The Star Wars

About a week or two ago I read (for the second time) Dark Horse's adaptation of the earlier Star Wars script, with Luke as an older General (taking the place of Obiwan, really), Annikin Starkiller in place of Luke, a big green alien as Han Solo, etc. and loads of Ralph McQuarrie concept art inspired designs.  There's a lot to like about this version of Star Wars, including much of the details of the setting especially.  However, you have to accept a significantly lower quality of plot and characterization.  Lucas was right, back in the day, when he used to honestly assess his writing ability as not very good.  Sigh.  What might have been.

Cole and Anspach have been teasing bigger developments in terms of Galaxy's Edge for some time (involving Hollywood, possibly) while Vox Day has been and continues to tease Faraway Wars, whatever exactly that ends up being.  Based on further teases, I'm guessing a multimedia sally against the establishment entertainment which has failed us so spectacularly that they've literally given Kathleen Kennedy three more years of contract, and Rian Johnson says that his trilogy is still on (on twitter, at least.  We'll see if that's not just bluster, because the guy is an incorrigible gamma who can't admit that he's wrong or that he failed in any way, because his ego and brittle narcissism won't allow him.)

That's honestly probably what we've needed for a long time anyway; not continuations of the Star Wars franchise, but others who mined the same material in similar ways, but which were unique, which had their own twist, their own approach, their own differences.

Anyway, I can't recommend reading this anymore now that I've read it twice.  Or rather; if you have access to it without having to pay for it, like I did (public library) it's worth doing, I suppose.  If you have to buy it, don't.

What are some of the things that I liked about it?

• Annikin wasn't a whiny farmboy like his counterpart Luke in the movie was.  He wasn't necessarily always likable, but he was at least already capable.  Also, his father is in the story for at least a third if not half of the story, and Leia is obviously his love interest (they have a passionate kiss at the end.)
• The invasion of the stormtroopers is treated as a serious issue and the stormtroopers are always presented as serious threats.  With lightsabers and shields as well as blasters, no less.
• The Sith Lord, Prince Valorum, is more of an honorable rival than a black hat caricature of evil.  Darth Vader is still the latter, but he has no force powers, he's just a general of the Empire.
• Somewhat less melodrama and "mythic-ness"—more space opera.  Annikin isn't presented as some kind of superhero, necessarily, although he is certainly a bona fide pulp hero.

What didn't I like?

• The involvement of the wookies was tacked on and forced.  It never seemed reasonable, it was done because Lucas wanted to do it and for no other reason.
• The romance between Annikin and Leia was terribly written.  I thought the later Anakin and Padme was better, fer cryin' out loud.
• There was a lot of deus ex machina all around.  This also includes inscrutable character motivations.  When, for example, Kane Starkiller does stuff, it never feels like something that an actual human being would do, or at least not why an actual human being would do that.
• Han Solo's involvement, other than that he was a friend of Luke's from way back, is never adequately explained or justified.  Why even bother with him?  In fact, extraneous characters that are there "just because" is an issue all around.

All in all, I think part of the problem is that the comic book just wasn't really the right venue anyway.  Maybe as a novel, or an animated made for TV movie, this would have been better.  Although the characterizations and plot still would need a serious level of polish.  Which, to be fair, we got.  This is the draft script that wasn't meant to be filmed, and it wasn't.  What we got was the actual film that was filmed.  Sometimes, however, it's not just the characters and the plots that were changed, and I miss a lot of the ancillary stuff, the setting stuff, which was actually often more compelling in the draft than in the final.