Who Owns the Mos Eisley Cantina Anyway?

(Part Two of: From a Certain Point of View- Review)

To quickly answer the question in the title of this blog- It’s a Wookiee named Chalmun, therefore the Cantina is technically called “Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina”. Why a Wookiee from Kashyyyk would be on Tatooine…. as Johnnie Cochran would say “That does not make sense!” But apparently this fact has been canon since a 1993 roleplaying game.

There are at least two bartenders at Chalmun’s. One is Wuher (the one who doesn’t like droids) and on the nightshift you’ve got Ackemena who was played by Bea Arthur (one of the Golden Girls) in the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special.

The rest of this blog will focus on stories 11-17 in the book “From A Certain Point of View”. These are the Mos Eisley Cantina Stories. Many of these sideline characters haven’t been heard from since the anthology “Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina” published in 1995.

“Not for Nothing” by Mur Lafferty
In “Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina” there was a story centered on Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes called “We Don’t Do Weddings”. As far as I can tell this story is more or less a sequel to that one. “Not For Nothing” addresses the fact that Bith have large eyes, no eye-lids and are living on a desert planet where sand is always blowing around (a fact which some of the band members are NOT okay with).

“We Don’t Serve Their Kind Here” by Chuck Wendig

Wuher is the bartender at the Mos Eisley Cantina. Surprisingly very little has been written about this character in the old Expanded Universe or the new. A role-playing game gave him the name Cedo Partu in 1997, but the name never caught on, and so Cedo is now Wuher.

Anyway, Wuher is basically a good guy, just a little grizzled- And he has a right to be. He was orphaned during the Clone Wars when droids invaded his home planet- Thus his dislike for droids. Really, Wuher is as lovable as any harmless curmudgeon.

“The Kloo Horn Cantina Caper” by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction
The longest story in this collection so far focuses on many patrons of the Cantina including Kabe the Chadra Fan, Muftak the Talz, Myo the Abyssin, and Djas Puhr the Sakiyan. 

This story is not without humor considering you have Matt Fracion of “Sex Criminals” fame as one of its authors. In the end, wagers are made and serendipitous events occur.

“Added Muscle” by Paul Dini
The shortest story in this collection so far focuses on Boba Fett. Instead of revealing any details about Fett’s motivations (which is what these stories generally do) , we get to see a lot of his personality, which is a treat. The prose is quite strong here, and it is certainly the most artistically crafted piece in this novel.

“You Owe Me a Ride” by Zoraida Córdova

This tale is one of the weakest and easily forgettable of the collection so far. It stars the Tonnika sisters, Brea and Senni, who are not the most memorable of Star Wars characters to the point where they don’t even have action figures. I would have bet good money on the fact that every single Cantina-goer had an action figure counterpart, but not true for Brea and Senni. Apparently, Lucasfilm did not get a waiver signed from the actresses to use their likeliness and to this day the only toy that exists is a single micro-machine miniature (not even a pair for each twin). I realize now that I used to own this figure, but was not able to locate it for the purposes of reposting.

“The Secrets of Long Snoot” by Delilah S. Dawson
Garindan ezz Zavor is the long snooted bounty hunter who reported on the location of Ben, Luke, R2 & 3-PO in the Mos Eisley Space Port. This tale is the “Twelve Years a Slave” version of Star Wars because it turns out that Garindan used to be a rich socialite on his homeworld, but the Galactic Empire took him into slavery. Now he’s just trying to earn enough creds to escape Tatooine and get back to his family. Yet time is running out. 

“Born in the Storm” by Daniel José Older
Born in the Storm presents an incident report filled out by stormtrooper TD-7556 about the goings-on in the hunt for two rebel droids on Tatooine. TD-7556 is one of the troopers that stopped Luke and Ben’s landspeeder and asked to see identification. TD-7556 is not the one that Ben pulls his Jedi mind trick on- he’s the other one. The one that just wants his day to end so that he can get a tall glass of booze down at the Cantina. TD-7556 doesn’t hate the Empire because of any evil thing they have done, he just hates the Empire because he hates his job. We’ll call this story the “Office Space” version of Star Wars. This incident report is the final communication to his employers before he decides to metaphorically take a bat to the copy machine.

Until Next Time

I decided to keep this blog focused on Mos Eisley, so I’m not quite halfway through this book yet. If you haven’t picked up a copy of “From a Certain Point of View” it is available at your local library. Happy Reading Star Wars Fans!

From a Certain Point of View Part 1

“From a Certain Point of View” has a concept so interesting, one wonders how it has not been done before. Essentially the book is a retelling of the original 1977 Star Wars film, but told from the perspective of side characters. The 40 stories are written by 43 authors and I will be covering 10 per week until the end of the month.

Raymus by Gary Whitta

Raymus Antilles is quite an obscure Star Wars character, but he has been played by 3 different actors in 3 different Star Wars films. He is the captain of the Tantive IV and this story bridges the gap between the last scene of Rogue One and the first scene of A New Hope. The story, if nothing else, tells why Tantive IV is being pursued in sublight speed rather than just warping right to Yavin IV. Antillies meets his end when he is choked to Death by Vader in the opening scenes of A New Hope, which is where this tale leaves off and the next tale begins.

 The Bucket by Christie Golden

TK-4601 is the stormtrooper who stunned Princess Leia shortly after she gave the Death Star plans to R2. Like FN-2187 would do in the distant future, TK-4601 questions many things about the Empire he serves. He seems to have a soft spot for the princess that he captures. TK-4601 also appears in Christie Golden’s novel “Battlefront II: Inferno Squadron”.

The Sith of Datawork by Ken Liu

This story is full of wit and sarcasm and its purpose is to explain why the Death Star trooper does not blast R2 and 3-PO’s escape pod to smithereens when it was determined that it had no life signs. Apparently the Empire was rewarding employees on a shot-to-kill ratio, meaning if a rebel didn’t die, the shot would count against your record. The story also focuses on bureaucratic paper-pusher who is a master of her trade and is one of the highlights of the first quarter of this collection.

Stories in the Sand by Griffin McElroy

Jot, the Jawa, is aware of the galaxy outside of Tatooine and would do anything to escape it. When Jot encounters a blue astromech droid, he learns of a heist that could change the fate of the galaxy. Jot’s decisions become intertwined with the fate of the droid and decisions are ultimately made.

Rerin by Sabaa Tahir

This story is kind of an oddball and doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of this book. Rerin is a Tusken Raider who steals half of a green crystal from some Jawas. Rerin escapes with the shard, and that’s pretty much it. The implication is that the shard is half of a kyber crystal, I guess, but the story seems disconnected from any bit of Star Wars canon that I know about.

The Red One by Rae Carson

This story tells the tale of R5-D4, the red droid with the bad motivator that Luke and Owen almost purchased from the Jawas before settling on R2. While listening to this tale, I noticed immediately that it was very similar to the 1999 comic “Skippy, the Jedi Droid”. Both stories insinuate that R5-D4 self destructed on purpose to help R2 on his quest.

Rites by John Jackson Miller

I was sort of floored by this story because it tied in perfectly with my John Jackson Miller journey that started with a question that I posed to him in May. “If you could choose one of your old Expanded Universe characters to bring into the new Disney canon, who would you choose?” Miller told me that he would choose Gryph, but what Miller didn’t tell me (couldn’t tell anyone because of secrecy) was that he had already brought back A’Yark.

A’Yark was the female Tusken warrior in Miller’s novel Kenobi, which I read in August and is a part of the Old Expanded Universe. “Rites” seems to insinuate that everything that happened in his novel “Kenobi” is accepted in the New Disney Canon. By extension of that you could also accept into Canon the events of Star Wars: Outlander (A prequel-era comic) and probably many other connected comics.

I’m very surprised that keeper-of-canon, Pablo Hidalgo, would allow Miller to blur the lines between the new Disney Canon and the Old Expanded Universe Canon, especially with the prospect of a Kenobi prequel film in the works. 

Still, it is very cool for fans of Miller to see A’Yark back in the fold. Especially since she’s the only character I know of, after Grand Admiral Thrawn, to be “Re-Canon-Ized”.

Master and Apprentice by Claudia Grey

After writing three Star Wars novels in the past few years, Grey brings us a short story focused on the Force Ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn. While Luke looks on over the dead bodies of his Aunt and Uncle, Qui-Gon appears to Obi-Wan to talk about the boy’s familial past, and the destiny that shapes his future. Jinn seems to actually be able to see the future. It’s nice to see this Master/Apprentice pair interact with eachother after 20 years since Phantom Menace. The character of Qui-Gon has been mostly absent from Star Wars since Disney took over.

Beru Whitesun Lars by Meg Cabot

A brief story told in first person by Beru Whitesun Lars, who is reflecting on her life after she was killed in a Stormtrooper raid. Blue Milk and Bantha Cheese are frequently mentioned.

The Luckless Rodian by Renée Ahdieh

Greedo seems to hate Han Solo, quite a bit. I guess Han might have stole a love interest from him or something? This book ends with Greedo’s demise and, though there is no evidence that would conclusively settles the "Who Shot First" debate, this story seems to insinuate that Han was the only one who shot.

That’s all for now. I’ll be back next week with 10 more stories

The Phasma Menace

Some fans have compared Captain Phasma to Boba Fett, in that she is a well-designed villain without much screen time. Yet fans still feel connected to her because of the potential for her character. We don’t quite know what is under the mask, and that can sometimes be a good thing. Some fans note that she is the first female villain in the Star Wars film franchise (unless you count Zam Wessel).

The funny thing is that “she” was very nearly a “he”. In fact the only reason that Phasma is a woman at all is that Gwendolyn Christie campaigned so hard to be part of “The Force Awakens”. She nagged her agent for weeks until finally he got her a part, only three weeks before principal photography. Phasma was originally designed to be male, but was changed to female during the casting process. Of course, this didn’t stop fanboys from crying “forced diversity”.

Many, including Christie, note that the character of Phasma is breaking new ground for blockbuster Hollywood films, in that she is a strong female that is not sexualized in any way. One male fan even complained that it was “hard to tell” that her armor was designed for a female to which Starwars.com responded: “It’s armor. On a woman. It doesn’t have to look feminine.”

Word from the cantina is that Phasma has a much larger role in 
“The Last Jedi”, which seems to be supported by the fact that Lucasfilm just released a novel and comic series devoted entirely to Phasma.

The novel “Phasma” was written by Delilah S. Dawson. It focuses on Phasma’s origin story and if there is an overall theme to the book, it is this: Empathy is not one of Phasma’s strong suits. Nor is sympathy. Nor is kindness. Phasma is smart, strong, and will do anything to survive. And this book chronicles the choices that Phasma makes to continue to survive on her apocalyptic home planet and the choices that Phasma makes to thrive in the First Order. 

The four part comic series, written by Kelly Thompson, focuses on Phasma’s story immediately after she was thrown into a trash compactor by Han & Finn in the Force Awakens. As far as I know, it is the first Star Wars story to be set in a post-TFA timeline.

Going in to “The Last Jedi” one has to wonder if we will see Phasma without a helmet. On one hand it would be amazing to actually see Gwendolyn Christie flexing her acting muscles without the chrome mask. On the other hand, could it represent something stronger if the audience never saw her face at all? Think of every time Star Wars has been ruined when we found out what was beneath the helmet: Darth Vader, Boba Fett, Jango Fett. Maybe sometimes it’s okay just to leave the helmet on.

The Ben Kenobi Film

The Ben Kenobi Film

It is all but set-in-stone that we will see an Obi-Wan Kenobi film in 2020. The film will apparently see Stephen Daldry direct a middle-aged Ewan McGregor. I think the most interesting question we have about this film is this: Will it take place entirely on Tatooine? We have never had a Star Wars film take place entirely on one planet, but it seems right that this one would be.

         When we leave Kenobi in “Revenge of the Sith” he has brought Luke Skywalker to Tatooine, and conventional wisdom states that Obi-Wan spends the next two decades watching Luke closely. This period of his life is explored in various media- some of which is canon and some of which is “legends”

Rebels

         Recently “Old Ben Kenobi” was seen dueling with Darth Maul in Season 3 of Rebels. It was phenomenal to see Alec Guinness' "Ben Kenobi" brought back to screen after years of the younger McGregor Kenobi stealing the spotlight. David Filoni and the rest of the Rebel’s team handled this scene with so much grace, even though it could have easily been a laughable farce.

John Jackson Miller’s “Kenobi”

         The 2013 book “Kenobi” is probably John Jackson Miller’s finest Star Wars novel. It takes place in the first few months that Kenobi has brought baby Luke to live on Tatooine . Miller’s novel shows Kenobi trying to lay low, but not quite succeeding. Quickly Kenobi finds himself at the center of a feud between a clan of Tusken Raiders and some Jundland Waste settlers. This book proves that a great Kenobi story can be told without leaving Tatooine. I would love to see a film that matched the spaghetti-western tones of this overlooked Star Wars novel.

The Ghost of Kenobi

         The soon-to-be-published anthology “From A Certain Point of View” features a short story called “Time of Death” by Cavan Scott. It is probably the first piece in the Star Wars universe that is written from the point of view of Obi-Wan’s force ghost. Actually, I can’t remember a story told from the point of view of any force ghost. Obviously force ghosts are sentient, or at least they seemed that way in “Empire” and “Jedi”. So I guess, what’s the difference between a story about a living Obi-Wan and a dead Obi-Wan? Instead of answering a question that probably should remain rhetorical, I’ll leave you all with this sample preview-passage:

"My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi and I am dead. I know how that sounds. Crazy old Ben with his crazy old stories. But this isn't crazy. This is happening. At least, I think it is."

Our Only Hope

It is a testament to Alec Guinness that a character that was killed onscreen 40 years ago, would still be so significant going into the year 2020. Can this Kenboi film be the great spaghetti-western that we all hope it will be? Like so many aspects of this strange new Star Wars multi-verse... only time will tell.