The New Star Wars?
14 Sunday Apr 2013
Tag Archives: Star Wars
Today”s Humor: Star Wars, Sort Of
21 Thursday Feb 2013
Tags
Love these Robot Chicken guys.
Star Wars: Scoundrels – Timothy Zahn
02 Wednesday Jan 2013
Posted in Books
Tags
Timothy Zahn is a favorite author both for his original works and his Star Wars tie-ins. He, along with James Luceno, are the only authors that can draw me back into the Star Wars 
universe anymore.
SCOUNDRELS is set shortly after the film Star Wars(I refuse to call it chapter four: A New Hope; it was Star Wars when I saw it in the theater and read the Alan Dean Foster novelization). Han Solo is still in need of credits, having lost the reward for aiding the rebellion, to pay off Jabba The Hut. He’s approached by a wounded man wanting his aid in recovering a fortune in credit tabs stolen from him by a member of the Black Sun criminal organization.
They’ll be tough to recover so he recruits a team of eleven, all with specialties needed to pull off the con. It’s been called an Ocean’s Eleven homage which is certainly true.
Great story with several other homages as well. Early in the book we get one to the first Star Wars movie and late in the book we get one to an early sequence in Raiders of The Lost Ark. Apparently I’m only the second reviewer to catch that one.
Since Luke and Leia are not present in this novel, and only briefly mentioned, I would place it as happening at the same time as Alan Dean Foster’s novel, SPLINTER OF THE MIND’S EYE, where only Luke, Leia, and Darth Vader appear. It was written before the first film was even released and illustrates, to me anyway, that Lucas’s admonitions to the contrary, Han Solo was originally a minor character that wasn’t meant to appear again. And Luke and Leia were not brother and sister, Darth was not their father. Han Solo getting so much attention upset the apple cart so to speak.
And finally, there’s a great reveal on the last page of SCOUNDRELS I didn’t see coming.
Highly recommended and can be ordered HERE.
Winner Lose All is a prequel novella to SCOUNDRELS involving Lando and a few of the participants of the novel. A Sabacc tournament, a fabulous prize to the winner(worth fifty million credits), murder and frame-ups, and our four heroes working to reverse things. A nice, tight little story.
On Disney’s Acquisition of Lucasfilm
07 Wednesday Nov 2012
Star Wars IV: A New Hope
03 Wednesday Sep 2008
Posted in movies
Tags
I just caught the end of the first Star Wars movie( dubbed A New Hope) on Spike TV. I’ve never liked that title. When I originally saw the film in theaters, It was Star Wars. No episode IV. No A New Hope.
The point of this post is that I noticed a giant plot hole for the first time. Understand, I’ve seen this movie God knows how many times. I never caught this hole in the plot(big enough to drove a Mack truck through as the old saying goes) before My only excuse is it has been a number of years since I last saw this film and, though I have seen it a lot, I WAS much younger then.
The plot hole is this. In the climatic sequence, the rebel fighters are attacking the Death Star, desperately trying to destroy it before the rebel base was in range of the “super” weapon. During this sequence, the movie cuts back and forth between the space battle and scene on the Death Star bridge, where a computer voice intones, “Eight minutes until rebel base is in range, five minutes until in range, three minutes,”etc, etc.
My question now is what was the command staff waiting for? Once it was declared they were in range, they were ordered to fire when ready. Just in the nick of time, Luke delivered the killing blow, destroying the Death Star, and saving the day.
But…. This super weapon had destroyed Leia’s home planet, Alderaan, earlier in the movie. They were in range as soon as they fell in orbit. Destroy the planet, destroy the rebel base and kill off Leia and all the leaders of the Alliance. Rebellion over.
Of course that would have screwed up the drama of the climactic battle scene. I don’t know how I missed it all the other times I have seen this movie. No excuses. And I probably missed discussions of this somewhere down the line, but I don’t remember ever hearing a hue and cry about this “giant” hole in the plot.
Go ahead, call me an old stick in the mud. Jut shut up and enjoy the movie.
