To Take the Trigon

Escape Into Terror

Writer: Peter Sauder

Medium: Television

Air Date: September 14, 1985 

Timeline Placement: 15 BBY

 

En route to the big speeder race on the planet Boonta, Kea Moll's starship experiences a hyperdrive malfunction. Fortunately, there's an astromech droid aboard, and R2-D2 sets about repairing the hyperdrive just like he did on the Royal Naboo Starship seventeen years earlier. Unfortunately, this time he's assisted by C-3PO, who somehow lets the entire hyperdrive float away into space. Somehow this isn't the most catastrophic thing ever, and the gang decides to go stay with Kea's mother on the planet Annoo until they can get a new hyperdrive. How long will it take them to get there at sublight speed? Don't worry about it.

 

Meanwhile, the comical I mean notorious Fromm Gang is still hard at work building the Trigon One superweapon so they can become the number one criminal organization in the galaxy. I wonder what Black Sun has to say about this. We meet the big man himself, patriarch Sise Fromm, who we're told is 900 years old. Just like Yoda! Maybe they went to high school together.

Sise is upset about the events of the previous episode, where his son's incompetence caused their scheme to be discovered. He's got it out for our heroes, whose roster he describes in a very specific way three times in twenty-one minutes: "The two who infiltrated our secret base are here on Annoo with a girl and two droids. I'll find those two young meddlers myself, the girl, and the two droids. My men will find them: two males, a girl, and two droids." Geesh, Mr. Dramatis Personae over here.

The gang lands on Annoo, where two Fromm goons are waiting for them at the spaceport. R2-D2 creates a distraction by spraying C-3PO with oil and spazzing out like a "mad droid." Nonsensically this allows the humans and droids to escape undetected in the White Witch.

 

At Kea's mom's house, the droids bungle onto a secret room and discover that both women are secretly members of the Rebel Alliance! Which shouldn't exist for another thirteen years! Let's just assume they meant lowercase "rebel alliance" instead of the formal Alliance to Restore the Republic. 

"Freedom is everybody's fight," Kea's mother declares. This becomes C-3PO's new mantra that he repeats while practicing the fabled martial art of gravik-nez at inopportune moments throughout the episode. Threepio’s martial antics were played for laughs in this episode and then never mentioned again, but the Expanded Universe took his combat programming very seriously, revealing that Threepio could be seen attempting (and failing) to use it against one of Jabba’s Gamorrean guards in Return of the Jedi, and that gravik-nez was in fact an Affan martial art. (Affa, of course, was the planet where C-3PO was originally built almost a century before Anakin Skywalker salvaged his disassembled parts on Tatooine.)

Also, Threepio observes, "Why, I'd rather be feeding tauntauns on Hoth." It's weird that Hoth and its native fauna are apparently common knowledge at this time.

 

They hatch a plan to destroy the Trigon One. Thall Joben and Kea hide in a shipping container about to be loaded onto the Fromms' ship. After they're locked in, Jord Dusat announces to no one that he's going to stay behind to bang Kea's mom while the droids load the container. High jinks ensue, but in the end our heroes easily hijack the Trigon One right in front of Sise Fromm's fat face and blast their way to orbit. Strangely, the superweapon is explicitly called a satellite, but it seems to be just a spaceship.

 

The Fromms dispatch a group of droid starfighters to retrieve their weapon, fourteen years before George Lucas featured droid starfighters in The Phantom Menace. These ones are just about as useful and our heroes get away. Kea argues that they should use the Trigon to end all organized crime in the galaxy or something, which seems like it would outside the scope of the [r]ebel [a]lliance's goals, but Thall insists that the Trigon One is too dangerous to be left alive and Kea immediately agrees with him because she has strong convictions. Threepio tries to do a karate move and falls down.

I'm ashamed to say I laughed more times at this episode than was appropriate.

 

"Stop, Artoo! ARTOO, STOP!"

MyComyc #1: Neutralizing Trigon I

Writer: Uncredited (translated by Abel G. Peña)

Penciler: Beaumont Studios

Medium: Comic

Publication date: 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY

MyComyc was a Spanish-language anthology comic telling short, two-page stories featuring characters from various licensed properties. In Star Wars' case, that was the Droids and Ewoks animated series. These comics' place in Expanded Universe canon is a fuzzy one, however; while the events of the some of the Droids strips are directly referenced in the two-part StarWars.com article The Droids Re-Animated, the behind-the-scenes word is that Dark Horse wanted to include them in one of their Omnibus collections, but "despite the comics bearing appropriate copyright information, Lucasfilm was unable to locate paperwork proving Editorial Gepsa had actually licensed the titles." So while at least some version of at least some of these comics happened in continuity, the strips themselves as published cannot be considered fully canon.

 

This first strip in particular proves that point, as Neutralizing Trigon I tells a story seemingly incompatible with the events of the Droids cartoon. Thall Joben and Jord Dusat eavesdrop on a video call between Tig and Sise Fromm and discover that the Trigon One (here called the Trigon I) is hidden in the desert mountains. While Thall and Threepio distract the Fromm guards, Jord and Artoo sneak about the Trigon I, where Artoo "disconnect[s] the computer's main memory," because "without its central memory, this machine is worthless!" Then they escape, and Threepio tells Artoo that he's proud of him.

 

For this story to coexist with "Escape Into Terror," it would need to take place during the events of that episode, as Thall and Jord first learn of the weapon during the episode and have stolen it by the end. However, there's no real time in "Escape Into Terror" where Neutralizing Trigon I could logically take place. The sequence of events would have to be: 1) Kea's mother tells them about the weapon, 2) they travel back to Ingo to sabotage its central memory, then travel back to Annoo the same day, 3) the next morning they sneak onto the Fromms' ship to go back to Ingo again, where they steal the Trigon despite having just rendered it inoperable.

 

Alternatively, this could be taken as a retelling of the events of "Escape Into Terror," like a drastically more extreme version of the Adventure in Beggar's Canyon vs. Luke Skywalker's Walkabout case. In that event, this comic is completely pointless and there was no reason to even bring it up.

 

Since the MyComyc stories aren't confirmed canon anyway, I don't see any point in getting bent out of shape trying to make Neutralizing Trigon I fit. The strips that already conform to established continuity make for easy headcanon, and the ones that don't can just be ignored. Wait, what was I talking about?

The White Witch

 

The White Witch

Writer: Peter Sauder

Medium: Television

Air Date: September 7, 1985 

Timeline Placement: 15 BBY

The first episode of the animated series Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO begins with our intrepid robotic heroes marooned on the salt flats of the planet Ingo, having been dumped by their most recent master along with his illicit cargo when he was arrested by the authorities. In a familiar turn of events, they wander the desolate wastes until they're come upon by two landspeeder racers, best friends Thall Joben and Jord Dusat. Threepio attempts to give his usual used-car salesman speech about how useful he is but the racers ignore him, showing much more interest in Artoo's astromech abilities to help them soup up their speeder.

 

On the way back to their repair shop, the gang accidentally strays into the territory of the notorious Fromm Gang. Tig Fromm, son of the feared gang boss Sise Fromm, has built a secret base out here in no man's land where he is constructing a massive weapons satellite called the Trigon One. Spherical seeker droids are dispatched to dispatch the interlopers, but a young girl wearing Rey's scavenger costume from The Force Awakens thirty years early helps them escape.

 

Later, the girl, one Kea Moll, visits Thall and Jord's shop seeking repairs for her ship, which she calls the Star Runner but was later retconned to be a Starrunner-class vessel called the The Sand Sloth, for... some reason. However, she only arrives in time to see Jord Dusat being abducted by "muscle droids" sent by the Fromm Gang to silence the trespassers, who saw and know nothing of Tig Fromm's evil plans. Kea meets up with Thall and the droids and they make a daring escape from more muscle droids, then set out to rescue Jord in Thall's hot rod landspeeder, the White Witch. 

The gang is able to infiltrate the Fromms' hideout using Artoo's technical skills and a lightsaber that a previous client of Thall's left behind. You would expect this to have been retconned at some point to be the lightsaber of some obscure Jedi character from the Star Wars RPG who no one has ever heard of but no, I don't think the identity of this mysterious lightsaber-owner was ever revealed. It hearkens back to the 1976 Star Wars novelization where Obi-Wan tells Luke that lightsabers are still used as tools in some parts of the galaxy; in this early era of the franchise, they weren't yet seen as belonging exclusively to the Jedi.

 

But maybe Thall Joben had a Jedi customer come into his shop and never knew it!

 

Artoo procures schematics of the base, then goes with Thall in the White Witch through the base's service tubes to reach the detention area where Jord is being held. Meanwhile, Threepio and Kea have to play an '80s arcade game to clear obstacles out of their path. Threepio is uncharacteristically useful and clever in this scene, as he quickly outwits a security droid that catches them in the act and causes it to violently explode by gently bumping into another droid.

 

Jord is in a random hallway in the custody of two security droids when the Witch comes blasting out of an elevator shaft. He climbs aboard and they make for the exit, stopping only to pick up Kea while Threepio chases frantically after them. They find their escape blocked by an army of droid cruisers, but Threepio again comes to the rescue by activating the Fromms' dormant Tower Droids, and the two groups of automata destroy one another.

 

The gang makes it to Kea's starship and blasts off for the planet Boonta, where Thall and Jord plan to enter the White Witch in the annual Boonta Speeder Race. Threepio tries to act like he's super cool for how he saved the day, then awkwardly falls over.

 

Very fun and charming if you're in the right mindset to watch a low-budget '80s children's cartoon. Anthony Daniels's voicework as C-3PO is on point and the opening theme slaps hard. Love everything about it except Thall Joben's Skrillex haircut.

 

The White Witch: A Droid Adventure

Author: Emily James

Illustrator: Bunny Carter

Medium: Picture book

Publication Date: December 1986

Timeline Placement: 15 BBY

 

This is an adaptation of the first episode of the 1985 animated series Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO. As such, it's not an original story, but I'm including it in this reading list anyway because it adapts EU-exclusive material.

Our story begins with R2-D2 and C-3PO already in the service of Thall Joben and his friend Jord Dusat. Thall and Jord are speeder racers whose landspeeder, the White Witch, may be the fastest ever built, or at least the fastest directly involved with this specific story. The only problem is, the duo have no way transporting the speeder from their homeworld of Ingo to the big speeder race on Boonta!

But while piloting the White Witch one day, the gang is attacked by a seeker drone. They manage to evade it, but don't evade the attention of a seventeen-year-old girl named Kea Moll. Later, after leaving Jord to work on the Witch, Thall and the droids are approached by Kea, who warns them that they blundered into the territory of the infamous Fromm Gang, and local gang boss Tig Fromm will be coming after them. They race back to the garage in time to see Jord being taken by Fromm thugs.

 

Thall wants to immediately give chase in the White Witch, but Kea suggests they wait until morning so they have better light. Thall rejects this idea, not because he's worried about Jord being tortured or killed in the intervening hours, but because the big race is tomorrow and he needs Jord ready to pilot the speeder by then.

They make their way to the Fromms' secret base and find Jord whining about being locked in a prison cell. Artoo cuts through the bars with his welding laser and they make their escape. Tig Fromm orders all his security droids deployed to stop the interlopers, but apparently the Fromm Tower Droids are programmed to attack anything they see. They open fire on the droid cruisers and all the Fromm droids destroy each other while the White Witch and her passengers get away.

Kea gives Thall and Jord a ride to Boonta on her spaceship, and all's well that ends well as Tig Fromm is taken into custody by the "space police." Threepio says something cowardly and everyone laughs at him, freeze frame, roll credits.

Cute book and very short, but I'd just watch the episode instead.

I ship them.

Droids: The White Witch

Author: Unknown

Illustrator: Unknown

Medium: Picture book

Publication date: 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY 

 

La Bruja Blanca is the first in a four-book series of Spanish children's storybooks consisting of a small booklet containing the story pages inset in a die-cut illustration. These books were published by Plaza Joven, an imprint of Spanish publishing company Plaza & Janés. Plaza Joven also released a Spanish storybook novelization of the Droids episode "The White Witch," titled simply Droids. So as far as the Droids cartoon storybook adaptations go, you have the Random House A Droid Adventure series (including a novelization of "The White Witch"), the Dragon Picture Books series (including a novelization of "The White Witch"), the Plaza Joven Droids book (a novelization of "The White Witch"), and now, finally, these original Plaza Joven Droids books (including The White Witch, which is not a novelization of "The White Witch").

 

One of these things is not like the others.

 

Like the Spanish MyComyc comics, the Plaza Joven stories don't fit perfectly into the continuity of the Droids cartoon. I'm not sure if Lucasfilm considers them properly licensed publications, or if they're even aware that they exist. La Bruja Blanca seems to fit best during the events of the first episode of the cartoon, between the final two scenes of Tig Fromm being defeated and the The Sand Sloth departing Ingo.

 

The story begins with R2-D2, C-3PO, and Thall Joben back in the speeder shop, along with Thall's speeder, the White Witch. Jord Dusat comes running in and announces that Kea Moll has been kidnapped, and our heroes set out in the White Witch to save her. 

 

It turns out that that dastardly Tig Fromm is holding Kea hostage to ransom her for the White Witch. Why he wants it, I don't know. He never shows any interest in it during the cartoon. Tig has Kea tied up in his space dune buggy and the White Witch chases them around until Tig crashes into a sand dune. The story ends with Kea rescued and Tig Fromm on his way to the space police.

 

This provides some weird, unintentional synergy with the end of The White Witch: A Droid Adventure, where Tig gets arrested despite that not happening in the actual episode. In any case he's out of jail by the next episode, so it doesn't matter anyway.

 

I give high marks to this one for being only 11 pages long and having barely any text except for comic-style speech bubbles. The illustrations are pretty good for a foreign-language, ambiguously legal tie-in to a cheap '80s cartoon. This book is the only one of the four that takes place during the Thall Joben arc, so I'm looking forward with blithe anticipation to the next one.

 

I ship them.

 

Droids

Developer: Binary Design, Ltd.

Medium: Video game

Release date: 1988

Timeline placement: 15 BBY

 

Released for the Commodore 64 in 1988, Droids (on-screen title) or Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO (box title) is a video game tie-in to the Droids sub-franchise with an "original" plot distinct from the stories told in the cartoon, comics, and picture books. I have no means of playing the game myself, but I wouldn't want to because it looks like a miserable experience. I was also unable to find a complete playthrough of it anywhere online, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway because the game's story is impossible to discern simply by playing the game. The premise is described solely on the inside flap of the game's packaging:

 

 

Despite the setting of this adventure clearly being written out as "Auren," both on the packaging and on-screen in the game, this game somehow became known in the fandom as Droids: Escape From Aaron, like the plot involved the droids trying to escape from some guy. This spelling even made its way into official sources; from The Droids Re-Animated on StarWars.com: "After their adventures with speeder pilots Thall Joben and Jord Dusat, and surviving a harrowing escape from the planet Aaron..." Aaron Auren isn't even a planet, it's a moon! Where was the Lucasfilm Story Group on that blunder?

 

Most timelines just ignore this game completely, but when it does appear in fan chronologies, I've seen it placed either between the second and third or the third and fourth episodes of the cartoon. To me it doesn't make much sense in either location, however. The very first sentence of the plot description mentions "the Fromm gang" escaping from prison on Ingo. During the four episodes of the Droids cartoon featuring the Fromms, though, there's never a point where they're arrested and would need to escape. 

 

However, taking the tie-in storybooks into account, we have two references to Tig Fromm being imprisoned following the events of "The White Witch." Since he's already free by "Escape Into Terror," the subsequent episode, maybe the Fromm jailbreak referred to in the backstory of this game is Tig Fromm's escape from the "space police" who arrested him on Ingo. Escape From Aaron could then take place during the same scene gap in "The White Witch" as La Bruja Blanca, before the gang leaves Ingo in Kea Moll's ship.

 

Consider this 40-year-old continuity snarl solved! 

Separation Anxiety

 

Droids (1986) #5: Separated!

Writer: George Carragone

Penciler: Mary Wilshire

Medium: Comic

Publication date: September 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY

 

Ignore everything I said in the previous review about the Droids comics possibly being set a hundred years in the past, because issue #5 references the Galactic Empire by name, placing this story firmly within the lifetimes of the movie characters. I guess the explanation for the droids time-traveling a century into the future to meet the Ewoks is that no one working on this series had any clue what they were doing. 

Artoo and Threepio find themselves in search of a new master on the planet R-Duba, a backwater trading world governed by the young Prince Jagoda. A wall divides the planet into halves, and anyone wanting to travel from one side of the planet to the other has to pay a heavy travel tax. Just like in 1980s Berlin.

 

The droids come across The Droid Store, operated by one Van P. Quist. Kirk Windjammer, captain of the water-based cargo loader Seaskimmer, comes in and buys R2-D2 to help him run his business, but he has no need for a protocol droid. After a tearful separation, Threepio is left behind to languish. Eventually he's purchased by Baron Starlock, an adviser to the prince.

 

Kirk Windjammer, who gives no indication in the comic of being anything other than a native of R-Duba but was pointlessly retconned to being an immigrant from the prequel-era planet Vanqor, puts Artoo to work helping him pilot the Seaskimmer, which Artoo does by extending a number of mechanical arms from his face and jacking into the watercraft's computer console. On their first delivery job together, Artoo accidentally drops their cargo onto the deck of their customers' deck, revealing that the crates are full of illegal blasters. Surprise, it turns out they're working for disguised Skrulls trying to take over the planet!

 

Meanwhile, C-3PO is putting his translation skills to work in the palace of Prince Jagoda when his "advanced hearing" picks up a conversation between Baron Starlock and Skrull Ambassador Kawakal where they discuss their plans to assassinate the prince and and seize power. Threepio goes to warn the prince but Starlock's droid, BX-00, strikes first. Threepio beats the assassin to death with a piece of statuary, then sees himself promoted to the position of chief adviser as the two conspirators are banished.

 

Kirk Windjammer and R2-D2 arrive at the palace to warn the prince about the Skrulls' secret invasion, only to find Threepio being chauffeured through the gates in a purple space limo. "Artoo-Detoo! Oh, my! Artoo, it is you! It is you!" Threepio exclaims, as after 15 pages the two friends are reunited at last.

 

Using his newfound influence, Threepio is able to get Artoo and Kirk in the door to meet with the prince, who appoints Kirk in charge of the planet's defenses for some ineffable reason. Kirk and the droids lead a fleet of 20 ships to confront the Skrull invasion fleet, which for some reason is attacking from R-Duba's own ocean instead of, you know, space. The flagship's captain asks Threepio for orders, but before the chief adviser's hesitation and confusion have a chance to get everyone killed, the Skrulls call off their invasion and go home, cowed by the slightest pretense of resistance.

 

The prince asks what he can do to repay Kirk Windjammer, who did nothing. Kirk replies, "Mr. Jagoda, tear down this wall." The droids sneak away in the middle of the night, leaving a note that names Kirk as C-3PO's replacement as chief adviser. Kirk accepts the job, and his first piece of advice to the prince that they never forget those two droids who saved their planet and ended the threat of communism for all time.

 

These Droids comics are fun but exhausting. Every issue introduces an all-new cast, location, and premise, but eventually ends up feeling pretty samey. It would have been nice to see some longer story arcs, but that won't happen until Dark Horse's Droids comics in the '90s. So it might be for the best that the droids' early adventures only lasted for five issues. Just like R2-D2 and C-3PO during their servitude to their various masters, this cute little comic knew not to stick around long enough to wear out its welcome.

Somewhere in Time

Droids (1986) #4: Lost in Time!

Writer: David Manak

Penciler: John Romita Sr. and Warren Kremer

Medium: Comic

Publication date: July 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY; 1 ABY

 

The droids' next assignment finds them working as diplomatic couriers for the Republic Diplomatic Corps. They arrive on the planet Sooma at the palace of King Zornog, where... I'm not sure what they were actually going there to do, because it turns out that Prince Plooz, the toddler-aged son of King Gokus of the planet Alzar, has mysteriously stowed away on a Sooman freighter and ended up in King Zornog's court, where he is attempting to throttle the king with a piece of cloth. The droids save him, and in gratitude the king gives them the mission of escorting Prince Plooz back to his homeworld to avoid an interstellar war between Sooma and Alzar.

 

But the prince's disappearance has been a ploy engineered by Alzarian General Sludd, who wants Alzar and Sooma to destroy each other so he can conquer both planets. And rule over the ashes, I guess? This plan doesn't seem very thought out. 

Artoo and Threepio are en route to Alzar with Prince Plooz aboard their courier ship, where we learn that ships in Star Wars apparently have food synthesizers and power their faster-than-light engines with antimatter, just like in Star Trek. General Sludd's armada appears and opens fire on the droids, trying to assassinate Prince Plooz and hoping that King Gokus blames it on the Soomans, I guess. Sludd stupidly reveals his identity and evil plan on the viewscreen. I'm sure that won't come back to bite him.

 

Prince Plooz tries to help by pulling a lever that disrupts the courier ship's antimatter pods. The only way to escape certain doom is to jump to lightspeed without full antimatter, which naturally creates a rip in the spacetime continuum. The droids and Prince Plooz find themselves flying through a starless black void, finally emerging in a strange region of space. R2-D2 reports that they have gone through a time warp and traveled 100 years into the future!

 

Sadly this chronology did not stand the test of continuity; ultimately they only travel about 16 to 18 years into the future, and the EU's only explanation for Artoo's misstatement is to amend it to "anywhere from ten to one hundred years." But it's cool to think about how this date must have been chosen at the time. The 1986 Droids comics were produced as tie-ins to the Droids animated series, which had aired on TV the previous year. The cartoon has several references and appearances that set it during the reign of the Galactic Empire, requiring it to take place relatively close to the Original Trilogy. The comics, on the other hand, have no references to the Empire, or any other established Star Wars institutions or locations. One issue does feature an appearance by the Fromm Gang, but their race, the Annoo-dat, was established in the animated series to be able to live for centuries. The final piece of the puzzle is C-3PO's backstory prior to The Phantom Menace, which came directly from George Lucas and had Threepio being built on the planet Affa 112 years before the OT. So if it hadn't been for the Star Wars prequels featuring the first meeting between R2-D2 and C-3PO, these comics could officially be placed around 100 BBY, which would have been awesome.

 

But instead George Lucas changed his mind and made something way dumber. Anyway, the droids land on Endor and meet the E-e-e-e-ewoks. CONTINUED NEXT ISSUE! 

Ewoks #10: The Demons of Endor

Writer: David Manak

Penciler: Warren Kremer and John Romita Sr.

Medium: Comic

Publication date: July 1986

Timeline placement: 1 ABY; 15 BBY

Prince Plooz lauches himself out of the ship in an escape pod and lands on the Forest Moon below, where the Ewoks find him and mistake him for a magical Star Child bringing good fortune for their forthcoming peace treaty with the Duloks. The adult Ewoks take the Star Child back to their village, but Wicket and Princess Kneesaa dawdle and are left behind, whereupon they come across R2-D2 and C-3PO searching the swamp for the lost prince. "Omigosh, Wicket, look!" cries Kneesaa. "Demons!"

 

The droids give chase, asking the young Ewoks if they've seen Prince Plooz, and they all blunder into a deadly booby trap set by the Duloks. A giant boulder falls off a mountain to crush them, but Artoo balances himself on his retractable middle foot and rotates his other two legs 180 degrees over his head, catching the boulder and tossing it harmlessly over the back of his head.

 

What. 

C-3PO starts speaking the Ewok language, calling it an obscure dialect of the Inner Zuma region. Weirdly he's completely fluent in it in this comic despite barely understanding what they were saying when he had to translate for them in Return of the Jedi. He explains the whole situation about the interstellar frog prince and the two warring planets and the Ewok children completely understand what he's talking about.

 

They take the droids back to their village to warn Chief Chirpa and the others of the Duloks' treachery, but everyone has already gone out to meet the Duloks and sign the treaty. Logray, the old medicine man, comes running out and levitates the droids with his wizard staff, also mistaking them for demons, but Wicket and Kneesa set him straight and they all run off to the peace treaty making place.

 

Meanwhile, King Gorneesh and his Duloks are waiting to murder the Ewoks when they show up. Chief Chirpa comes in waving the Star Child over his head like a moron but King Gorneesh snatches Prince Plooz away and dangles him over a pit. But the droids show up and the sun reflects off C-3PO, making the Duloks think he's a demon. Man there are some weird demons on this moon.

  

"Unhand that child, you ruffians!" Threepio demands. The Duloks drop him and run for their lives.

"Droids! Droids! Me come!" Prince Plooz shouts, then falls into the chasm. Wicket swings down on a rope to catch him and all is well. 

 

Threepio recaps the whole story yet again, and even the Ewok elders understand the stakes involved with flying a spaceship through a time void. 

The droids and Prince Plooz return to their own time through the portal, which is identified in StarWars.com's 2013 blog article The Droids Re-Animated as the Endor Gate, the infamous wormhole that transported Darth Vader's indestructible gauntlet across the galaxy from Endor to Mon Calamari (don't ask). The indication given in the story itself is that the droids traveled back in time by creating a wormhole that collapsed at the end of the issue. But the Endor Gate is a black hole, and judging by the Bermuda Triangle-level of legends that are supposed to surround it, it seems like it should have been around longer than 20 years. Also they were nowhere near Endor when they flew into it.

Anyway, General Sludd is still up to no good but Artoo plays a recording of his self-confessed crimes to the king, the conspirators are taken into custody, and all is well.

The Droids and Ewoks crossover is infamous in the EU fandom as one of the very few canonical instances of time travel in Star Wars. For years I labored under the assumption that this comic explained why the Ewoks revere C-3PO as a golden god when they see him in Return of the Jedi. The Droids Re-Animated even says as much: "The fascinated Ewoks helped the droids find the missing child, so awed by C-3PO's shiny exterior that they assumed him to be a god. Thus, when he returned to Endor years later, they recognized him immediately and dropped to their knees in reverence."

But really that isn't the case at all. Initially the Ewoks mistake Threepio for a demon, not a god, and even run from him in fear or attack him. By the end of the story, though, he's explained his real identity to them and they completely understand what's going on. Then when he returns to Endor only three years have passed. The Ewoks the Rebels met then are the same Ewoks in this comic! They already know who C-3PO is, they just met him a couple of years ago, and they never thought he was a god in the first place. But when they meet again in the movie, neither appears to remember the other.

I had high hopes for this story after Part 1, but Part 2 completely blew it. The droids should have gone back in time to Endor's past, to the earliest days of Ewok civilization, and accidentally created a religious myth that was passed down for generations. Then when he finally returns, the Ewoks think it's scripture coming true. But instead of doing a cute little time loop story where Threepio unwittingly invents his own divinity, they made an unnecessary jumble of continuity where the Ewoks worshiping him makes no sense now. I'm sorry to say that David Manak and the crew at Star Comics completely dropped the ball on this one.

 

 

On the other hand, Prince Plooz is completely hilarious and adorable. I want him to come live with me. Lucasfilm could have been cashing in on the Baby Yoda merch craze decades earlier if they'd made some Prince Plooz plushies. Unfortunately the only time we'll ever see him again is when he returns to Endor in some ambiguously canon German comic.

Wolf in the Fold

Droids (1986) #3: The Scarlet Pirate!

Writer: David Manak

Penciler: John Romita Sr.

Medium: Comic

Publication date: May 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY

R2-D2 and C-3PO have been purchased by Ambassador Zell of the planet Majoor, who puts them to work babysitting his son Llez while he's away performing his diplomatic duties. Llez is a spoiled brat whose father doesn't love him enough and buys him expensive toys to compensate. 

 

Llez is a huge fan of the adventure show Space Pirates of the Galaxy, and imagines himself to be a swashbuckling buccaneer called the Scarlet Pirate. He also idolizes the real-life space pirate Redjac, a noncorporeal lifeform who travels from planet to planet, possessing people's bodies and committing serial murders to feed on the resulting garmonbozia (pain and sorrow). Just then, a news broadcast cuts into the program: Redjac has been captured and is, coincidentally, being brought to prison right here on Majoor! Llez takes one of the family landspeeders and rushes off to rescue his hero, with the droids in hot pursuit.

 

Llez uses a magno-neutralizer to deactivate the droid guards escorting Redjac to the prison and they steal the guards' police ship to escape the planet, with Artoo and Threepio arriving close behind and just managing to sneak onboard. Llez tells Redjac about how he feels neglected by his father and reveals that the ambassador is currently leading a convoy of ships on a peace mission to the planet Armath. "I AM WITHOUT ENDING. I HAVE EXISTED FROM THE DAWN OF TIME AND I SHALL LIVE BEYOND ITS END. IN THE MEANTIME I SHALL FEED, AND THIS TIME I DO NOT NEED A KNIFE," says Redjac commiseratingly.

 

They arrive on Redjac's ship, the Blood Brother, where his pirate gang, the Red Fury Brotherhood, prepares to attack Ambassador Zell's convoy. Llez protests that this is wrong, but the brigands reveal the true nature of pirates, shattering the boy's childhood delusions. Redjac mistakes Artoo and Threepio for pirate droids on his crew and orders them to take Llez to the brig. 

 

Llez dries his tears and vows to save his father. He and the droids find the ship's control room, where Llez dropkicks the two-headed Dyclops gunner firing plasma torpedoes at the ambassador's ships. Artoo jacks into the computer console and orders the torpedoes to self-destruct, saving the convoy. Zell leads a security team aboard the Blood Brother, where Llez and the droids have already taken out most of the pirates via cartoonish antics. "I was a fool to make a hero of you, Redjac!" Llez declares.

 

Redjac puts Llez in a headlock and orders the droids to stand back. "YOU WILL ALL DIE HORRIBLY IN SEARING PAIN!" he promises, adding, "REDJAC! REDJAC! REDJAC! REDJAC! REDJAC!" Ambassador Zell arrives and beats the shit out of Redjac, revealing himself to be a former Republic Space Ranger, just like Buzz Lightyear. As Redjac is taken away by the ambassador's guards, Zell and Llez restore their father-son bond, with Zell promising that Llez will accompany him on all his diplomatic missions from now on. "That sounds super boring, Dad!" says Llez.

 

Threepio sighs dejectedly with the understanding that they are no longer needed here and have lost yet another master, but "this time.. it was worth it!" I don't think that's how property ownership works, but okay.

 

Next time, the droids babysit another green alien child! Also, time travel! Stay tuned!

Existentialism on Fromm Night

Droids (1986) #2: The Ultimate Weapon!

Writer: David Manak

Penciler: John Romita Sr.

Medium: Comic

Publication date: March 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY

Apparently it was an Intergalactic Droid Agency shuttle that picked up Artoo and Threepio from Dodz, because that's where they are at the start of issue #2. Artoo's condition continues to deteriorate and he's on the verge of blowing up when Nikki Idd, co-captain of the vessel along with her brother Vik, inserts an energy feedback shield into R2-D2 to contain his excess energy. Their father, Lonn, will be able to repair Artoo, but Threepio explains the existential despair that droids feel when they don't have a master, so the two teens agree to act as their temporary masters until they arrive at Lonn's droid repair shop.

 

When they arrive, however, their father is nowhere to be found. The droids stay with Vik while Nikki goes off to find him, only to be captured by Tig Fromm and Vlix Oncard, members of the notorious criminal organization, the Fromm Gang. The Fromms have been attempting to coerce Lonn Idd into installing his new laser device onto their ship. When they threaten Nikki's life, he finally agrees. 

 

Thinking quickly, Nikki is able to push a button on the nearby computer console, transmitting a video feed back to her brother and the droids. Alerted to the intruders, our heroes set out to stop them, while Lonn sets to work installing his laser and Nikki is locked in a broom closet. '

 

Vik and the droids discover a non-functional Guardian Droid owned by Lonn, later retconned as an HK Guardian Droid, presumably making it of the same lineage as HK-47 from Knights of the Old Republic and HK-01, who led the Great Droid Revolution on Coruscant in 4015 BBY. HK Guardian Droids were known for being impervious to blasterfire, but Lonn Idd didn't allow any weapons on his space station, so R2-D2 volunteers himself to be their weapon.

 

Vik and and the droids confront the Fromms. Vik removes Artoo's energy shield, and Artoo starts bleeding electricity everywhere. Vik is able to free his sister from the closet, but Artoo is blasted by a Fromm hover guard droid and taken out of commission. The Idds are all taken prisoner, leaving C-3PO to save the day. 

After Lonn finishes installing his laser on Tig Fromm's ship, the Fromms decide to test it by killing the entire Idd family. But just then, the HK Guardian Droid comes in, its armor deflecting the blaster bolts of the hover guards. "Now it's my turn, you mechanical insects!" shouts Threepio from inside the Guardian Droid armor, destroying all the hover guards with his fists. Nikki blinds Tig Fromm with a spray of her perfume because she's a girl, then Vik drops a net on the Fromm Gang. Lonn promises them that they'll face justice, which of course they won't because they're the villains of the first story arc of the Droids animated series.

 

Later, Lonn finishes repairing Artoo and tells the droids that Nikki and Vik will take them back to the Intergalactic Droid Agency to be assigned to a new master. However, Artoo refuses to leave until someone fills him in on what he missed. Everybody laughs for some reason.

One thing I really appreciated about this issue is the art design and coloring. I like the colors used on R2-D2 by Al Williamson and/or Jon D'Agostino, the credited inkers on this issue. He's primarily white, yellow, and red, completely the wrong colors. He looks like a cheap Star Wars knockoff you'd find at the dollar store, a toy labeled something like STAR ROBOT and having nothing but blank cardboard on the back of its package. He looks so awesome.

 

I also love the Idds' cheesy-looking space jumpsuits, like costumes out of Lost in Space. The decades' worth of styles, designs, and influences spanned by the EU were among its greatest attributes, and really helped create the sense that this was a whole universe with different fashions and cultures, and the (frequently underutilized) potential to tell any kind of story you could imagine. Modern Star Wars continuity begins in the mid-2010s and everything sucks.

From the Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO

 

Droids (1986) #1: The Destroyer 

Writer: David Manak

Penciler: John Romita Sr.

Medium: Comic

Publication date: February 1986

Timeline placement: 15 BBY

 

 

Four years after the rise of the Galactic Empire and the deletion of C-3PO's memory of the Star Wars prequels (were we all so lucky), the lovable droids are now in the employ of the Intergalactic Droid Agency, having found themselves lost in space due to the incompetence of Tantive IV nepo hire Corla Metonae. The agency has set them up with a new master on the planet Dodz in the Outer Rim Territories.

 

The droids arrive at the home of their master, Lott Kemp, only to find it burned to the ground and Kemp himself nowhere in sight. They encounter a young boy named Jost Ellon, who tells them that Kemp was driven off-world by the corrupt Governor Kugg for refusing to pay his taxes. The citizens of Dodz live in fear of the governor's giant combat droid, the Destroyer, which he uses to extort the populace. 

 

The droids adopt Jost as their new master and accompany the orphan home to his dilapidated hovel. There they discover that Jost has unknowingly scavenged an antique Ranger X-1 defense droid. They explain its history and what it is to the boy, who hopes that they can use it to free the planet of Kugg's tyranny. Unfortunately, the droid has corroded power cells and will not be able to remain active for long.

 

Jost Ellon and his three droids travel to the monthly town council meeting, where the citizens are voting on a resolution to stand up to Kugg and refuse his demands for higher taxes. Governor Kugg himself walks in and declares that their taxes are now tripled, with the Destroyer bursting through the wall to emphasize his point. As the adults all kowtow before Kugg, only Jost has the courage to stand up to him, pitting his X-1 against the Destroyer.

 

At first the X-1 clobbers its opponent, but as its power cells run dry it starts to lose the fight. But Artoo intervenes, hooking himself up to both droids and transferring power from the Destroyer to the X-1. The battle resumes, and when it's over the Destroyer has been destroyed, with the X-1 left standing tall. Governor Kugg is taken into custody to await intergalactic trial.

 

The day has been won and the citizens of Dodz are now free, but Artoo sustained "some pretty serious microsynapse damage" during the fight, so he and Threepio have to leave their new master to find someone with the skills to repair him. It's unclear if they call a shuttle to come pick them up or if the people of Dodz just give them their own spaceship, but as the droids blast off back into space and their next adventure, Artoo asks, "Dok-do-eet-denn?" To which Threepio replies that of course he's proud of him.

 

Definitely child-oriented but still plenty enjoyable. I like the idea of the droids as Kwai-Chang Caine-type characters wandering backwater worlds beyond the Empire's notice and helping people in need when they can. What adventure awaits them next!

Second Death

FIRST LIFE

 

 

Although C-3PO achieved consciousness in a Mos Espa slave hovel, his frame is actually quite old, and some of his components date back a century, forged on the mechanized world of Affa. 

– StarWars.com Databank

SECOND LIFE

 

 

Young Anakin Skywalker cobbled together enough pieces to give Threepio new life. He was more than a run-of-mill Cybot Galactica 3PO-unit. His salvaged nature imbued in him special qualities that set him a brand apart from his droid cousins.

– StarWars.com Databank

 

Memory Loss...

Writer: Christopher Cooper

Penciler: Andres Ponce
Medium: Comic

Publication date: December 2014 in Star Wars Comic #13

Timeline placement: 19 BBY

 

At the end of Revenge of the Sith, C-3PO is being led away to be mind-wiped aboard the Tantive IV Sundered Heart Bail Organa's Starship by Raymus Antilles Colton Antilles Jeremoch Colton the captain. The captain is called away to the bridge and assigns R2-D2 the task of murdering his friend. As Threepio is marched to his execution, he laments that they were unable to save Padmé, and recalls how happy he was assisting her on diplomatic missions, mentioning how valuable the secret information in his memory banks is. 

I fully expected that Artoo would try to help Threepio avoid his fate but instead he cheerfully puts him into the brain drain machine and is about to throw the switch when he gets blasted. A bounty hunter droid has infiltrated the ship looking for information to sell to the new Empire, and after overhearing their conversation he's set his sights on C-3PO's memory banks. 

 

Threepio realizes that his knowledge could lead the Empire to baby Luke and Leia. He knows he must protect the children, but he's too clumsy, awkward, and useless to do anything. Plus his arms don't even bend. He wishes Artoo would wake up and save the day like he always does. "He'd do something silly and brave and selfless, like... Oh, of course."

 

Threepio wrestles the bounty hunter's vibroblade away from him, then pushes the two of them into the memory-wiping machine. Knowing the twins will be in danger as long as he remembers them, C-3PO activates the machine, erasing his own memory and finally getting the heroic moment Anthony Daniels always wanted, five years before J. J. Abrams had him do the same exact thing in The Rise of Skywalker. 

As his memory banks are deleted, Threepio's life flashes before his photoreceptors, culminating with his earliest memory:

 

 

Then nothing.

THIRD LIFE

 

KOTOR 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12-plus

The Old Republic

Developer: BioWare

Medium: Video game

Release date: December 2011

Timeline placement: 3,643–3,623 BBY

 

 

KOTOR 2 and The Last Jedi: Unlearning What You Have Learned

Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment

Medium: Video game

Release date: December 2004

Timeline placement: 3,951 BBY

"Perhaps you were expecting some surprise, for me to reveal a secret that had eluded you, something that would change your perspective of events, shatter you to your core. There is no great revelation, no great secret. There is only you."

 

It is 2003. Filmmaker Rian Johnson, having recently shot his first movie, Brick, gives an interview where he reveals his ambition to make a movie so divisive that half the audience loves it and the other half thinks it is the worst movie they've ever seen.

 

It is 2017. Filmmaker Rian Johnson, having recently shot his fourth movie, Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi, goes to a Halloween party dressed as Dougie Jones, the bastardized subversion of beloved Twin Peaks hero Dale Cooper who appeared in Twin Peaks: The Return, David Lynch's "fuck you" to nostalgia.

 

It is December 17, 2017. I walk out of the theater after watching The Last Jedi and text my friend Bryant, who asks me how the movie was. "Oh fuck," I text back, realization dawning, "I don't think I liked it."

 

It is in our house now.

It's always been difficult for me to choose a preference between Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel. As a story, I greatly prefer The Sith Lords, along with most of its characters. The original KotOR is more or less a perfect Star Wars experience, but the price of being prototypically Star Wars is not being able to be anything else. By contrast, KotOR II just isn't as much fun to play. The tone and atmosphere are much darker, and you're always ill at ease. There's precious little lighthearted adventuring between the desperate battles; you're on the run from beginning to end, without the comfortable reliability of the Jedi or the Republic to fall back on.

 

It's also less fun for less deliberate reasons. The length of the opening sequence on Peragus II is a common complaint, comparable to a more survival horror-ish version of the first game's Taris. But where KotOR let you begin the game's main quest in its second major area, Dantooine, in KotOR II you first have to explore the Republic ghost ship Harbinger and complete Citadel Station, a huge area full of backtracking, before crashing on the planet Telos and fighting dozens of enemies as you travel across its surface to reach the polar region, where you can finally start the main story.

 

The game's extensive first act alone was one of the major deterrents that kept me from playing it as many times as its predecessor. The other, of course, was the infamously incomplete ending and abundance of obvious cut content in the original Xbox version. 

Less fun to play, but better written.

 

If the original Knights of the Old Republic was somewhat comparable to The Force Awakens in how it drew on the tone and structure of classic Star Wars to tell a modern Star Wars story, The Sith Lords and The Last Jedi can be compared for how they subvert and deconstruct both their immediate predecessor and Star Wars as a whole, and how The Sith Lords does it correctly and The Last Jedi sucks. 

In KotOR, the player character goes through the whole Star Wars hero's journey, including Jedi training, a romantic arc, redemption for sins past, and saving the galaxy from certain doom, before finally arriving at happily ever after. The game acknowledges how awesome you are and everyone gets a medal. In the sequel, set a brief five years later, everything has gone to shit. The Jedi are all but extinct, the Republic is on the verge of collapse, the Sith are back and more dangerous than ever, and your character from the first game has vanished and all his friends are sad. As Avril Lavigne once said, so much for my happy ending.

 

Of course, The Force Awakens infamously did the same thing to Return of the Jedi, and didn't have much of an ending itself. Instead it left things on a cliffhanger for the subsequent film to pick up. J. J. Abrams showed the audience a box and asked "What's inside it?" then handed it over to Rian Johnson, who gleefully ripped it open and declared "Nothing! It's empty!"

 

Snoke in TFA: "I want the girl alive!"  

Snoke in TLJ: "Kill the girl!"  

Snoke in TFA: "Bring Kylo Ren to me so I can complete his training!"  

Snoke in TLJ: "Kylo your mask is dumb, now gtfo lol."  

Han in TFA: "Luke went looking for the first Jedi temple."  

Luke in TLJ: "I don't care about the first Jedi temple."  

Rey in TFA: "The one thing I want in all the universe is for my family to come back, but by the end of the movie I've accepted that they never  will."  

Rey in TLJ: "The one thing I want in all the universe is to know who my parents were."  

Rey's parents in TFA: *drop her off and leave the planet in a working spaceship*  

Rey's parents in TLJ: *so poor they have to sell their daughter for drinking money then die on the same planet*

Finn in TFA: "I've suffered a massive spinal injury and I'm in a coma!"  

Finn in TLJ: "nvm lol"  

Maz Kanata in TFA: "Nothing matters more than the fight against the dark side."  

Maz Kanata in TLJ: "I'm too busy with a union dispute to help the fight against the dark side, even though my whole business operation got blown up in the last movie."  

Kylo Ren in TFA: "I love Darth Vader!"  

Kylo Ren in TLJ: "Snoke made fun of me so I hate the past now!"  

Hux in TFA: "I'm a frothing-at-the-mouth true-believer Hitler Youth fascist!"  

Hux in TLJ: "I'm slapstick comic relief!"  

The First Order in TFA: "Oh no, like six X-wings showed up! We must retreat! Also our whole planet exploded!"  

The First Order in TLJ: "We rule the entire galaxy, somehow!"  

Kylo Ren in TFA: "My unique custom-built lightsaber got destroyed and my helmet got blown up!"  

Kylo Ren in TLJ: "Never mind I have a whole wardrobe full of them apparently. Also my scar is in a different place now."  

 

Snoke in TFA: "We must stop Luke Skywalker from returning at any cost! He is the only one who can stop us!"  

Luke in TLJ: *does nothing*  

Finn in TFA: "I started off trying to run away from my problems, but I've grown to care about something larger than myself!"  

Finn in TFA: "I started off trying to run away from my problems, but I've grown to care about something larger than myself, again!"  

Maz Kanata in TFA: "I'll tell you how I got Luke's lightsaber in another movie!"  

Maz Kanata in TLJ: "But not this one!"  

Finn in TFA: "I don't know how to pilot a vehicle!"  

Finn in TLJ: *pilots a vehicle*  

Snoke in TFA: 

Snoke in TLJ: 

 

The Sith Lords also tackles an entirely different set of themes. While the first game was a love letter to Star Wars, a "greatest hits" remix of the classic trilogy's most iconic moments and concepts, the second takes a much more critical, introspective view of the franchise. Written by Chris Avellone, whose résumé doubles as a list of some of the greatest RPGs of all time, KotOR II has a lot to say about the Jedi and the Force, little of it complimentary. His criticisms don't feel entirely dissimilar from those made by Rian Johnson in The Last Jedi, but the difference is that, coming from The Sith Lords, they feel more genuine and earned. Chris Avellone spent ten months reading the entire Expanded Universe as research for the game, whereas I'm still not completely convinced that Rian Johnson has ever actually seen a Star Wars movie.

 

I'm being facetious, of course; it's clear that Johnson has at least seen the prequels, that he didn't like them, and also that he missed the point of them completely.

The core theme of the prequels wasn't that the Jedi are fundamentally flawed as a concept, it was that the Jedi of that particular era had lost their way and become so fearful of the dark side that they exchanged their humanity for religious ideology, and were destroyed because of it. The titular "Return of the Jedi" was the next generation rejecting the mistakes of the old and starting a new path forward.

For Luke to suddenly be an ascetic prequel-esque Jedi in The Last Jedi and The Book of Boba Fett reveals a lack of imagination by the people writing these stories. Instead of logically following from the end of Return of the Jedi, they can only ape what they saw in the prequels, while completely missing the point of it.

 

In the original trilogy, Luke became a full Jedi by rejecting his teachers and choosing love over the strict dogma of the prequel-era Jedi. He didn't undergo the life-long training and brainwashing of the old Jedi Order. When he starts rebuilding the Jedi, you would expect his philosophy to reflect his experiences.

 

But The Last Jedi is like nah, Luke's just as bad as the prequel Jedi after all, it's actually Rey who has to do everything Luke was supposed to do because the actor who plays Luke got old in real life so there's no way he can be the hero anymore.

 

Now compare all of this to the way KotOR II followed the first game. Yes, things have gone to shit, and there's never any clear-cut resolution to it all (why would there be, when Obsidian thought they were making only the second game of what would be a trilogy? There's another point of comparison for you: The Sith Lords said its say with consideration for both its predecessor and its assumed follow-up; The Last Jedi burned its forerunner's blueprints and pulled the ladder up behind it). But it built more than it tore down. 

 

More importantly, Chris Avellone's interrogation of the Jedi Order was clearly framed as one writer's voice asking questions while the established setting endured around it. Despite the widespread consequences The Sith Lords brought to its isolated era of Star Wars history (consequences that ultimately didn't amount to much thanks to BioWare's subsequent storytelling in The Old Republic), it never truly upset the apple cart; KotOR II never had the equivalent of Luke Skywalker sucking down green walrus milk and then dying like an idiot.

 

Your original character could always return (in fact, the ending of the game depends on that premise). Five of your party members from the first game could potentially appear in the second, if you didn't kill them, and nothing prevented the other four from returning in the future. The only significant returning KotOR character to be killed in The Sith Lords was Ed Asner's Master Vrook, and who wasn't thrilled to see that?

The Jedi Order was destroyed, but by the end of the game it had been rebuilt, free from the influence of the obdurate Jedi Council. Compare this to The Last Jedi's resolution, where the man who rejected the obstinacy of the surviving Jedi Council members of his own day is killed with no legacy to leave behind, whatever lessons he had to teach replaced by the stolen Sacred Jedi Texts. "Page-turners, they were not." Wow, I bet Rey's Jedi Order is going to be super-cool and exciting when everything they know is based on the Dead Sea Scrolls and none of the lessons Luke Skywalker learned fighting the Empire and saving his father. Sign me up for Episodes X, XI, and XII!

 

Oh . . .

 

It is December 19, 2017. For two days I have grappled with my feelings about Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi. "The A-plot was a really good anti-nostalgia 'Star Wars is dead and you are a fool for liking it' deconstruction of what people want and expect from these movies," I tell Bryant, "but for some reason they decided to weigh it down with terrible B- and C-plots that take forever and go nowhere."

 

Looking back, I'm not sure I still agree with all of that assessment. Like Twin Peaks: The Return before it, The Last Jedi seemed to be saying to its audience, "Did you really expect this to be the same as the thing you loved a quarter century ago? It's not; it can't be; it never could have been." But when Twin Peaks was disproving its own pop-cultural simulacrum in 2017, that question came from the lips of the same men who had first built that shadow's caster. 

 

Who the hell is Rian Johnson to decide what Star Wars is or needs to be? No George Lucas. No David Lynch. Not even a Chris Avellone.

 

With Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Avellone addressed everything he found objectionable about the hypocrisy of the Jedi as he saw it in the prequels and the EU, but he respected the setting enough to understand that he was just a visitor passing through, saying his piece without forcing the audience to agree with him. By contrast, The Last Jedi burned the setting down around it to make its statement about failure and letting go of the past (and animal rights and war profiteering and divine birthright and), while actually saying nothing. The Jedi returned, just not the Jedi we wanted to see. A Nobody from Nowhere finally became the hero, as had been happening in Star Wars since 1977. Good was tempted by evil, and easily overcame that temptation with no effort whatsoever. What a subversion of expectations! The best Star Wars film since Empire! Bring on the Johnson trilogy!

 

Oh . . .

Disney should just give up on trying to get any new Star Wars films off the ground and instead put all the money they would have wasted on that into having Chris Avellone write Knights of the Old Republic III. It would be better written, and more fun to play.

 

 

Epilogue: I realize that I've spent significantly more of this post whining about The Last Jedi than celebrating The Sith Lords, and I regret that; I have spent too much time complaining about The Last Jedi already. But it's easy to go on and on about poor, misguided things. The special things, the things that matter, the things you remember—those are the things it's hard to talk about, because what they mean is only what they mean to you.

 

When I was in high school, our future class salutatorian was running for student council president and asked me for a quote to use in her campaign. Without hesitating, I said nonsequitously, "ONE BROKEN JEDI CANNOT STOP THE DARKNESS THAT IS TO COME," Darth Sion's portentous line to Kreia when he arrives on Peragus II. 

 

She used it in her speech and had it printed out on posters. One hung on the wall in the cafeteria well into the next academic year, long after the election was over. I can't remember who won, but I still remember that poster.