The Battle of Yavin

What were Palpatine, Yoda, and Lando up to during the Battle of Yavin? Answers within:

When I started the ambitious project of reviewing each of the 40 stories in the collection “From a Certain Point of View”, I didn’t realize how ambitious it was. I’ve written over 5,000 words on this collection, which is certainly longer than many of the stories in the book itself. 

“Time of Death” by Cavan Scott
This story was advertised as Obi-Wan’s “Life after death”. I think fans were hoping to get Kenobi’s experience of actually being a dead Force Ghost, but that is not exactly what this story is about. Mostly there is a lot of flashbacks of Kenobi’s life, and some glimpses into the future (such as Old Luke standing on the Island on Ahch-To).

Much of the material covered is Obi-Wan living on Tatooine watching over Luke. Some of this has been covered in the comics, and some of it in John Jackson Miller’s non-canon book “Kenobi”. Although some elements here are similar to Miller’s book (the fact that Kenobi has an Eopie) noticeable changes have been made (The Eopie here is named Neda instead of Rooh). Maybe the message to fans is that some of the broad strokes of Miller’s “Kenobi” are accurate, but not all the details are exactly correct.

“There is Another” by Gary D. Schmidt
This might be my favorite story of this collection. The tale features Yoda on planet Dagobah, who has been hiding from the Empire for the better part of two decades. Yoda misses his students, his friends, his lightsaber. The most enlightening part of this tale is that Yoda’s dream is that one day he will train another padawan, specifically Leia Organa. This makes some sense because in “The Empire Strikes Back”, Yoda doesn’t want to train Luke and he refers to “another”, which we later find out is Leia. Yoda sees Leia as the more focussed and mature of the twins, whereas Luke is too emotional and brash, much like his father.

Yoda sees a bit of action in this tale and there are many Yoda-isms (as if the guy only has a hand-full of stock phrases that we heard in Empire Strikes Back). The strongest part of this tale is Yoda’s loneliness and his joy when he finally gets his friend back.

“Palpatine” by Ian Doescher
"Palpatine" is a Shakespearean-style poem written from Palaptine’s point of view. It was written by Ian Doesher, the author of the many Shakespearean Star Wars Novels. Even though I enjoy the concept of this tale, I find that many of the rhymes are quite a stretch, as if an eighth-grader were trying to turn Star Wars into Shakespeare. Kind of glad I haven’t spent any time or money on Doescher’s Shakespearean Star Wars books.

“Sparks” by Paul S. Kemp

The concept of this collection starts to strain in the latter quarter of this book. This strain is most apparent in the four stories dedicated to the Battle of Yavin. All four stories are told from the Point of View of Rebels and all four stories are remarkably similar to the point that we just get a retelling of the same story, only written by four different authors. Why this collection wouldn’t focus on the Trench Run from an Imperial point of view is a mystery… my assumption is that the editor gave the authors' too much choice in their “point of view” characters and too many authors picked similar characters. 

Of these four stories, the most useless is “Sparks”. The story focuses on Dex Tiree, a Y-Wing pilot that no Star Wars fan really cares about. I honestly can’t fathom why this tale exists.

“Duty Roster” by Jason Fry

This story has an interesting concept, but it is one that will be lost on 99.9% of Star Wars fans. Only a Star Wars Uber-Nerd who has spent the last five years writing a Star Wars blog is likely to get the inside joke, so I will attempt to explain it.

In the rebel briefing room scene there is a character that says “That’s impossible, even for a computer”. Apparently the script and novelization of "A New Hope" identifies this character as Wedge Antilles, although during the dogfight Wedge is portrayed by a totally different actor: Dennis Lawson (who also portrays Wedge in Empire and Jedi). At some point fans started referring to the actor in the briefing room scene as “Fake Wedge”.

“Fake Wedge” exists because an actor named Collin Higgins was hired to play Wedge Antillies, but kept flubbing his lines. Therefore, he was fired immediately after filming the briefing room scene and the role of dogfight Wedge was given to Dennis Lawson.

What "Duty Roster" artfully does is insinuate that Collin Higgin’s character is someone named Col Tak right, who has the nickname “Fake Wedge” among the pilots of Gold Squadron and Red Squadron. The story explains that a Mon Calamari officer who cannot tell humans apart, accidentally called Col, "Wedge".

“Fake Wedge” is not picked for the Death Star run mission, which angers him. It’s worth noting that the alliance has only 30 ships and too many pilots to fill those ships. How Luke Skywalker was picked as one of the X-Wing pilots over other rebel pilots is kind of perplexing, especially when you consider that he was chosen to be the wing-leader of Wedge and Biggs who are established Rebel Pilots.

Overall, this might be the strongest of the four “Trench Run” stories in this collection because of the character growth that "Fake Wedge" undergoes.

“Desert Son” by Pierce Brown

This is the same story as the previous two tales, it just focuses on Biggs. The story does note that Biggs and Wedge both defected from the Empire. A lot of Star Wars fans don’t realize that when Luke wants to join “The Academy” he is talking about the Imperial Academy. This is actually covered in the “Lost Tatooine Scenes” which were part of the original cut of “A New Hope”. Bottom line is that Luke was almost a Tie Fighter pilot.

“Grounded” by Greg RukaThis is an almost-interesting story by Greg Rucka about the Rebel maintenance chief. She has memorized the Statistics of all her pilots and during The Battle of Yavin she loses all of them (except for Wedge Antillies and Evaan Verlaine). Ultimately this tale is the fourth tale about the Battle of Yavin in this collection and the results are always the same… Death Star Go Boom.

“Contingency Plan” by Alexander Freed
This story describes Mon Mothma fleeing Yavin 4, prior to the Battle of Yavin. The story goes on to describe the many potential futures in which Mothma must face the consequences of her decisions. None of these futures are hopeful and as Mothma reflects on what is to become of her, she drafts a speech in which she will disavow her allegiance to the Rebellion.

“The Angle” by Charles Soule

Charles Soule wrote the limited comic series “Lando” and he really writes Lando better than anyone. This tale tells of Lando down on his luck in an illegal casino. It seems like Lando’s luck is about to turn around for the better when Imperials shut down the casino and Lando is rendered totally broke. Later, in a bar, Lando has spent his last credit when he sees something odd on the holovid. It’s a space battle. The Rebellion against the Empire. And in the middle of the battle he sees a ship… His Ship! The Millennium Falcon! As a gambler, Lando is quite perplexed why Han Solo would be betting on the Rebel Alliance. After all, it is the Empire who is “The House” and the game is rigged. “The House” always wins… doesn’t it?

“By Whatever Sun” by E. K. Johnston and Ashley Eckstein

Many authors of this collection chose to focus on a “pet character”. By "pet character" I mean, a character that they previously created for another one of their works.

For John Jackson Miller, it was A'Yark, the female Tusken warrior who originated in his book “Kenobi”.  For Kieron Gillen it is Doctor Aphra, who he created for his "Vader" comic line. For Ben Ackner and Ben Blacker it is TC-110, a stormtrooper who appears in their book “Escape from Vodron”.

E.K. Johnson and Ashley Eckstein chose to focus their tale on Miara Larte, who first appeared in the novel “Ahsoka”. I’m not gonna lie, "Ahsoka" was not only the worse Star Wars book I have read for a while, It’s the worse book, period. Miara Larte is a character who is instantly forgettable and who did not need to be brought back for further adventures.

The entirety of this tale takes place during the Medal Ceremony scene after the Battle of Yavin (as if we needed a story set during the Medal Ceremony)

“Whills” by Tom Angleberger

You may need to be a Uber-Geek to recognize the reference to “The Journal of Whills” in the final story in this collection. This journal dates back to Lucas’ original draft of Star Wars in which the journal has somehow made it out of the Star Wars galaxy and into our galaxy. That is how Earthlings know what transpired “A Long Time Ago… In A Galaxy Far, Far, Away”.

As recently as 2005, Lucas stated that it was his intention that R2-D2 would record the journal long after the Skywalker adventures had finished, similar to how Bilbo Baggins is writing his journal in “The Hobbit”.

The name Whills pops up again in Rogue One where we see “The Guardians of Whills” on Jedha whose members include Chirrut and Baze.

For the purposes this collection, “Whills” is a comical story in which a "Keeper of Whills" is attempting to record his tale when another "Keeper" comes along and asks why he is starting with the Rebellion against the Empire? Why isn’t he starting with The Clone Wars and Jar Jar? The two "Keepers" bicker for a while about the best place to starts and eventually there is some off-hand references to the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special. This is a short tale and a fun way to end this collection.

Words, Words, Words
It seems for every Star Wars book I read, there is another Star Wars book I haven’t read. Which is okay, the entire point of Star Wars novels is to keep us entertained until another movie comes along.

Not long now, my friends…