November, 2003

Blue Harvest magazine has been out of print for a few years now, but I still like to ramble about Star Wars from time to time...

So:

After four years and nineteen books, the epic New Jedi Order series has finally reached it’s conclusion.  Curiously free from the expected cross-overs into comic books, action figures, or video games (presumably so that these media could focus on Attack of the Clones and the Clone War), the NJO dominated the Star Wars Expanded Universe novels market between October of 1999 and November of 2003. The final book in the series, The Unifying Force, is a satisfying conclusion to this series.  The novel wraps up all of the loose ends and plot threads created over the previous eighteen books in a mere 520 pages (surprisingly brief for all of the story crammed in), while still packing in some new twists and leaving the Galaxy Far, Far Away in a position where I’d be perfectly happy to leave it for good. Leave it for good? After the end of the film trilogy, after the end of the Bantam publishing series (1991-1999), after the end of various comics series, after everything else, I was always hungry for more, and there always seemed to be more stories to tell.  Now, it seems as though the battles of Han Solo, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and their friends have finally come to an end, once and for all.  Han Solo is now in his sixties(!), with Luke n’ Leia in their fifties.  They’ve saved the galaxy a few times over, and as they jet off - more or less homeless - to parts unknown, I feel like their tales finally are over.  There has been so much written about these characters, it seems that it has all been said.  Are there are any more stories to be told, at this point, that would feel anything other than redundant?  I suppose that a big goal of this series was to make us care enough about the Solo’s kids to want to read about their exploits more, but I am afraid that I still enjoy them as supporting characters (even when they’re the focus of a story), but would not be interested in reading about them alone. But back to the Unifying Force. What’s the best way to wrap up a Star Wars saga? How about this... you’ll recognize it: Lando, Wedge, and a Sullustian are engaged in a space battle above a key planet, fighting for the fate of the galaxy.

Han, Leia, R2-D2, C-3PO, and their team of commandos must infiltrate the bad guys bunker and knock out a device keeping Lando and Wedge from finishing their mission up above.  Han’s got a thermal detonator in hand, ready to blow the thing up, when they are captured.  They are later rescued by the local primitives, who worship a member of Han’s team.

Luke has entered the citadel of the ultimate evil guy in the galaxy, a citadel flanked by royal guards, and must confront the enemy face to face, making careful decisions along the way not to fall to the dark side of the force.  Force lightning is flung about.

This is Return of the Jedi, right?

Well, it is, but it is also The Unifying Force.

Rather than entering Palpatine’s throne room and confronting Palpatine and Vader as in Return of the Jedi, Luke is now joined by Jacen and Jaina, and they must penetrate Shimrra’s own citadel, fight his guards, and eventually defeat Onimi as well.  As Jacen emerges (as Luke did in Return of the Jedi) with a deeper understanding of the Force, it is Luke who wields (green) force lightning against a slayer (a super-Yuuzhan Vong warrior) before slaying Shimrra.

Meanwhile, Han, Leia, and company are not after a shield generator this time, but rather a dhuryam, which is controlling Coruscant.  With the dhuryam down, things are easier on our other heroes.  The Shamed Ones replace the Ewoks as the primitive fighting force who bail Han’s commandos out of hot water with the Yuuzhan Vong warriors and save the day.  The Ewoks believed C-3PO to be a god, but the Shamed Ones are more in awe of the Jedi, of whom there are several on Han’s strike team. Finally, Lando and Wedge (briefly back in a starfighter for one unsatisfying moment) and a Sullustian (Admiral Sovv replaces Nien Nunb) are fighting above the planet, getting their butts kicked, but eventually prevailing, just like in Return of the Jedi. I think that author James Luceno has purposely modeled The Unifying Force after Return of the Jedi as a tip of the hat to the original film trilogy, and he has also put in touches from the other films as well: the tiny Yuuzhan Vong ship carrying the deadly disease Alpha Red to the surface of living planet Zonama Sekot is compared to Luke in his tiny X-wing delivering a death blow, single-handedly to the Death Star in A New Hope.  Wedge’s decision to go after the ship in a starfighter is clearly modeled after Darth Vader’s pursuit of Skywalker in the Death Star trench... Wedge even designates his call sign as “Vader”. The list of cameo appearances and quickie answers to ‘whatever happened to’ questions is endless, and it seems that Luceno has done his noble best to make sure that the reader is aware of the final status of virtually every one of the characters from the Star Wars saga.  This is a tall task indeed, but the big question, finally answered, is: where has Boba Fett been since the beginning of the NJO series? Fett’s last appearance in a Star Wars novel was... I can’t even remember.  But keeping in mind that the NJO series takes place over a period of five years, and that it begins six years after the previous adult Star Wars novel - Vision of the Future - makes it at least eleven years since Bob Fett made an appearance in an adult novel taking place in the Galaxy Far Far Away.  In The Unifying Force, Boba pops into a battle long enough to actually save Han Solo, and then runs off.  There are two noteworthy points to make here.  First, Fett quips to Han that his relentless pursuit of Solo in past years was (to paraphrase) ‘nothing personal... strictly business’, and that his real personal vendetta was always against the Jedi (makes sense, since a Jedi, Mace Windu, killed Boba’s father Jango).  Second, Fett is seen with a team of commandos clad in armor similar to his, which implies that he’s been spending the past eleven-plus years reestablishing the Mandalorian sect that spawned his father.  This all-to-brief glimpse at Boba Fett’s current whereabouts provide more character development than Boba Fett has had, in toto, since climbing out of the Sarlaac pit. A bit of humor creeps in during the novel’s final pages when Lando, Wedge, Kaarde, and others all confess to Han that they have also had run ins with Fett’s commandos in recent years. Admiral Ackbar, on the other hand, gets shafted.  Near the climax of the book, an important meeting is interrupted by someone storming into the room, declaring that Ackbar is dead.  The scene then shifts to a completely different part of the battle, and Ackbar is never mentioned again.  No cause of death is given, but we can assume it is old age?  There is a memorial held for the old Mon Calamari at the end of the book, but this whole concept seems pointless and underdeveloped.  Why kill him off if it doesn’t serve the plot at all, and it is not explained or dealt with fully?  Even if the rebel forces had used it as a rallying cry while getting their behinds kicked: “For Ackbar!”, at least there would have been a point to it.

Now, given that Chewbacca died in the first NJO book, Vector Prime, and that Han and Leia’s youngest son Anakin Solo died in the third hardback (there were five ‘major’ hardback releases in the series and then fourteen paperbacks filling in the gaps between them), there was heavy speculation that another major character would die in this final novel.  All through the book, there were pointers that it would be none other than Han Solo.  It gets to the point where Han’s scenes become difficult to read, as each brush with death seems a little closer than the last one, and the moments where he is shown as happy, carefree, and among loved ones or old pals seem to be set-ups to make his offing more tragic.  And when he is finally wounded... badly.... well, that one I won’t spoil for you.  Read the book.

Han isn’t the only one struck by the amphistaff of the Yuuzhan Vong.  Luke is gravely injured as well... in fact few characters come out completely unscathed.  There were prayers among fans of Anakin Solo or Chewbacca returning from the dead, but I, for one, was relived to find that both of these characters stayed irrevocably dead, making their sacrifices and the impacts of their deaths remain as solid and meaningful as ever.  I’ve always been a big Chewbacca fan, and have often argued that he was sorely underused as a character (when he was ‘alive’ that is), but bringing him, or Anakin Solo, back from the dead would have just been cheezy, no matter how it might have been handled.

Some comments on the enemy.  I can almost swallow the final revelation about Shimrra being nothing more than a puppet of Onimi’s, but there are too many holes left in this revelation to believe anything other than that it was tacked on, last minute.  Let me mention here that the penultimate book, The Final Prophecy, had more action and more story -packed into 303 pages than in the seemingly endless 1189 pages of the Force Heretic series (books 15,16, and 17), which preceded it.  With the exception of this exceedingly dull Force Heretic trilogy, the New Jedi Order saga as a whole has moved along at a good pace, and has seemed to have been fairly well plotted in advance.  The series didn’t need a plot twist so badly that any lame one would have sufficed, and the Onimi revelation did seem to have been a late addition.

The final explanation as to the Yuuzhan Vong’s absence from the Force was a little weak as well.  A few books back, a theory was almost-concocted in which a comparison was made between the way Jedi sense the Force and the way our senses decipher sight and sound.  It is well known by even school children that as humans, we can hear sounds within a certain frequency range, but that sounds higher (ultrasound) or lower (infrasound) exist that we can’t perceive.  Some animals can hear higher than we can; hence the most famous example... the dog whistle.  The same is true with light: ultraviolet and infrared light spectrums exist just outside of our eyes ability to sense them, and wavelengths even higher and lower than these exist as well. So, it would have made a lot of sense for the Yuuzhan Vong’s presence in the Force to have existed at some sort of ‘frequency’ above or below - or just different - from what the Jedi are used to experiencing.  Perhaps certain Jedi would have developed the ability to reattune themselves to these expanded, or shifted, ways of sensing the Force.  Even more interesting, perhaps some of the weaker Jedi would have found that they were actually less able to sense ‘our’ Force, but more able to use the Force on the ‘Vong spectrum’, and would therefore have emerged as more powerful weapons against the Yuuzhan Vong. This was touched on ever so slightly (I forget which book this was in - after nineteen of them, they all blend together a bit), and then dropped. Too bad, since it makes more sense and is a much cooler explanation that an angry parent planet stripping the Force away from an entire species and all of their organic creations.  What did Zonama’s parent planet do, kill all the midiclorians or something? The final explanation as to the Yuuzhan Vong’s absence from the Force was a little weak as well.  A few books back, a theory was almost-concocted in which a comparison was made between the way Jedi sense the Force and the way our senses decipher sight and sound.  It is well known by even school children that as humans, we can hear sounds within a certain frequency range, but that sounds higher (ultrasound) or lower (infrasound) exist that we can’t perceive.  Some animals can hear higher than we can; hence the most famous example... the dog whistle.  The same is true with light: ultraviolet and infrared light spectrums exist just outside of our eyes ability to sense them, and wavelengths even higher and lower than these exist as well. So, it would have made a lot of sense for the Yuuzhan Vong’s presence in the Force to have existed at some sort of ‘frequency’ above or below - or just different - from what the Jedi are used to experiencing.  Perhaps certain Jedi would have developed the ability to reattune themselves to these expanded, or shifted, ways of sensing the Force.  Even more interesting, perhaps some of the weaker Jedi would have found that they were actually less able to sense ‘our’ Force, but more able to use the Force on the ‘Vong spectrum’, and would therefore have emerged as more powerful weapons against the Yuuzhan Vong. This was touched on ever so slightly (I forget which book this was in - after nineteen of them, they all blend together a bit), and then dropped. Too bad, since it makes more sense and is a much cooler explanation that an angry parent planet stripping the Force away from an entire species and all of their organic creations.  What did Zonama’s parent planet do, kill all the midiclorians or something? All right, enough about the uglies.  Here’s something I love: some creative soul actually managed to take the fandom term for the Star Wars galaxy - the Galaxy Far Far Away - and use the same initials (GFFA) to concoct a believable, logical, useful new name for the ‘good guys’ in the novels (Galactic Federation of Free Alliances).  Brilliant.  It even uses the word ‘Alliances’, reminiscent of the old Rebel Alliance from the movies. Finally: Nom Anor. Yes, he’s alive.

Just like Darth Vader in A New Hope, his escape pod will prove to have survived the explosion of Shimrra’s citadel ship and gone spinning off into deep space...

So what lays ahead for the New Jedi Order?  A trilogy of new paperbacks in 2005.  Their plot?  Who knows.  After nineteen books, in which a sprawling but more or less focused story unfolds, what else needs to be said about the Yuuzhan Vong?  With the ultimate fate of their race decided and the outcome of the war against them revealed, how much tension can there be?  Enough to sustain a paperback? Possibly.  Enough to sustain a trilogy?  I am skeptical.  Some speculation: Nom Anor returns to shake things up on Zonama Sekot, lots of action with Jaina and Jag, Boba Fett’s new Mandalorians show up, and Jacen, the new hero of the saga, saves the day.  Or, in a series that takes place during the existing series, Fett’s Commandos battle the Yuuzhan Vong, with cameo appearances by the various people who claim to have encountered Boba’s band through the years.

Fair enough, but I say (If I may conclude this by rambling off topic for a moment): there are eighteen years between Episodes III and IV of the movies.  Let’s start seeing those stories after 2005.  We don’t need to see ALL of the Jedi die in Episode III.  Obi Wan brings us up to date on how that plays out while talking to Luke in A New Hope: “Vader helped the Emperor hunt down and destroy the Jedi”.  We don’t need to see it on screen when it can be a five year, nineteen book franchise of novels, and comics, and video games, and action figures....

Last line of Episode III:
(prediction, not spoiler)
Vader: "I will destroy them all... my master!"
cue: inter-trilogy spin off products.

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