Paging Ray Kurzweil: Meaningless Reviews in a Galaxy Even Further Away
Before the prequels, before Jar Jar, long before Rey and Kylo Ren, George Lucas kept the nerds satisfied by keeping the story of Luke and Leia and Han going in the pages of books and comics, all of which was negated when Disney purchased the franchise in 2012. This is a meaningless review of one of these stories, itself part of a larger run comprised of nineteen novels. For a full explanation of this review and series, click here. All previous installments can be found here.
In this installment, we’ve got several of the most convoluted plans ever conceived….
Number 16 (We’ve got three left!), the second in Sean Williams and Shane Dix’s Force Heretic Trilogy, also known as The Backburner Chronicles, this one is called Refugee. It was published in the spring of 2003.
Attack of the Clones is a bad, bad movie. It’s not the worst one — Phantom Menace is definitely worse, but Phantom Menace is also not really related to anything else that happens onscreen, so I usually don’t even count it — but yikes.
Probably the worst thing about it was the love story. Here, see how long you can last watching this scene:
The dialogue was pretty much universally awful, and the acting (with the exception of Ewan McGregor) wasn’t much better.
That said, there is one thing about the movie that worked rather well — the unraveling of a conspiracy by Obi Wan and the unspooling horror by the Jedi of just how thoroughly the Dark Lord of the Sith had maneuvered them into a corner.
A conspiracy plotline does a lot of heavy lifting on its own. Conspiracy — the idea that there are greater and more sinister forces at play — is one of the most compelling ideas that we have in a largely secular, modern world. They combine the thrill of discovery and the tessellating satisfaction of detective work with the horror of the “true” nature of the world and the fake sense of catharsis that comes from being the only one to leave Plato’s Cave. If this all sounds unbelievable, please note that Alex Jones is a multi-millionaire for his efforts and parts of the American Left have spent the past six months running with the “Russian Connection” conspiracy well past the point of realism or usefulness.
Anyways, the one in Attack of the Clones works because the conspiracy is fairly simple, the discovery of the clues is well plotted out, the size of the conspiracy is proportional to the universe it inhabits, no one monologues about the specifics of the plan, and the rest is all ass kicking on desert planets.
The writers of Refugee were clearly going for something similar, but ended up just gunking up the works.
Here’s your plot, or as much as could be deciphered of it:
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Cast: As always, the characters I have previously discussed are described by an asterisk, and if you feel like taking a looong detour through the lands of geekery, the links here will take you to Wookiepeedia
By this point in the trilogy, our gang has split into two major groups.
Group A: This is the group searching for a sentient planet that got spooked by the Yuuzhan Vong fifty years before the invasion and may hold the key to defeating the aliens.
Luke & Mara Jade Skywalker*
Jacen Solo*
Danni Quee:* Someone has a crush on Jacen, after totally letting him down easy earlier in the series, back when he sucked.
Saba Sebatyne*
Arien Yage: A commander of an allied imperial vessel assigned to the mission after the last novel.
Group B: This is the group tasked with running around the galaxy resolving local disputes with the various xenophobic alien groups that were dreamed up by the minds behind the Expanded Universe whenever they got tired of making the Empire the antagonist forces in the novels.
Han & Leia Organa Solo*
Jaina Solo*
Tahiri Veila*
Malinza Thanas: A fifteen-year-old adopted niece of Luke Skywalker’s (a long story) Thanas is a native of the planet Bakura, which is bordered by the territory of the Ssi-Ruuk, the aforementioned xenophobic aliens. She’s wrapped up in intrigue on the planet, having founded a resistance group called Freedom, which, come on, you come up with a better name for your group when you’re fifteen.
Molierre Cundertol: Prime Minister of Bakura, Cundertol was kidnapped (or was he?) just prior to the events of this novel, but managed to make a heroic escape (or did he?). Winner of the “Most Star Wars name possible” award.
Blaine Harris: Deputy Prime Minister of Bakura, Harris is an ally of Thanas (or is he?) and supportive of a peace treaty with the Ssi-Ruuk (or is he?)
The Keeramak: One of the Ssi-Ruuk, the alien is a lizard with multicolored scales. The amazing technicolor dream reptoid. Anyways, that’s supposed to signify a messianic figure in the alien culture. The Keeramak subsequently led a rebellion to overthrow his own race and elevate the P’weck, a different alien race that the Ssi-Ruuk used as slaves (or did it?).
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Developments:
- Arien Yage is supposed to be one of the better imperial captains, but immediately throws a shit fit when confronted by a different military commander.
- Luke and company are able to access a library that will give them the information they need in order to find the rogue planet. All of the information is stored in books — like actual, paper books.
*stops, slowly turns head to gaze directly into the camera*
“Behold, the power of the written word!”
- We’re treated to scenes of the gang sitting around the library reading and learning the dewey decimal system, which is as riveting as it sounds. The writers try to spruce it up by showing it from the giant reptoid Saba’s point of view, like it’s a ferocious hunt, as opposed to a thesis research project.
*Breaks fourth wall again while pushing glasses up my face so hard that I break my nose*
“What’s the difference?”
- Nom Anor continues his cult leader shtick, preaching heresy to the disenfranchised underclasses of Yuuzhan Vong society. He’s back to being the master troll from the very beginning of the series, and is totally free of the bureaucratic nonsense he got tied up in earlier in the series.
- Malinza Thanas follows a religion called The Balance, which is apparently represented by this symbol, which looks like what happens when you are trying to draw the Tao symbol but you‘re drawing from memory, you have a terrible memory, and your only tool is Microsoft Paint.
- The Ssi-Ruuk have perfected a way of harvesting souls and minds and putting them in droid bodies. It’s enslavement, but it’s also a limited form of transhumanism.
- Cundertol betrays Bakura to the Ssi-ruuk in return for this process, guaranteeing himself immortality and a rockin’ droid body, which is not something I’d put past Peter Thiel or Ray Kurzweil if given the chance. It would be pretty sweet to have a rockin’ droid body, tbh.
- The imperials traveling with Luke also include a contingent of stormtroopers, who are immediately sacrificed to the great god of science fiction, Redshirt.
- Turns out that Blaine Harris — who, by the way, is the only person in the entire goddamn series with a normal name — also had an evil conspiracy plot, separate from Cundertol’s. Does the book get around to the denouement of this conspiracy way too late in the game? Yes! Does that mean that Harris has to reveal his plan by monologuing to a captive audience? Yes!
- Malinza Thanas is, at the tender age of fifteen, the leader of her political group. She’s got a thing for one of her fellow freedom fighters. He’s twenty-three. The laws on Bakura must be different.
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Final Thoughts: Skip this one. There are three incomprehensible plots going on here, interrupted, as I mentioned above, by some real tedious library scenes. Just as the series should be rocketing towards a thrilling climax, the opposite is happening. And I understand the idea of calm before the storm, but it is badly done here.
This has been Meaningless Reviews in a Galaxy Even Further away, in which I read through the entirety of The New Jedi Order and write about it.
