Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu | review by Stephen Theaker

When I came out of The Mandalorian and Grogu, I said to Mrs Theaker that it was the perfect film for little boys – which is not to say little girls won't enjoy it too. And according to the Hollywood Reporter this was exactly what the exit polling showed – boys under 13 rated it more highly than anyone else. I said that in part for the obvious reasons – the blasters, monsters, spaceships, etc – but also because it's a film about a little boy (albeit a little boy in his fifties) travelling with a man he admires, and learning about honour, duty, ethics and (when needed) fighting.

Some have suggested that the film will baffle those who haven't seen the tv show and its spin-offs (The Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka) but I think that's an unfounded fear. The only confusion might come from people thinking the Mandalorian is Boba Fett, since they wear very similar armour. He's not, he's a new character, Din Djarin. The film tells you all you need to know – a bounty hunter is hunting bad guys – and in fact it would work very well as a direct sequel to Return of the Jedi.

This film is set shortly after Jedi. The New Republic is a scrappy little upstart, struggling to prevent a resurgence of the Empire. The Mandalorian (voiced and at times played by Pedro Pascal) has been tasked with capturing (ideally) or killing (more likely) former Empire officers who are now setting themselves up as local warlords. It's work that he enjoys and he is good at it, and his orders come directly from Sigourney Weaver (playing a new character, Colonel Ward of the New Republic).

The first part of the film shows how this typically goes: the Mandalorian tracks down his target, then starts killing people and blowing things up until the target is dead. This time it involves running down a hill in a scout trooper and taking on three AT-ATs at once. It's a thrill-a-minute stuff, closer to George Lucas's dream of resurrecting the spirit of the old film serials than Star Wars (the original one) itself.

The rest of the film sees the duo take on a second mission. This one doesn't go quite so smoothly, and isn't as ethically clear-cut. To learn the identity and location of an Imperial bigwig, the New Republic has agreed to help two Hutts, huge slug-like crime lords, to find and rescue Rotta (Jeremy Allen White), their nephew, and the son of Jabba the Hutt. But what if Rotta doesn't want to be found by them – is the intel so important that his feelings don't matter?

One complaint has been that the film is essentially the same as the tv show, which seems unfair, since the show was so cinematic, each episode reportedly having a budget big enough to pay for an entire season of Doctor Who. Like the tv show, The Mandalorian and Grogu is full of spectacle, weird landscapes and alien creatures, and balances that with lots of character moments, not least during a memorable sequence when the Mandalorian is incapacitated and the camera comes down to Grogu's level.

If there's any criticism to be made, it's perhaps that there isn't much progression in the stories of our main duo – we don't learn any more about their origins. Also, it might have been nice to see more of their old allies, like Cara Dune (Gina Carano) and Migs Mayfeld (Bill Burr) – season three was also poorer for their absence. But other old friends make little cameos, and I can't really complain about a Mandalorian and Grogu film focusing on the Mandalorian and Grogu.

An enthusiastic four stars from me. To put it in movie-poster terms, it's a rip-roaring outer-space adventure, fun for all the family. Stephen Theaker ****

Ahsoka, Season 1 | review by Stephen Theaker

Ahsoka is a sequel to several projects all at once, as well as setting up projects to come. This eight-episode season follows on from The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, in which Ahsoka Tano, as played by Rosario Dawson, made an appearance (and met Luke Skywalker), and it also follows on from two animated series: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which showed Anakin Skywalker take her on as an apprentice during the war with the Trade Federation and its allies, and Star Wars: Rebels, about a ragtag bunch of rebels who appear in Ahsoka too: Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), Hera Syndulla (now a general, and played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi).

The latter's disappearance during the rebellion (round about the events of Return of the Jedi, I think) is what motivates Ahsoka and Sabine in this show. They think he's still alive, somewhere, and they think they can find him -- but only if they can repair their broken relationship, and Hera can keep the jobsworths and penny-pinchers and traitors in the New Republic administration off their backs.

The problem is, Ezra wasn't the only one to go missing that day. So did Grand Admiral Thrawn (played here, as in Star Wars: Rebels, by Lars Mikkelsen), and efforts are afoot to find him too. Leading the search are two fallen jedi, Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati, the former played so brilliantly by the late Ray Stevenson that the show is almost spoilt by the knowledge that he won't be returning. If they manage to find Thrawn, what will follow?

Dedicated fans will remember Timothy Zahn’s sequel trilogy from the 1990s, which breathed new life into Star Wars, and in which Thrawn was the primary antagonist.

For such fans, especially those who watched the two animated series, I’m sure that Ahsoka had all sorts of resonances that passed me by. But I still loved it. You don't need to have watched anything else to understand why Sabine wants to rescue her friend, or why everyone is afraid of a powerful grand admiral from the Empire. I found it gripping, and although there were moments here and there that dragged, the overall effect was rather majestic.

Ahsoka herself is an interesting character. She knows by this point that her master, Anakin, became Darth Vader, and she struggles with that knowledge – her fear of that happening again damaged her relationship with her own apprentice. But she also remembers what was good about him, before his turn to the dark side. Her movements in combat are perhaps a bit less fluid and precise than one might expect from a jedi; it would be interesting to know if this was a deliberate choice, to reflect the character's age at this point, or if perhaps the actor needed a bit more time on combat training. By the final episodes that's much less of an issue, with multiple jedi engaging in combat and all sorts of fun things happening. Sabine's combat style is particularly entertaining: a jedi in a Mandalorian suit of armour, fighting with both pistol and lightsaber, is truly a sight to behold!

The special effects are, just like The Mandalorian, almost unfairly good. The ominous approach of Thrawn's damaged imperial destroyer to a tower was particularly stunning, but the space whales and David Tennant's ancient robot character Huyang were also excellent. If we have passed the high-water mark of Disney's spending on science fiction shows, as the cancellation of Lando and Marvel cutbacks might suggest, it's a shame, but one can understand why such extravagance wouldn't be sustainable.

Hopefully the story will be concluded, whether that's in another programme bringing all these characters together, or in a feature film. If not, Ahsoka is still worth watching on its own merits, for the spectacle, for all the lightsaber battles, for the performances and for the surprises, which I won't spoil here… Stephen Theaker ****

Star Wars: Dark Disciple, by Christie Golden (Lucas Books/Penguin Random House Audio)

Somebody, Please Kill Me.

(Note: spoilers abound.)

Dark Disciple is a suitably epic tale set amidst the Clone Wars (and based, apparently, on unmade scripts for the animated series). It lays the thematic groundwork for Anakin Skywalker’s fall to the Dark Side. It eschews multiple storylines and tedious politics and concentrates instead on space opera Jedi action. Golden does so much right.

The Rise of Skywalker | review by Rafe McGregor

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, by J.J. Abrams (Walt Disney Studios) 

A conclusion four decades in the making. 

The release of the final instalment of the Skywalker Saga over Christmas in the UK provided me with the first opportunity to visit my fellow film nerd and former employer since moving house, in consequence of which I was very much looking forward to the whole day. The pleasant sense of anticipation offset a phenomenon that I’ve never experienced before in forty years of watching Star Wars: despite having seen both The Force Awakens (released in 2015 and directed by J.J. Abrams) and The Last Jedi (released in 2017 and directed by Rian Johnson) on the big screen, I had no recollection of where the narrative of the Sequel Trilogy had paused when the latter concluded. To make matters worse, I’d confused what little I did recall with Solo: A Star Wars Story (released in 2018 and directed by Ron Howard), which I’d also seen on the big screen (and thoroughly enjoyed) in the interim. This literal loss of plot on my part was unprecedented – unthinkable in not only the Original Trilogy so adored by my generation but even the Prequel Trilogy that proved such a palpable disappointment to so many of us. Even in The Phantom Menace (released in 1999 and directed by George Lucas) at its silliest and most spurious, there was always a clear sense of the narrative direction – working towards the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker, the destruction of the Jedi, and the beginning of A New Hope (released in 1977 and also directed by George Lucas).

Theaker's Quarterly Awards 2018: the winners!

As announced in Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #62, these are the winners of the Theaker's Quarterly Awards 2018. Voting was open to the public from February 11 to 25, and people could vote for as many items as they wanted in each category. Items were eligible if they had appeared in or were reviewed in the previous four issues of the magazine. Here are the results!

Audio

• 1st John Wyndham: BBC Radio Drama Collection, by John Wyndham et al. (BBC Worldwide)
• 2nd Children of Eden, by Joey Graceffa and Laura L. Sullivan (Simon and Schuster Audio)
• 3rd The Dispatcher, by John Scalzi (Audible)

Books

• 1st Pirate Utopia, by Bruce Sterling (Tachyon Publications)
• 2nd I Am Providence, by Nick Mamatas (Night Shade Books)
• 3rd Metronome, by Oliver Langmead (Unsung Stories)

Comics

• 1st Adventure Time: Marceline Gone Adrift, by Meredith Gran and Carey Pietsch (Boom! Studios)
• 2nd X-Men: Legacy by Simon Spurrier, Tan Eng Huat and chums (Marvel)
• 3rd The Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga, by Paul Levitz, Keith Giffen, Larry Mahlstedt and chums (DC)

Events

• 1st Eastercon 2017: Innominate
• 2nd Into the Unknown: a Journey Through Science Fiction, curated by Patrick Gyger (Barbican)

Films

• 1st Star Wars: The Last Jedi, by Rian Johnson (Lucasfilm et al.)
• 2nd Blade Runner 2049, by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green (16:14 Entertainment et al.)
• 3rd Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy (Disney)

Music

• 1st Humanz (Deluxe), by Gorillaz (Parlophone)

Television

• 1st Sherlock, Series 4, by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat (BBC One)
• 2nd Westworld, Season 1, by Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy and chums (HBO/Sky Atlantic)
• 3rd Legion, Season 1, by Noah Hawley and chums (FX)

Issue of TQF

• 1st Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #59, edited by Stephen Theaker and John Greenwood
• 2nd Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #58: Unsplatterpunk, edited by Douglas J. Ogurek
• 3rd Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #60, edited by Stephen Theaker and John Greenwood

TQF cover art

• 1st Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #60, art by Howard Watts
• 2nd Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #59, art by Howard Watts
• 3rd Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #61, art by Howard Watts

Fiction from TQF

• 1st Bound for Glory, by Allen Ashley (TQF61)
• 2nd Man + Van, by David Penn (TQF59)
• 3rd The Lost Testament, by Rafe McGregor (TQF60)

Congratulations to all the winners! To claim their prestigious Theaker’s Quarterly Awards trophy, winners should email a postal address to us at theakersquarterlyfiction@gmail.com.

The Last Jedi | review by Rafe McGregor

Johnson can’t shake the shadow of the striking Empire.

The Force Awakens (Star Wars Episode VII, released in 2015 and directed by J.J. Abrams) set up the Sequel Trilogy very much in the image of the Original Trilogy, drawing a fine line between revisiting and rebooting.  Despite the upbeat end of the latter, with the Empire defeated and Luke Skywalker a fully-fledged Jedi, the beginning of Episode VII found the galaxy far, far away in much the same state as those of us who saw Episode IV in the seventies found it.  Luke had disappeared and taken the Jedi with him; a much-aged Han Solo was scouring the galaxy for his son, Kylo Ren, with the ageless Chewy back at his side in the Millennium Falcon; and the Empire had reformed as the First Order, its rise checked by the Resistance.  Some of this came as a non sequitur: the Jedi won the Galactic Civil War and should have been re-established; junior Jedi Ren seemed to have destroyed the Jedi academy with relative ease (recalling Anakin Skywalker’s rampage in Episode III); the First Order was clearly not the first anything and the Resistance wasn’t the resistance – just the New Republican Armed Forces – if anything, the First/New Order were the resistance, challenging the New Republic’s victory.

Rogue One: a Star Wars Story, by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy (Disney) | review by Stephen Theaker

The empire has ruled the galaxy since the events of Revenge of the Sith, but the Rebellion has been growing in strength, necessitating the construction of the Death Star, a weapon of planet-busting capabilities. Jyn Erso is in the Empire’s custody, but she is sprung by rebels who hope her family connections can get them the information they need to destroy the Death Star (presumably so called because Death Sphere or Death Moon didn’t sound quite as cool). She ends up going with a ragtag band of rebels on what may be a suicide mission. She’s hoping to rescue her father (played by Mads Mikkelsen), while others in the squad have orders to kill him. Overall, this reminded me very much of the Dark Horse Star Wars comics. Respectful and serious in intent, lots of nods to the canon, well-made, but rather missing the mad invention of the six George Lucas films, which never stopped throwing new stuff at the screen even when the films weren’t all that good. One real sticking point in the film is the appearance of a character from the original Star Wars, rendered with a mix of computer animation and a body double. If this were a CGI film, he would look fantastic, but standing in a room of human actors he sticks out like a sore thumb, and one wishes they had simply recast the character. It’s not as jarring as the young Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy or the big brawl Keanu Reeves in The Matrix Reloaded, but at least in those films you could put the problems down to glitches in their electronic environments. Another problem it has is that the two lead characters are not quite as colourful as their fellow rebels. I wish I hadn’t heard that Tatiana Maslany of Orphan Black was up for the role of Jyn Erso, since she would have been so perfect for it, but Felicity Jones does everything she’s asked to do. At the last it over-reaches once again, trying for a special effect and just falling short, but if the film had ended thirty seconds earlier, one would have said it ended very well. ***

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Some rooting, but more eye rolling… Rogue One mostly no fun.

Another group of sombre characters flying from planet to planet, another father-child relationship, another bad guy turned good, another sky swarming with spacecraft. Isn’t all this Star Wars stuff starting to get a little old? I did root for the protagonists in Rogue One, but I also rolled my eyes quite a bit.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, by Lawrence Kasdan and chums | review by Jacob Edwards [spoilers]

Déjàvooine Sunrise.

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (if we may be allowed a scrolling preamble) has been released with considerable fanfare and after much anticipation. Like the birth of Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, its arrival brings together a nation of fans united in pride, patriotism, hope and nostalgia (and, be warned, young George, with a bevy of concealed weapons held at the ready). At last! A renewal of the franchise that blew up the box office in 1977 and grew quickly to become – for some people quite literally – a cinematic religion. But those who queue for midnight screenings do so with some trepidation. Given the false dawn of the prequelogy (Episodes I–III), will this merely be more of the tepid same? How will the new film tie in with the Expanded Star Wars Universe? Will the original characters return and stay true to memory three decades on? Will director J.J. Abrams bring with him an unconscionable crosspollination from the Star Trek franchise? In short, will Star Wars survive its metamorphosis to the post-Lucas era? The story continues…

Star Wars: The Force Awakens | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

This one lives up to the fever.

An acquaintance of mine arrived at Star Wars: The Force Awakens while in the throes of a fever. Director J.J. Abrams had a daunting task: to cut through this individual’s nausea, back pain, and somewhat clouded mental capacity. Plus this acquaintance wasn’t the brightest lightsaber in the bunch; what kind of guy goes to the theatre sick?

Book notes: Star Wars Legacy and more

Star Wars Tales, Vol. 6 (Dark Horse Comics) by Jeremy Barlow. Last and weakest of the series. Too glum, too serious, and too little of the major characters, so that it could try to stay in continuity more. A lot less fun than any of the previous books. ***

Star Wars: Crimson Empire III: Empire Lost (Dark Horse Comics) by Mike Richardson, Randy Stradley, Paul Gulacy, Michael Bartolo and Dave Dorman. The third adventure of Kir Kanos, former guard to Emperor Palpatine, is the first to include Luke, Leia and Han (who seem rather tetchy), but it’s the usual story of imperial remnants fighting the new republic and each other. Often hard to tell what’s happening in action scenes. ***

Star Wars: Legacy, Vol. 10: Extremes (Dark Horse Comics) by John Ostrander, Jan Duursema, Brad Anderson and Sean Cooke. Takes the series up to its cancellation with issue 50, though volume 11 continues the story by collecting a mini-series. All the plotlines that have been running keep on running. Cade Skywalker continues to draw on the power of the dark side to fight his enemies and help his friends, while the Sith, former emperors and the remnants of the alliance jockey for galactic power. Readable without being all that exciting. ***

Star Wars: Legacy, Vol. 11: War (Dark Horse Comics) by John Ostrander, Jan Duursema and Dan Parsons. Burdened with much recapping in its early pages, the miniseries collected in this volume still does a surprisingly good job of roosting all the pigeons that flapped around in books one to ten. Cade Skywalker confronts the dark side of the force, the new alliance goes for broke, and the Sith reveal their terrible new weapon. I never grew to love this series, but I read one volume after another, and that tells its own story. It’s essentially a thousand-page Star Wars graphic novel. How could I not enjoy it, at least a bit? ***

Star Wars: Legacy, Vol. 5: The Hidden Temple (Dark Horse Comics) by John Ostrander, Jan Duursema and Dan Parsons. The story steps up a gear, but Cade is still an unpleasant protagonist with terrible hair and Darth Krayt seems more like a He-Man villain than something from Star Wars. I’ll keep reading, but only because I bought the whole series in one go. ***

Star Wars: Legacy, Vol. 7: Storms (Dark Horse Comics) by John Ostrander, Omar Fancia, Jan Duursema, Dan Parsons and Brad Anderson. More adventures in the post-Luke future of Star Wars. An imperial knight helps the Mon Calamari fight back against the Sith, underwater, and Cade Skywalker continues his aimless, charmless meanderings around the galaxy. ***

Star Wars: Legacy, Vol. 8: Tatooine (Dark Horse Comics) by John Ostrander, Jan Duursema, Dan Parsons and Brad Anderson. The most obnoxious brat in comics turns to ripping off pirates but they get wise to his force tricks and his stay on Tatooine ends up being longer than planned. Elsewhere in the galaxy far, far away we see how a Mandalorian (like Boba Fett) came to join Rogue Squadron, and what happens when his vengeful ex-wife finds him there. ***

Star Wars: Vector, Vol. 2 (Dark Horse Comics) by Rob Williams, John Ostrander, Dustin Weaver, Jan Duursema and Dan Parsons. The second half of a crossover between four ongoing Star Wars titles. This contains one story with Luke Skywalker set during the rebellion, and one set over a century later with Cade Skywalker. The connection is a long-lived former Jedi, Celeste Morne, who is bonded with the Muur talisman and the Sith consciousness within it. As well as volume two of Vector, this also stands as volume four of Rebellion and volume six of Legacy, a bizarre set-up that left me searching fruitlessly for the latter after having bought the other ten volumes in a sale. In this book Cade teams up with a trio of Imperial Knights and Celeste Morne to make an assassination attempt on Darth Krayt. It’s okay. ***

Merry Christmas everybody!

Book notes #9

Notes and ratings from TQF50 and TQF51 for books I didn’t review for TQF. Credits from Goodreads; apologies to anyone miscredited or missing.

Star Wars Tales, Vol. 1 (Dark Horse Books), by Jim Woodring and Dave Land. Entertaining anthology of non-canonical stories. ***

Star Wars Tales, Vol. 2 (Dark Horse Books) by Dave Land (ed.). Enjoyable series of short stories set in all periods and places and plotholes of the Star Wars universe. The adventures of Luke’s severed hand and Darth Vader’s encounter in Cloud City with C3PO were highlights for me, but it’s all pretty good. Shame that Dark Horse have lost the license, it looks like they were making the most of it. ***

Star Wars Tales, Vol. 3 (Dark Horse Books) by Dave Land (ed.). Includes two strips written by Garth Ennis: how Han Solo won the Millenium Falcon from Lando Calrissian, and the life story of the first stormtrooper sent on to the rebel ship in Episode IV. My favourite strip was Jay Stephen’s “The Rebel Four”, Star Wars in the style of Jack Kirby. ***

Star Wars Tales, Vol. 4 (Dark Horse Books) by Dave Land (ed.). Another good collection of out-of-continuity Star Wars stories, including some focusing on Mace Windu and, more interestingly, Darth Vader. ***

Star Wars Tales, Vol. 5 (Dark Horse Books) by Dave Land (ed.). Best in the series so far, including a set of stories from indie comics creators like Tony Millionaire, Jason, Peter Bagge and Gilbert Hernandez. I could have gone for much, much more than four pages of James Kochalka’s “Milton Fett”, the useless younger cousin. ****

Star Wars: Crimson Empire (Dark Horse Books) by Mike Richardson, Randy Stradley, Paul Gulacy, P. Craig Russell, Konot, Sean and Dave Dorman. A surviving member of the Imperial Guard goes after a traitor, bringing him into a temporary alliance with the new republic. Follows on from other expanded universe stories where the Emperor was resurrected in clone bodies; a bit confusing if you don’t know that. It’s okay. ***

Star Wars: Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison (Dark Horse Books) by W. Haden Blackman, Randy Stradley, Agustan Alessio and Dave Wilkins. A very good story about Darth Vader, a young cadet and another bad guy protecting the Emperor after an attack on Coruscant by Imperial rebels, by taking him to recover in a forgotten prison established by the jedi to house the prisoners of war captured by one Anakin Skywalker. Makes you think a Darth Vader film would be a really good idea. ****

Star Wars: Legacy, Vol. 1: Broken (Dark Horse Books) by John Ostrander, Jan Duursema, Dan Parsons and Adam Hughes. Set a century or so into the future of the Star Wars universe, when the Sith once more rule the empire. The previous emperor, who wasn’t a Sith, plots his return to the throne. Cade Skywalker works as a bounty hunter, and he plans to turn in the former emperor’s feisty daughter. Decent, not amazing. A bit depressing to think the new republic will fall so quickly. ***

Star Wars: Tag & Bink Were Here (Dark Horse Books) by Kevin Rubio and friends. A Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the Star Wars universe. Not quite as much fun or as clever as that sounds. ***

Steed and Mrs Peel, Vol. 2: The Secret History of Space (BOOM! Studios) by Yasmin Liang, Caleb Monroe and Will Sliney. Felt a bit straightforward after the wildness of the Grant Morrison volume. ***

Steed and Mrs Peel, Vol. 3: The Return of the Monster (BOOM! Studios) by Caleb Monroe and Yasmin Liang. Steed and Mrs Peel are faced with the return of an old foe from the TV series, at least I think so – I’ve only seen a handful of episodes. Readable without being remarkable. ***

Steed and Mrs. Peel: The Golden Game (BOOM! Studios), by Grant Morrison, Anne Caulfield and Ian Gibson. Liked it, but a problem with the colour separations made it difficult to read. ***

Suddenly, Zombies (self-published), by Amanda C. Davis. Quirky pair of short stories, one about zombies on a spaceship, the other about giant zombie gorillas. Cheap and cheerful. ***

The Making of Star Wars by J.W. Rinzler / review by Jacob Edwards

A mile-long star ship, an alien cantina and a dogfight in space. Everything else is detail.

Anybody who by 1977 had been associated with SF being made for either the small or the big screen would attest that Star Wars (later subtitled: A New Hope) changed everything. It is perhaps difficult to appreciate the enormity of Star Wars’ impact in retrospect of all the flashy SF and CGI-driven fluff that has come after – one would have to judge the movie only in the context of filmmaking to that point in time; which, like requiring a jury to disregard evidence, is asking the impossible – but even those who were born too late to experience Star Wars upon its original cinematic release perhaps will have found themselves drawn into watching it on DVD (often several times) or habitually whensoever it is shown on television, commercials and all. The franchise nowadays is taken for granted, as are the visual effects for which Star Wars was the forerunner, yet in its day the movie was an unprecedented phenomenon – as suddenly huge as it was unexpected – and weighing in at 362 large, glossy pages (28cm x 26cm), the majority of which are resplendent with production photographs, artwork and designs, J.W. Rinzler’s The Making of Star Wars (Aurum Press, 362pp; 2013; first published: Ebury Press, 2007) both establishes the cinematic milieu in which George Lucas’s film was made and goes a long way towards fostering an appreciation of its significance. Drawing for the most part on rediscovered interviews that Lucasfilm vice-president Charles Lippincott had conducted between 1975 and 1978 for a “making of…” book that went unwritten, Rinzler promises his readers a host of contemporaneous recollections and thence the definitive account of Star Wars both as it unfolded and as it was perceived shortly after completion, before the effects of its trailblazing became fully evident: in other words, the inside story of a history that was still very much in the making.

Star Wars: Maul – Lockdown by Joe Schreiber / review by Jacob Edwards

Blowing the horns of dilemma.

When the first Star Wars prequel, A Phantom Menace, was unveiled with grandiose, heraldic fanfare across cinema screens in 1999, the lightsaber thrum of expectation was always likely to sputter and fizzle. Disappointed, we were, and not just with Jar Jar Binks. There was also Darth Maul: the red-skinned, horned and tattooed, mad-eyed, devil-modelled Sith Lord, whose agility and snarling savagery promised a danger no less than that of the dark, prowling power of Vader, but whose ultimate delivery – standing non compos mentis while an erstwhile-dangling Obi-Wan springs up and out of the reactor shaft, force-grabs Qui-Gon Jinn’s lightsaber, somersaults over Maul’s head and cuts him in half – proved utterly, almost insultingly flaccid. This was someone with the Force aptitude to wield a double-bladed lightsaber and take on two Jedi simultaneously. To die with such ineptness… It was a dramatic let-down, the emotionally hollow like of which could only be achieved by such clumsy scripting as having Obi-Wan Kenobi, rather than allowing Darth Vader to strike him down in A New Hope, instead merely tripping on his own robes and accidentally impaling himself on Vader’s lightsaber. To have Maul dispatched in so undignified a manner was to reduce a martial virtuoso to the level of an extra from Japanese fight-fantasy Monkey, and pratfalling along with him went any aspirations the prequelogy might have harboured to match strokes with the original Star Wars saga.

Vale, Darth Maul: the true phantom menace of the film.

Star Wars: Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn, reviewed by Jacob Edwards

Star Wars: Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn (Ballantine, 393pp). Once a force, ensnared now by grappling tendrils, unsurprisingly the colossus must stumble.

The Imperial Death Star has been destroyed – no small thanks to Han Solo – but Han has lost his reward money, and so he and Chewbacca must find some other way to pay back Jabba the Hutt. Retrieving stolen credit tabs from a Black Sun sector chief might seem a risky prospect, especially while his Falleen boss is staying as houseguest, but a torpid, slobbering Hutt is driving Han’s needs; and besides, the payoff for this job promises to be as big as the safe is impregnable. Trusting to his gambler’s luck, Han starts putting a team together.