happy to see Zeb, that they love him as part of their battle family.

Kallus’ reception aboard the Imperial Star Destroyer is the exact opposite. No one rushes up to see if he is okay or even to take him to sickbay for his broken leg. The one man aboard whom he knows by name, Admiral Konstantine, has his nose in a datapad when Kallus tries to get his attention. Konstantine’s brush-off is totally at odds with the Ghost crew’s joyous discovery of Zeb, alive and well, on that Geonosian moon.

Disappointed and shocked that no one aboard cared whether he lived or died, Kallus limps to his austere quarters and sits down on his bed. The one colorful thing he has is a meteorite Zeb found and gave to him because it generated heat, which Kallus needed more than he did because he could not walk. Somehow, I think Kallus realized then that, if he and Zeb had been friends and he had been lost, the big Lasat would have welcomed him back to the ship heartily.

Though he always respected the Rebels’ fighting abilities, Kallus finally realizes after this episode that they are in the right and he has been wrong this whole time. It must have hit him hard; finding out that you have been fighting for and doing the work of someone evil is pretty awful. But the interesting thing is that Kallus does not let his feelings overwhelm and destroy him. Instead of staying in bed, wracked with guilt, he follows Zeb’s advice: he starts asking questions, looking into what the Empire is actually doing, not what it says it is doing.

The answers he finds spur him to join the Rebels as a spy, feeding them vital information from the first episode of season three onward. Despite not being a hundred percent successful in helping the Rebellion all the time, Kallus’ information comes in handy more often than not. It is so valuable, in fact, that when the Phoenix cell gets word he might be discovered, they try to get him out of the Empire.

In this way, they recognize Kallus’ true value more than he does. They see Kallus as more than a useful tool that can get them intelligence which could mean the difference between life and death. They see him as he is: a man of inestimable worth in and of himself, a man who does not deserve to be murdered by the Empire. They are willing to sacrifice any future lifesaving intel he could gain to save his life.

But Kallus’ more practical, Imperial-tinted view of his role in the Rebellion means he is not yet ready to break away from the Empire. He stays behind to keep feeding the Rebels information, feeling he can do more good from the inside than from without. A noble idea, certainly, but in the end his decision is almost disastrous. Thrawn uses Kallus’ next transmission to find Phoenix Squadron’s base, methodically destroying the Rebel fleet assembled overhead to put a halt to the TIE Defender factories on Lothal. Kallus’ warning barely alerts the Rebels in time, allowing them to mount a defense against the attack.

It is, however, a costly defense, with many Rebels lost in the battle, along with most of the supplies they stored in the base which they are just able to abandon. Kallus is forced to watch the people he decided to help get killed before his eyes, held as he is aboard the Chimera’s bridge, powerless to act on their behalf. Though he eventually manages to escape it is clear he is not very happy with the day’s events at the end of Zero Hour, Part 2.

It is not too hard to guess why. Kallus thought he could be of more help to the Rebels from inside the Empire, that he could be useful to them as a spy. Instead he got them discovered, which led to many of their men being killed in action and lost them a well-stocked hidden base. He is lucky that they decided to take him in despite all that, which is why he thanks Kanan for accepting him.

Kanan, through his Force-sensitivity, must sense what Kallus is feeling. He also knows the man will not accept coddling. He cannot. He is a grown, responsible adult, which means he has to deal with his feelings as an adult should.

This does not mean that Kanan cannot tell him how much the risks he took on behalf of the Rebellion, on behalf of the Ghost crew, mean to them. He thanks Kallus for risking so much for them, for doing the right thing.

Kallus’ expression after Kanan leaves is very interesting. In fact, it is comparable to Ezra’s expression after he helps Sabine and Zeb take crates of food to feed hungry Lothal refugees in Spark of Rebellion. After one of the denizens of Tarkintown thanks Ezra for the food, thinking he is part of the Ghost crew, Ezra’s face falls with shame. “But I didn’t do this,” he mutters. “I didn’t do anything.” He was looking out for himself when he got caught up in the Ghost crew’s raid, but the people in Tarkintown did not know that. To them, he is a new member of the crew of benefactors that supplied them with the necessities they could no longer acquire themselves. This leaves Ezra feeling guilty, a guilt which helps spur him to join the Rebellion because it helps bring him out of himself, showing him that there is a larger battle to fight. That he can, in fact, make a difference and help people in a way that matters.

From Kallus’ expression, it is clear he is running up against the same feelings Ezra did. He does not think that he risked much, not the way the rest of the Rebels have been for years. He is a Johnny-come-lately to the Rebellion; it has been building for years, and he never considered it anything less than evil until recently. In fact, he actively worked to destroy it. Kanan, Hera, Ezra, Sabine, Zeb, and even Chopper saw this evil for what it was from the beginning. Kanan has paid for his Rebel service with his eyes, for Pete’s sake, yet he is thanking Kallus for risking his life as a mole in the Empire! They have been fighting it, risking their lives to defeat it, far longer than he has. “But I didn’t do any of this,” he is thinking as Kanan leaves. “I didn’t do anything.”

Kallus is a big boy, and sooner or later he is going to realize that this assessment is not entirely true. Yes, he was not an enemy of the Empire from the beginning. Yes, he fought and killed Rebels before he joined their fight. Yes, he will be making up for lost time now that he has become a Rebel.

But he did risk his life to give the Rebels important, lifesaving information. He did warn them in time, not just in Zero Hour but in Warhead as well. He did throw off Governor Pryce’s command capabilities by upsetting her, reminding her of the consequences of failure in the Empire. He did, at last, escape the Empire’s clutches and join the Rebellion. He is, finally, becoming more of the person he was meant to be.

That makes him pretty darn important. It makes him worth thanking. It makes him worthy of the Rebels’ respect. And it is going to make him a heck of a Rebel, readers. I cannot wait to see him kick some Imperial backside in season four!

Journeying with Kallus has been almost as much fun as following along with the Ghost crew. I hope he gets to the party on Endor at the end of Return of the Jedi, where our Phoenix Squadron friends can slap him on the back and offer him some of the local cocktail. Maybe, in whatever series follows Rebels, we will get to see more of Kallus. He is an intriguing character I would hate to lose as a viewer. As a writer, I would have to have a pretty good reason to kill him off.

But we will have to wait and see what Dave Filoni and his crew have in store for our heroes. The final season of Star Wars Rebels is going to big and probably painful on a series of levels. As the song says, “We may lose and we may win/But we will never be here again/So open up, I’m climbin’ in.” I’ve followed the Ghost’s hyperspace vectors this far, readers. I cannot turn back now. If you have come this far with us, I know it is the same for you.

So…may the Force be with you, readers and Rebels alike!

Star Wars Rebels’ Zero Hour and Season 3 Review

Wow. Just…. Wow.

It appears that Star Wars Rebels’ writers have begun to specialize in flash-bang season endings. The two part ending of season three, Zero Hour, premiered as a one hour episode Saturday March 25, 2017.

It. Was. A. BLAST!!!

I will delve into that episode later on. This is a season review, so I cannot concentrate simply on this slam dunk of an ending, no matter how much I wish to do just that. I would also like to ask in advance that anyone who reads this, if they have a Twitter account and are following the Rebels writers or the Rebels Recon Twitter accounts, could post a link to this article there. I want to see a lot of things in future Rebels seasons, and they are mentioned at the end of this post. Problem is, I do not have a Twitter account. However, as Reagan once said, “There’s no telling how high you can go as long as you don’t care who gets the credit.”

I do not care who gets the credit. I just want the Rebels’ writers to know about these questions and requests.

Okay, so, season three kicked off with a one hour, two-part episode called Steps into Shadow. In that debut, we saw Kanan adjust to his physical blindness with the help of the enigmatic Force-sensitive known as the Bendu (voiced by Tom Baker). Meanwhile, in this same show, Ezra “stepped into the shadow” of spiritual blindness as he skated close to the Dark Side.

Many fans leapt off of the deep end and said that Bendu showed Kanan a new way of looking at the Force. I think what actually happened is that Bendu just reminded Kanan he had the Force as an ally. He lost his physical sight, but not his ability in the Force, when Maul blinded him. The latter can and has often been a suitable substitute for the former, but Kanan’s training was not complete. If he had been a full Jedi Knight when the Order fell to the Empire, he probably would not have needed Bendu’s help to learn to “see” using the Force.

I also believe, contrary to the hype on the Internet, that Bendu taught Kanan as a wielder of the Light Side of the Force would. Could Bendu use the Dark Side of the Force – oh, yes, he certainly could. We saw the proof of that in Zero Hour. But if he had tried to teach Kanan Dark Side techniques, Kanan would have recognized that and had nothing more to do with him afterward.

Quite frankly, I think that Bendu was in fact a creature of the Light Side, something he did not want to admit. His ancient, almost primeval connection to the Force meant that he could access or be aware of the Dark Side without giving into it on a day-to-day basis. After all, if he was evil, Bendu would have made a power grab for the galaxy thousands of years ago. Dark Siders are absolutely unable to sit on the sidelines of the universe, as Bendu apparently did for millennia, meditating on the Force. That is a Jedi – or Light Sider – practice, not a Sith custom, from what I know of Star Wars lore.

The most touching part of “Steps into Shadow” was Kanan’s reestablishment of his connection with Ezra. Blaming himself for Kanan’s blinding at Maul’s hands and feeling rejected because Kanan would not adapt to this handicap, Ezra gave into his anger and began listening to the Sith holocron in search of answers. It nearly got him killed. Only by reconnecting with Kanan did he have a prayer of being saved.

And this leads us to the next episode, The Holocrons of Fate. When Maul kidnaps and threatens the Ghost crew, Ezra’s immediate instinct is to rush in to help, to use the quick and easy way to save Hera, Zeb, Sabine, and Chopper. Kanan, with Bendu’s help, manages to calm him down and show him that the harder way can be and usually is the better way.

But Ezra still had to learn patience, as displayed in The Antilles Extraction. In this episode, he has to wait for Sabine to call him and his crew to get her and defecting TIE pilots Wedge Antilles and Hobbie Klivian. The show is also a good one for Sabine, as she gets to use her Mandalorian infiltration skills for the first time on camera.

The episode reveals, too, that the new Fulcrum is none other than Agent Kallus. Those with an ear for voices immediately picked out his identity when he contacted the Rebel base. His terms of speech betrayed him as well. No Imperial but Kallus ever spoke with that particular edge and bite to his words. The fact that he did his best throughout the show to help Sabine, Wedge, and Hobbie escape was also a dead giveaway.

Hera’s Heroes and The Last Battle were interesting installments. Heroes, aside from its homage to the comedy Hogan’s Heroes, showed more emotional depth for Hera and raised the stakes for her. It also managed to shine a light on her motherly affection for Ezra and his filial love for her, something no other episode previously spent much time demonstrating.

It also set up the fascinating grudge between her and Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikklesen), who lived up to Zahn’s characterization during season three’s run. Ezra grew further (with Zeb’s input) when he helped Rex and a group of Separatist battle droids realize that they had been pawns in a civil war which was nothing more than a means to overthrow the Old Republic and the Jedi Order. It is about time someone in-canon pointed that out. It was so painfully obvious to the audience in The Clone Wars TV series and prequels that some of us could not help wondering why no one – except a few characters who were knocked off – put two and two together in the storyline. But then, politics can blind almost anybody. At least Ezra finally said it!

Next we had Imperial Supercommandos. The episode showcased Mandalorian culture and answered several lingering questions about what became of Mandalore and its sectors when the Empire took power, as well as giving us a very necessary and interesting back story on Sabine. Adding Fenn Rau to the Rebellion’s cause was the icing on the cake.

Iron Squadron was a good episode for Ezra, showing how much he has changed since the first season. Much like Sato’s nephew Mart, he was cocky and reckless at the beginning, though in Mart’s case these traits are due to his desire for revenge against the Empire that killed his father. The quiet hint that it was Thrawn who killed the Rebel cell commanded by Sato’s brother, Mart’s father, added another dimension to Sato and set up the potential for a confrontation between the two in the future – one which proved to be more final than this viewer expected.

The Wynkahthu Job lightened the mood with a hilarious pirate excursion led by that old scalawag, Hondo Ohnaka. Adding Azmorigan to the crew, whom Hera wanted to blow out the airlock on sight, was a stroke of genius. Then we had An Inside Man, which showed Thrawn’s brutal methods of discovering Rebels in the TIE factories on Lothal. The show was most memorable, though, for its confirmation that Kallus was the new Fulcrum. Kanan and Ezra’s distrust and dislike, fueled by their years of combating him and the continuing loss of their rebel compatriots down below, added light to an otherwise grim episode. Ezra’s promise that Kanan could throw Kallus through the next glass map was only outdone by the duo’s piloting of an AT-DP to escape the factory. It just goes to show, the Empire has no imagination. Their pilots very rarely display the ingenuity that the Rebels do in combat.

After this we had the creepy but essential Visions and Voices. This episode was spooky, very spooky, but also well animated and plotted out. Ezra’s connection to Maul is weakened but not severed in this episode, as we had hoped. However, he does learn here that there is no way he can ever trust the former Sith apprentice as an ally against the Empire.

The two part Ghosts of Geonosis, with Forest Whitaker returning to voice Saw Gerrera after playing him onscreen in Rogue One, had its perks. It started out like a typical horror film, and watching Saw and Rex share Clone Wars memories about the Jedi was a great deal of fun. Sabine and Zeb’s scavenging the shield generator was another excellent, near-horror film caliber escapade. The ending for the show felt a little watered down, though. Something about Saw simply handing over the Geonosian egg felt too easy, as did his forgiveness of the Geonosian drone “Click-Clack.” Even so, it was not a bad ending. His hinting about the Death Star was good, too.

Warhead was a cute episode, but Trials of the Darksaber blew it and several other shows out of the water when it came to emotional impact. Sabine’s training in the use of the Darksaber and Kanan’s forcing her to face the pain of her past hit this viewer in all the right emotional places. But what also got to me was Kanan’s caution, his wariness about letting her use the saber. Though a capable warrior he would trust with a lot, Kanan knows there is a deep, coiled pain and anger buried behind Sabine’s façade of unconcern. Her reluctance to use the saber only makes this worse, and he does not want her to get hurt out of anger.

And this nearly happens. Sabine has never physically mixed it up with any of the crew. Her knocking down Ezra is natural enough; he is used to handling a lightsaber and he had never beaten her at anything before. Because he could outdo her in lightsaber practice, he started to swagger a bit. It makes sense that Sabine would want to knock him down and remind him which of them was older, had more training, and more battle experience.

But going after Kanan, taking her frustrations out on him – this we have not seen before. Even Rau was surprised that she would go after Kanan with such ferocity. The episode strained their friendship near the breaking point, but the two of them got past it when Kanan finally decided to push and not coddle Sabine. She pushed back, and in doing so, she faced her pain and anger, finding solace on the other side.

Legacy of Mandalore did not feel like it delivered on the emotion promised at the end of Trials of the Darksaber. Of course, Darksaber was so emotionally loaded that it would make sense for almost any follow-up show to dial back the intensity a bit. You do not want to leave your audience an emotional wreck, after all, or they will be wiped when you show them something else important. Legacy fleshed out the picture of Mandalore under Imperial domination, too, adding more to Sabine’s back story by introducing her mother and brother (is he older or younger than her?). Having Ursa Wren shoot Gar Saxon to save her daughter was a good touch, as it winked to her name sake. You do not go after a mother bear’s cubs if you want to live. Saxon, it appears, had a death wish.

Of course, all of this ignited another civil war on Mandalore, and we have yet to meet Sabine’s father. I, for one, want a whole lot more of Mandalore in the next season and any following seasons. Speaking of, Ketsu Onyo has been absent for all of Season 3. Where did she go? Has she joined Clan Wren in their war against the factions allied to the Empire? Or is she bounty hunting again?

That will have to wait for the questions/speculation half of this post. After this show we had Through Imperial Eyes, which showed Kallus spying on the Empire. Hearing that Fulcrum might soon be discovered as a spy, the Rebels decide to get him out. Therefore Ezra, Chopper, and AP-5 infiltrate the Star Destroyer which Kallus is aboard to do the deed. Kallus demonstrates that he is as smart, in some ways, as Thrawn in this show. But he is not smart enough to realize that Thrawn has had him figured since An Inside Man, and he accidentally reveals himself to Thrawn completely in this episode.

After this we have Secret Cargo, a bang-up episode in its own right, followed by the lighthearted Double Agent Droid and the amazing Twin Suns. For a full review of that episode, just type “Star Wars Rebels Review: Twin Suns” into the search engine on my blog.

Finally, we have the explosive Zero Hour episodes. Wow, wow, wow, wow! Thrawn springs his trap on Kallus and locates our heroes’ Rebel base on Atollon, which has Commander Sato’s and General Dodonna’s starship fleets overhead in preparation for an assault on Lothal’s TIE Defender factories. The episodes are high intensity, and there is a lot to cover in them. In the interest of time, I will just hit the highlights.

Kanan goes to Bendu for help, provoking the ancient creature into a fury by pointing out that his neutrality, his standing in the middle between the Light and Dark Sides of the Force, is in essence cowardice. He is willing to sit by and let others die above his world for no other reason than to preserve his position as a practitioner of the “middle way” between the Light and the Dark.

This is good point in the story because Kanan is right; there is no middle ground in the war between good and evil. Good will eventually win, but that does not mean evil should not be resisted, spiritually on all occasions, physically when the battle moves to the material realm. To stand aside, to try and sit on the fence, at those times, is foolishness. For one thing, a fence is usually higher than the surrounding landscape. That means that sitting on it makes you a great target.

For another thing, sitting on the fence is like sitting in a corner during a play. If your part in the play, originally, was as one of the characters who did something, but you chose to sit in a corner onstage and pout for some reason, then the play will go on without you and the audience will laugh at you.

Kanan forces Bendu to get out of the corner and join the play by his accusation of cowardice. Bendu does not like it, and his zapping the Ghost – not to mention at least one A-Wing – as the Rebels escape Atollon shows this. But for the most part his ire is turned toward Thrawn and the Empire. Whether or not he will ever return to mentor Kanan and Ezra from the other side of the Force remains to be seen. I’m kind of hoping he does not get to do that. I would not trust him not to steer them into trouble they might not be able to walk away from as payback for what happened in Zero Hour.

Another great thing about Bendu’s part in Zero Hour is that it makes Force-generated storms canon again. Anyone who encountered the Witches of Dathomir in the now “Legacy” stories knows that the Nightsisters on that planet could and would drum up such storms using the Dark Side of the Force. In his anger, it seems Bendu went the same route.

His prophesying Thrawn’s defeat before the Grand Admiral shoots him in the head was great, too, as was his body’s disappearance into the Force. I have only heard of Jedi or Light Side Force wielders having this occur when they had gained a strong connection to the Force. I suppose Dark Side users or Sith could have it happen, but it seems unlikely. They use the Force instead of letting it guide them; I have never heard of a Sith or Dark Sider becoming one with the Force in body and spirit. It gives me hope that Bendu melded with the Light Side and won’t be a problem later on.

But I am not laying all my chips on that bet.

Ezra, Sabine, Tristan, Rau, Chopper, and Clan Wren Mandalorians riding to the rescue of the Rebels on Atollon were also very cool. Just in case I did not make it clear before, I WANT MORE MANDALORE IN UPCOMING EPISODES!!!   YEAH-HOO!!!

Sato’s kamikaze run into Admiral Konstantine’s Interdictor cruiser nearly started this viewer crying. It was a touching moment, but I sure hope someone is able to collar Mart before he runs off after Thrawn to get revenge.

It was nice to hear Hera call Kanan “love” again, too. She seems to have gotten out of the habit lately, and we have not had as many Kanan/Ezra interaction episodes as we once did. Kanan’s worry about having nothing left to teach Ezra is disconcerting; I am hoping he will be around for a long time yet, even when Ezra becomes a Knight himself. They both have a lot more to learn about the Force, and a lot more to do as Rebels. I would like to see them both make it there in one piece.

At last, we come to Kallus. Though his appearances this season have been sparse, Zero Hour made up for it all. From his epic fight with Thrawn in Ezra’s old home in the Lothal comm. tower, to their interaction aboard the Chimera, Kallus shows he has “turned Rebel” completely. The most interesting part of this transformation is when he starts to laugh as Thrawn prepares to head down to the surface to destroy our heroes. Kallus’ warning that the Rebels are smarter than Thrawn thinks is based on experience; as he admitted, he tried to catch them several times and almost had them at his mercy. But they still escaped him. They still beat him. And eventually, they won him over without even trying to do so.

In many ways, I think that Kallus is what Thrawn could have been if he had joined the New Republic – or, in this case, the Rebellion. Kallus is very smart, shown by how he dodged discovery for so long and by how quickly and thoroughly he reprogrammed the assassin droids Thrawn uses for combat practice. He has an intellect that almost matches Thrawn’s, but he also has something else I pointed out long ago, something which Thrawn does not have: he has a sense of honor. You cannot have a sense of honor without some heart, readers, and Kallus’ survival trip on the Geonosian moon with Zeb brought both to the fore. Kallus started asking questions – and he did not like the answers that he found. So he did something about it. He joined the Rebels.

Incidentally, if the writers want to keep Kallus’ hair the way it was while he was aboard the Chimera, I would not say no. It gave him a roguish look quite fitting for a Rebel. He ought to keep it that way. 😉

Now to those questions and requests I mentioned above. As stated, I want more Mandalore in the upcoming season, but I suspect that the writers will deliver this whether I ask for it or not. I want to know what Sabine’s father is like, I want to know where Ketsu is, and I want to know if Mandalore is Thrawn’s next target. It would make sense if it was. Mandalorian dissidents helped the Rebels beat his master scheme to bring them down. This would make Mandalore Thrawn’s next objective, so he can defeat them and they will never be able to help the Rebels again. Mandalorians have been the best warriors in the galaxy for millennia, excepting the Jedi. You would need a super genius such as Thrawn to overcome them, simply because they are so determined, strong, and refuse to bow to anyone outside their own clan-oriented political structure.

I also want to see how Kallus adjusts to the Ghost crew and how he fixes in his mind the logistics of being part of a Rebellion. He had unlimited resources while with the Empire, but the Rebels routinely have to steal fuel just to keep their ships going. He will not be able to simply snap his fingers and get what he needs for a mission or a plan as a Rebel, and that might irk him. It would also be nice if he could get a girlfriend. Maybe she could be a Mandalorian (and no, I am NOT suggesting Sabine be that girl!). His character arc in season four is bound to be interesting.

I want to see some more Kanan/Ezra, Hera/Ezra, Sabine/Ezra centered episodes, with a few Zeb centric shows as well. There have been hints all this season that Sabine and Ezra are closing in on a romantic relationship. I would like to see the ball rolling on that before the series ends, whenever that will be.

This brings up my next request: I want a season five for Star Wars Rebels. I would also like a season six, seven, eight, and maybe even a nine. To infinity, and beyond! We have three year intervals between each of the original trilogy movies and, no thanks to Lucasfilm’s decision to scrap the “Legacy” novels, we now have no idea what happened between those films. The adventures the Ghost crew will have throughout the Rebellion after the Alliance is firmly established would be a great way to explore these years between Episodes IV, V, and VI.

This segues nicely into my next request: can we have Kyle Katarn, Dash Rendar, Syal Antilles (Wedge’s actress sister), Mara Jade, Corran Horn, Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, Tycho Celchu, Winter, Talon Karrde, Kam Solusar, Baron Soontir Fel, Ysanne Isard, Admiral Daala, Kyp Durron, Borsk Fey’lya, 4-LOM, IG-88, Jerec, Booster and Mirax Terrik, the Dark Woman, and several other “Legacy” characters returned to the franchise through Rebels? Thrawn has been successfully reintegrated into the timeline through this series, so why not at least some of these characters?

They were great and good characters, after all. Lots of people like them. And I mean lots. Winter, Celchu, Pellaeon, Syal, and Rendar would probably be some of the easiest characters to reintroduce to the franchise here.   With Konstantine dead, Thrawn is going to need a new Admiral under his command, after all. There is now plenty of room for Pellaeon to become part of the franchise.

And none of these characters would have to be explored onscreen in Rebels. All they would need is a reintroduction, however brief it might be. Then the novel and comic book writers could expand on these characters for the new Star Wars timeline. Timothy Zahn would love to rewrite Mara Jade, Talon Karrde, Borsk Fey’lya, Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, and several of the other characters he created into the new timeline, I am sure. If Rebels were to fill in the blanks between the original three movies, there would be plenty of room for these characters to pop in and out of different episodes and missions.

This would also leave open the door for appearances by such canon characters as Aurra Sing, Quinlan Vos (who survived the Purge for a while in the old timeline), Admiral Ackbar, Bossk, Dengar, Jabba the Hutt and other original characters. If Boba Fett entered the series – whew, what an antagonist he would be! Han and Chewie could even drop into an episode or two. We have had Threepio, Artoo, Saw Gerrera, Maul, Darth Vader, Tarkin, Lando Calrissian, Ahsoka, Princess Leia, Mon Mothma, and now Obi-Wan Kenobi show up, for Pete’s sake! Why not these characters?! They are all great, popular personages, and we would like to have at least some of them back!!!!

I would still like to know more about the Dume family, too. If Kanan never knew his parents, then he might have an entire extended family he does not know about. That is a plot twist that could be worth exploring. It would be nice if Zeb could get a girlfriend or find more Lasat to join the Rebels as well. He did not get much time in the limelight this season. Hera is growing into quite a leading figure in the Rebellion, and seeing her relationship with Ezra and the rest of the crew expand would be great.

Finally, since the “Legacy” novels loved to bring in surviving Jedi or new Force wielders, this means Kanan and Ezra could stick around for most of the Rebellion. They would not have to meet Luke during the Rebellion (they have already met Leia, for Heaven’s sake!), but they could still be there when he jumpstarts a new Jedi Order. It happened with Vima da Boda. Who says it cannot happen with Kanan and Ezra?

This brings up something else which was great about the “Legacy” stories, and which I would like to see in the new storyline: what about the other Force-sensitive youngsters who may be floating around the galaxy? Jedi Sentinels could spend years on certain planets carrying out deep cover missions, which means a few might have escaped the Purge. What would happen if one of them joined the Rebellion? How would Ezra and Kanan handle, say, Kyle Katarn, Corran Horn, or poor Kam Solusar? He would be an interesting character to reintroduce, as would Kyp Durron.

And what would happen if a Mandalorian fighting alongside Clan Wren and the Rebels discovered she or he was Force-sensitive? Does the Rebellion get recruits and surreptitious help from Naboo, like they do from Alderaan? Would our Rebel crew ever need to go to Kashyyyk for something and meet Wulfwarroo and Kitwarr again? It would be nice to see some more Wookiees – better animated than in Spark of Rebellion – in the series. There must have been at least some besides Chewie who wanted to bring down the Empire, and joined the Rebellion as a result! Heck, maybe Maz Kanata and her cantina castle could be featured in an episode or two!!

The possibilities for such ideas in this series are endless. Since it is set in the five years before A New Hope, I would be surprised if the series did not have a five season run. I would be most pleased if the show ran through the years including and between A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and the Battle of Jakku. The Ghost crew would not need to be in the Battle of Yavin or the Battles of Hoth and Bespin, although they might be brought into the Battles of Endor and Jakku. As Dave Filoni himself points out in a recent IGN interview, Star Wars is a big galaxy. There is room for plenty of stories involving characters – Jedi, Force-sensitive, scoundrel, Rebel, and Imperial – that can be explored without interfering with the original films. The books and comics of the “Legacy” years did this and got off Scott-free. Why can’t Rebels?

Will it happen?   That is up to Filoni and Lucasfilm’s Story Group. I only know that I really, REALLY wish it would happen. I would dearly love to see the intact Ghost crew celebrating above Endor. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think Hera would be able to keep her spunk if she lost Kanan and Ezra. They are two of the people she fights for and loves most. She loses them, and there may not be much of a “General Syndulla” to get excited about in Rogue One.

That is my opinion, anyway. I really hope that our Rebels’ Jedi survive the Rebellion, that we can see Ezra and Sabine in whatever series fills in the blanks between the new films, and that we can return some of the best “Legacy” characters to the new Star Wars timeline. It is a big wish list, but it is what I want for this franchise right now.

But if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. We shall have to see what happens, readers! May the Force be with you! (Lightsaber ignites in the background.)

Star Wars Rebels Season 3 Trailer Is OUT!!!!

YEAH-HOOO!!!

The Star Wars Rebels season three trailer is out, people!!!  The Rebels will be going up against Mandalorians who work for the Empire, helping TIE fighter pilots defect, and facing Darth Maul yet again!  It is going to be more The Empire Strikes Back than season two was!!!

And it looks like Kanan may just regain his sight – but will he lose Ezra in the process?!

Check out the trailer here:

Oh, and the blue faced guy?  Yeah, that is Grand Admiral Thrawn.  His voice actor has a higher tenor than I would have chosen for the character, but hey.  If we get Thrawn, then maybe the writers will give us Mara Jade Skywalker, too!!!!!  Ooooh, cross your fingers and hope!

The Force will be with you, readers, always! 😉

The Mithril Guardian