The Battle of Geonosis

Episode II: Attack of the Clones, the Novelization

Author: R. A. Salvatore

Medium: Novel

Publication date: April 2002

Timeline placement: 22 BBY

 

I have nothing to say about Attack of the Clones that hasn't already been said. So let's briefly talk about the novelization instead.

I had read this book only once before, and that was about two decades ago. It lived in a place of mediocrity in my mind, memorable neither for its quality writing nor lack thereof. It faithfully told the story of Attack of the Clones, with a few deleted scenes from the screenplay added back in. That's all. Moving on.

 

Reading it again, my earlier assessment wasn't completely unfair. Despite his prolific output of Forgotten Realms novels, I don't find R. A. Salvatore particularly compelling as a writer. He can do the job well enough, and if he gets it done on time so much the better, but hard as it is to believe, there was nothing moving in the Attack of the Clones novelization. Did there need to be? Probably not, but Salvatore also didn't need to annoy me with his little authorial idiosyncrasies like characterization-through-adjectives. "'Look out, Anakin!' the crafty Padmé shouted. 'Thanks, Padmé,' the temperamental Anakin replied. 'Die now!' interjected the incredulous Obi-Wan." I seen enough of that shit.

 

But that was really the extent of my gripes with the book, and it's a tiny stylistic quirk. The novelization, while not especially great in and of itself, is about ten times better than the movie at telling this lousy story that Lucas thought was so important it needed an entire third of the prequel trilogy to tell. The deleted scenes you may remember watching in the special features section of the DVD are present and fully integrated into the narrative, including the scenes with Padmé's family on Naboo that help flesh out the romance between Padmé and Anakin (but still not enough to actually make it believable or compelling).

 

Salvatore introduces a number of original scenes as well, building the relationship between Jango Fett and his regrettable spawn and developing Shmi Skywalker and the Larses as characters we could potentially maybe care somewhat about to some extent. It's really the scenes the novel adds to the film that are its most notable aspect; the scenes it adapts straight from the film don't really feel like they get much depth added to them, but to be fair that's probably because they were already so shallow in the first place. That said, Salvatore is still able to add a little bit of characterization to secondary cast members like Captain Typho, who I don't think is even named in the movie. And Captain Panaka comes back for one scene! I didn't give a shit about that guy in The Phantom Menace but weirdly it brought warm feelings to my heart when he showed up again here.

 

Salvatore's novelization isn't the best thing ever but it's probably the definitive version of Attack of the Clones. For whatever that's worth.

 

3.5/5 Death Stars. 

 

Episode II: Attack of the Clones, the Comic

Writer: Henry Gilroy

Penciler: Jan Duursema

Medium: Comic

Publication date: April – May 2002

Timeline placement: 22 BBY

 

I had never read the Episode II comic adaptation until preparing this review. It seemed pointless. Having now read it, it was.

 

The art is by Jan Duursema, so it's unsurprisingly good, although maybe a little rougher than her usual work. I was more surprised to see that Henry Gilroy handled the script. I thought, whoa, the guy who made Andor? Actually no, apparently that's Tony Gilroy. I haven't seen Andor but I hear it's pretty good, so it makes more sense that it was another guy writing this comic because it blows. I don't blame Henry Gilroy for that, though; he just copied and pasted all the dialogue from the script Lucasfilm sent him.

 

What I do blame him for is the anachronistic text boxes littering these issues, explaining the action and the characters' thought processes instead of letting the art speak for itself. I realize that's more difficult to do when you're adapting a story written for an entirely different medium rather than writing a story that plays to this medium's strengths, but absolutely no one who read this comic would have done so in place of seeing the movie, so if they didn't understand everything that was happening here they wouldn't have been confused for long.

 

The most notable change I noted is that Anakin swears in this version: "Personally I'd very much like to find out who the hell he is and who he's working for..." What an edgelord. This is how you can tell he was destined to fall to the dark side.

 

I also liked that Jan Duursema worked a Quinlan Vos cameo into the Battle of Geonosis. Very cool! Would I read this comic again? No! 

 

Episode II: Attack of the Clones, the Junior Novelization

Author: Patricia C. Wrede

Medium: Junior novel

Publication date: April 2002

Timeline placement: 22 BBY

 

Unless you are a literal child who lacks the level of literacy required to parse the simplistic prose of the Salvatore novelization, there is no reason to ever read this book. Flat, dull, and uncreative, it is a painfully exact retelling of the movie in the least interesting way possible. It does contain a few additional scenes not present in the film, but they appear to be simply stripped-down versions of just some of the extra scenes included in the adult novelization. 

 

There are two notable exceptions, however. One is that Anakin apparently hates the nickname "Annie" (probably because it was blatantly spelled on-screen in The Phantom Menace as "Ani" but every subsequent author spelled it like the little orphan). The other is when Obi-Wan deliberately lies to the Kaminoans about Sifo-Dyas's death.

 

"I'm afraid Master Sifo-Dyas was killed almost ten years ago," Obi-Wan said slowly. More like eleven or twelve years, I think — but I could have the times mixed up. I'll have to check with Master Yoda later.

 

Does this make Episode II's opaque mystery plot any less nonsensical? I sure don't fucking know!

Attack of the Clones, the Mighty Chronicles Novelization

Author: John Whitman

Medium: Picture book

Publication date: April 2002

Timeline placement: 22 BBY

Did we really need another children's novelization of Attack of the Clones? No, but this book is little and fat and chunky, so it's objectively the best one.

 

I thought it was sort of interesting how Jedi librarian Jocasta Nu is repeatedly referred to as a "dame," presumably as the female equivalent of "knight" rather than 1930s slang for a broad. I've never seen that before in a Star Wars book. Probably because the type of knight that "dame" is equivalent to is a modern ceremonial title, and the type that "Jedi Knight" refers to is the one who runs around whacking people with a sword.

 

Galaxy of Fear author John Whitman's writing doesn't bring much to the table for this adaptation other than to abridge the story even further, which may be all the recommendation one needs. However, it did make me insensibly angry that he misspelled timbre as "timber" so caveat emptor. 

 

 

Episode II: Attack of the Clones, the Video Game

Developer: David A. Palmer Productions

Medium: Video game

Publication date: May 2002

Timeline placement: 22 BBY

Unlike the Episode I and III games, Attack of the Clones for the Game Boy Advance contributes no original lore or story content to the movie it's based on, unless you take it as canon that Obi-Wan had to platform through an army of droids and collect three keys before fighting Jango Fett on Kamino. I'm not sure how to explain the lack of effort on this one, save to surmise that since the movie already looked so much like a video game, Lucasfilm didn't think it was worth shelling out for a more involved adaptation. Just compare the droid factory conveyor belt sequence in both. Completely indistinguishable.

 

The game gets basic information wrong, claiming that Mace Windu only brought 100 Jedi to Geonosis rather than 200, and you get to massacre Tusken Raiders as Anakin, but not during the actual canonical Tusken massacre, which seems like a cheat. Even worse, the final boss fight against Count Dooku is a scripted failure. You can't even beat this game!

That's not to say that this action side-scroller is a bad game or no fun to play, but I wouldn't know. The Good Lord allots each of us only so much time on the GBA, and I spent mine organizing my PC boxes in Pokémon Ruby.

David A. Palmer's video game isn't the best thing ever but it's probably the definitive version of Attack of the Clones. For whatever that's worth.

Third Time's the Kesh

Lost Tribe of the Sith: Pantheon

Author: John Jackson Miller

Medium: Ebook novella

Publication Date: July 18, 2011 on StarWars.com

Timeline Placement: 3,000 BBY

Series: Lost Tribe of the Sith

 

Welcome back to Kesh, where Sith society has been fragmenting and slowly collapsing over the last millennium due to the broken line of succession caused by the disappearance of Grand Lord Lillia Venn Diagram in the previous Lost Tribe story.

 

Varner Hilts, Sith Caretaker of the holocron of Yaru Korsin, lives in the city of Tahv, where he and his overworked, underpaid employee, Jay, manage a retinue of Keshiri bookkeepers. Every 25 years, the Sith celebrate Testament Day, when they all gather in Tahv to hear the holocron play a recording of Korsin's last will and testament. That day is fast approaching, but this year the elderly Hilts's preparations are interrupted by the Sisters of Seelah, a Sith splinter faction entirely composed of hot women. John Jackson Miller again demonstrates why he is one of the most beloved authors of the Expanded Universe.

 

The Sisters' leader, 24-year-old Iliana Merko, attempts to seduce Hilts into altering the recording to have Korsin pronounce the devotees of his wife, Seelah, the true inheritors of his legacy. Not only is this plan improbable, it's also impossible, as no one on the planet of Kesh understands anything about advanced space technology. When Hilts fails to respond to her charms, Iliana starts PMSing and threatens to murder meek mathematician Jay. He's saved when a bunch of other Sith factions burst in, wondering what the Sisters are scheming.

 

Hoping to prevent bloodshed because at age 60 he's getting too old for this Sith, Hilts tries to ease tensions by playing the recording early, because maybe that will do something. The other Sith don't go for this, however, because the actual holiday isn't for another eight days, and the Sith are known for nothing if not their festive spirit. By a shocking coincidence, however, Jay had recently calculated that, over the past 2,000 years, Keshiri time had drifted from the Sith calendar by exactly eight days. I think that's the most pointless filler I've ever seen forced into a story for convenience's sake.

 

So they play the recording, which accomplishes nothing, but then for no reason Hilts starts playing with the holocron and it plays a never-before-seen recording of Naga Sadow sending Yaru Korsin and the Omen on their mission. The Sith experience a civilization-wide existential crisis as they realize that the divine birthright their entire society is based on is a lie. There's nothing special about them. Not only are there other races in the universe besides humans and Keshiri, but all the Sith on Kesh are descended from slaves, and the Keshiri no longer have a reason to revere them.

 

As the entire continent of Keshtah is engulfed in internecine conflict, Hilts hides out at Jay's house. Also for no reason, he starts thinking about Korsin's recording, which he has watched countless times before, and suddenly figures out that there is a secret message hidden in his words. He and Jay head for the mountain temple that still houses the crashed remains of the Omen, where they will reopen the ancient ship at last, and hopefully find a way to save their planet.

 

There are a few funny moments here and there but this is mostly a miss for me. I'm sorry, John Jackson Miller, I'm so sorry, but I just don't care about the Lost Tribe of the Sith. I did like Purgatory and Sentinel a fair bit, but those were the two stories in the series that felt like they had the least to do with the central ongoing narrative of the history of Kesh. These stories were basically written as promotional tie-ins to the Fate of the Jedi series. I haven't read those books and I don't want to, but if I had maybe I would give more of a shit. But as it is, I just don't find this subject matter and this format interesting at all.

 

3 out of 5 Death Stars. 

 

Varner Hilts and Jay plot their next move.

Lost Tribe of the Sith: Secrets

Author: John Jackson Miller

Medium: Ebook novella

Publication Date: March 5, 2012

Timeline Placement: 3,000 BBY

Series: Lost Tribe of the Sith

 

Secrets opens with Varner Hilts and Jay awkwardly reenacting Sam and Frodo's ascent of Mount Doom, only with more homoerotic tension. The sausage party is soon interrupted, however, when they encounter Iliana Merko crying over the 2,000-year-old bones of Seelah Korsin. With Sithilization on Kesh currently in bloody existential crisis, Iliana has lost all authority and control over her Sisters of Seelah cult. Seeing that she has nothing left to live for after dedicating her life to idolizing a dead woman, Hilts offers Iliana the chance for a new future. She smashes Seelah's skull against the wall and joins the party.

 

The three adventurers make their way to the abandoned temple built around the crashed Omen like a mausoleum. Exploring the ship's interior, they are befuddled by its complex space technology. In his message in the holocron, Korsin had said that "the true power is behind the throne." Taking this to mean Korsin's La-Z-Boy, Hilts cuts open the back of the chair and feels around inside, but all he finds is a letter from Korsin's mommy.

 

Suddenly, more Sith arrive, drawn by the urge either to destroy the Omen as a symbolic gesture or to kill Iliana for being a bitch. Hilts, Jay, and Iliana comically duck down underneath the ship's windows, which renders them completely invisible to the new arrivals but leaves them able to overhear their entire plan, which is to squash the ship by knocking over a tower on top of it. While the Sith file for their demolition permits, Hilts realizes that the room they found Korsin's chair in isn't actually the room he kept it in; someone moved it after his death in order to extend the length of this plot. They go to the room where Korsin actually sat in his chair but don't find anything there either, except a map of the continent of Keshtah on one wall and a bunch of blank panels on the others.

 

The Sith burst into the room and immediately kill Jay. Hilts, generally a pretty pragmatic and laid-back dude, is furious at the senseless murder of his best friend, but he gets over it real quick. Ignoring the fat old guy cradling the dead alien, the Sith gang up on Iliana, but Hilts suddenly has an epiphany and uses the Force to pull down all the panels on the walls, revealing a map of the giant continent on the other side of the planet that no Sith or Keshiri knew existed. The Omen's instruments recorded it as it crashed, and Yaru Korsin secretly transcribed the data, including the locations of Keshtah Major's many populous cities. He knew that the Sith would eventually stagnate and turn against one another without an external enemy to conquer, so he kept the existence of the other continent a secret for future generations to discover. 

 

The Sith present at the Omen realize that this new information will reunite their scattered people and restore their dominance over the Keshiri. They currently lack the technology to cross the vast oceans between Keshtah Minor and Major, but this is another goal they have to work toward. They unanimously elect Varner Hilts as Grand Lord, the new ruler of the Lost Tribe. As his first official act as Grand Lord, the 60-year-old Hilts decrees that he and Iliana are to be married. That's my man right there.

 

Dirty old man he may be, but Hilts's decree is a multilayered masterstroke. It saves Iliana from the Sith mob who hates her guts, and it saves Hilts from Iliana by taking her to power with him. It isn't until after their wedding ceremony that she realizes the final layer of his trap: according to Sith tradition, the woman of the reigning Grand Lord is executed upon his death. Now their fates are bound together, and she has to spend the rest of her life protecting his.

 

This ending is hilarious because of how bizarrely cruel it is. Hilts screws over this poor girl in every way imaginable, and in the meantime Jay's killer is standing right there and Hilts makes no effort to find out who it is or get any kind of justice for his friend. He just completely forgets about him when he sees the opportunity to bag a 24-year-old hottie. Treachery is the way of the Sith.

 

3.5 out of 5 Death Stars or whatever, who cares. 

 

RIP Jay

  

Lost Tribe of the Sith: Pandemonium

Author: John Jackson Miller

Medium: Novella

Publication Date: July 2012 in Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories

Timeline Placement: 2,975 BBY

Series: Lost Tribe of the Sith

 

Under the leadership of Grand Lord Varner Hilts, the Sith spend the next 25 years developing airship technology. Their first exploratory force approaches the shore of Keshtah Major, known to the Keshiri who live there as Alanciar, just in time to interrupt a soap opera plot about a Keshiri woman named Quarra Thayn cheating on her husband with Keshiri Fabio. Little do the Sith realize, however, that Adari Vaal actually made it all the way to Alanciar after escaping Keshtah Minor two thousand years ago, way back in Savior. The Alanciari Keshiri have spent the intervening millennia preparing for the inevitable Sith invasion.

 

Defense towers along the coast open fire on the Sith zeppelins and they all go up like the Hindenburg. Only a handful of Sith survive, including the mission's commander, High Lord Edell Vrai. In true daytime TV fashion, the Sith coincidentally wash ashore right where Quarra is fleeing her illicit affair and immediately take her hostage.

 

Vrai decides that Quarra will lead him inland to reconnoiter Alanciar's defenses so the main body of the Sith invasion will not be caught unaware like he was. If she refuses, they will kill Fabio, who is currently lying unconscious on the beach after a dead uvak fell out of the sky and crushed him to death.

 

Vrai and Quarra set out together, the Sith Lord's human appearance explained by pretending that he is a Keshiri performer in full makeup to celebrate Observance Day, a commemoration of the Keshiri's sworn duty to resist the Sith. As they travel the countryside, Vrai is awed by the Alanciari's level of technology and martial spirit compared to the simpleton Keshiri from his homeland. Quarra explains that for the last two millennia their entire civilization has developed toward the singular goal of defeating the unseen boogeymen from across the sea. 

 

Seems a bit of a stretch, to be honest. 

 

As they travel together, each comes to understand the other, developing feelings of mutual respect... if not something more. I find it endlessly amusing how the Keshiri women in these stories are so disdainful of their families and domestic lives.

 

But all of Edell Vrai's carefully laid plans are ruined when the main Sith airship fleet arrives prematurely, spurred on by the ambitious High Lord Korsin Bentado, who plans to conquer Alanciar himself and rule his own independent Sith tribe. Bentado's forces capture the Alanciari capital of Sus'mintri and execute all of the government officials, proving that the Sith aren't all bad. 

 

Bentado is about to kill our "heroes" (?) when he's betrayed by his hunchback assistant, Squab, who was secretly working for Varner Hilts the whole time and stabs Bentado through the heart. "But," Bentado says, "it was so artistically done."

 

Hilts arrives in Alanciar by airship and scrambles the best spin team he has, casting Bentado and his invasion fleet as the evil Destructors of Keshiri myth and the rest of the Lost Tribe as the Keshiri's Skyborn Protectors. The people of Alanciar swallow this without question and welcome their new Sith overlords.

 

Edell Vrai is appointed governor of the new continent. His first official act in office is to ask Quarra to go steady with him, but disappointingly she turns him down and goes back to her boring family, the only Keshiri in Alanciar who understands the true nature of the Sith.

 

Pandemonium is by far the longest novella in the Lost Tribe of the Sith anthology, but honestly it should have been the entire book. The Sith conquest of Alanciar should have been a full-length novel, with the relevant portions of the Yaru Korsin backstory conveyed through flashbacks or discoveries made by other characters during the book. I have to think that this would have immeasurably improved these stories, which I found difficult to get invested in because they were split up across thousands of years and completely changed the central cast multiple times.

 

Or your could just leave those earlier novellas the way they are and just expand Pandemonium. That way we wouldn't have to lose the Jeff-and-Ori stories. It was an unexpected treat when they showed up in Pandemonium via Force dream for no reason. I must have missed it in Purgatory but Miller describes her here as yet another character with auburn hair (even though her only official illustration depicts her as a brunette). That's at least three redheaded hot chicks he's introduced in this series alone. Doing the Lord's work, JJM.

 

But anyway, I guess that never could have happened because Del Rey only commissioned these stories as promotional tie-ins to the Fate of the Jedi series. Miller did the best with what he had, as he always does. In an ideal EU world, though, there was a better way for this story to be told. 

 

I really enjoyed the dynamic between Edell Vrai and Quarra Thayn in Pandemonium, but it feels like we didn't get enough of it. I would have read 300 pages of these characters traveling together through hostile countryside, learning more about each other and their respective cultures as they develop from enemies to unwilling allies to who knows what. It's a testament to John Jackson Miller's writing ability and commitment to this premise that he was able to sketch out these characters so well in the limited pages he had. When the story's over, they feel like characters you expect to see again. Alas, it wasn't meant to be.

 

Looks like an ammonite, sounds like an Ed Sheeran song.