The New Jedi Order: Traitor

   I have been looking forward to reading this one. Not because of the author but because I wanted to read what happened to Jacen. He's been missing for a while now.

   After reading a few pages I put the book down and in awe wondered, "who wrote THIS?!" It was completely different then any other New Jedi Order books I have read thus far. But, I slightly recognized the style, but could it be... I couldn't remember the name. It's been a number of years since I read The Revenge of the Sith. But I recognized the ability of this author to take a story to another level. I was right the author is Matthew Stover.

   Most of this story is about Jacen. I read on Wookieepedia that it was the first Star Wars EU to not have an appearance of an original character. It also claims this is the shortest. My paperback copy is 292. Dark Journey is close at 301.

    We are now learning more about this bird like alien named Vergere. Vergrere now claims she met Jacen's Grandfather when he was a child. But did not know of his fate with the dark side.

  Some ideas she shares with Jacen sound Jedi'ish but some stuff she comes up with sounds like it came straight from the darkside and is confusing the day lights out of Jacen. She seems to want to save one minute and turn him over to the Vong the next!

  The Jedi who has a history of reckless adventures Ganner enters in the story with rumors that Jacen Solo is still alive and takes on a personal search to find him believing if he is still alive it could make a differance in the war and help turn Jaina around from her Dark Journey.

   I don't understand why he goes to Jaina about Jacen. They had all been together when Jacen's death supposedly happens. Jaina does admit that she never told her mother what the Vong put him through before he died. She believes that they kept him alive just to hurt him and does not want to hurt her mother who still has hope that her son is still alive. So Ganner goes out on his own.

   One interesting point struck me. Is Anakin really dead? I mean, I think he is and at one point Vergere remarks that it is unknown if the dead can still feel pain after thier death... In the beginning of the book Jacen sees his brother in a much deeper level of pain then he.... He also knows about Jaina's slip into the dark side before he is cut off from the force. So... is Anakin really in pain... dead, and/or capture in someway by the Vong and being held by them. Where was the author trying to go with this... I don't have answer.

The Clone Wars - Movie and Season 1

 

This is me, and yes, it scares even me!





Actors have such crazy lives! I am currently working at a premier haunted house in Sleepy Hollow NY. As a child I did not even know there WAS a REAL Sleepy Hollow! Before I moved up here my mom was looking at a map of NY and said something about Sleepy Hollow and I was like, there is really a Sleepy Hollow?! I remember the cartoon and could hardly watch it when I was little! I found the ledged of the Headless Horseman a tad bit too scary for me! I’m not a lover of going to haunted houses either even today.  It’s interesting how I’ve come to now to specialize in them! Well, make that haunted houses based on history, the scary side of history… but that’s a long story… but oh the irony!

  Anyway, I spent part of this summer in my home town and returned for the show in Sleepy Hollow which meant a long road trip from AL to NY! I came across a copy of The Clone Wars (Movie and TV show) before I left and put them on my computer to watch if I felt like it. I knew nothing about the whole Clone Wars deal. I knew there was a show and a movie but otherwise that was about it. Oh, I can thank the movie for sparking them to sell lightsabers at Halloween some years back… oh if they had those when I was a kid… wait, what am I talking about, it’s fun to play with now! ;-D Better late than never?

 On the road I watched Episode 1 & 2 cause I haven’t watched them in a long time. I’m wondering if I had ever seen all of The Phantom Menace before because I didn’t remember the beginning. The Clone Wars movie comes in between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith so since I like to watch/read things in order I started up the movie not sure what I was about to see.

Not putting The Clone Wars down, but this is kinda funny!

 George Lukas must be having a grand time! Maybe it’s because of my interest in movie making since the age of 8 that I feel for him and his ability to make these movies with all the technological advances made since A New Hope in the 70’s. I grew up with a computer in the home (I remember having a Commodore 64 playing some sort of space ship war game on it) At the age of 8 I thought computers could do a whole lot in film making that they really couldn’t do. I wanted to upload videos and edit them on one, I wonder now what I was thinking because that was not really quite the way it was done back then but it was a good idea and did eventually come to pass… While today I am not a fan of computer animation (I feel there is something in hand drawn work that can’t be done with a computer, (life and emotion one can pick up from the work of a fine artist’s hand) I have to give them credit that computers somewhat worked with this. I didn’t completely hate it! There are some Disney (big Disney fan here)/Pixar movies that I cringe at the sight of because they made a mess out of it by using computer animation! In most cases I pretty much hate computer animation! I’m sure in time computer graphics will improve, it’s not perfected at all, if it ever can be. I do understand why Lukas has gone this route. For a galaxy far far away it gives much freedom! The battle scenes can be done with unlimited imagination! The cost of makeup artists, costumers, and numerous actors are cut along with fighting weather and Murphy’s Law on a film shoot. On the other hand emotion is limited on the human computerized form. It was much like watching the graphics of a video game like Knights of the Old Republic which I really enjoyed and have played all the way through twice. Playing KOTOR did help me except the computerized forms in this, if that make any since… anyway…

  The movie wasn’t too bad. It took Anakin’s story in a direction I wouldn’t have thought. The thought of Anakin teaching another padawan is weird for lack of better word to express it.

 I have all three seasons of the TV show and since I kinda liked the movie and was interested in where they were going with this I started on the first season.

 It seems I found at a young age that Star Wars is a great way to de-stress. I get caught up in it now and then at various times in my life. When they pulled it out of the vault in the early 90’s to show on TV is when it started, then they announced there will be three more made in the late 90’s, then when those three finally make it to TV… This last kick I’m on of Star Wars is combined from a number of things. Partly fueling it is that the internet has made it so much easier to find thing such as the novels and movies. Curl up and chill with Star Wars, nerdy? Don’t get me started… and I mean it!

 I just finished watching the last episode of the first season. Watching the show has basically taken up most of my reading time so I haven’t started on a new novel yet since I finished Shadows of the Empire before I left AL. Due to being busy it took me a while to get my review of it up in case you notice the date I published it was very resent. I actually finished it a while back.

  One thing that got me with this show was the showing of the good side of Anakin Skywalker. This is not the Anakin from Attack of the Clones! At times you wonder if this character is slightly based half on Luke. Ha! I actually like THIS Anakin and see why Padme does! At first it’s hard to see how you could ever get Darth Vader from this …well, hero! As the shows go on they do start the show his weaknesses, mostly centering around Padme.

Yes! Someone else had the same idea!

 Really, you have to wonder if at any time Leonardo Dicaprio was ever considered for Anakin?! Some reason I have ALWAYS thought Anakin should be Leo, I don’t know why… but yeah, going off subject a bit too much here… :~)

 I particularly liked E13 Jedi Crash & E14 Defenders of Peace which deal with Jedi’s struggle with attachment and a village of peaceful village who refuse to fight. And also E17 Blue Shadow Virus & E18 Mystery of a Thousand which are obviously about a deadly virus. The show seems to gain more depth as the shows go on and I hope as I start on the next season it will only get better!

Re-reviewing Return of the Jedi

Inside my paperback copy of Return of the Jedi

The weird thing about this book is the first time I read it I was like... "What movie did this man watch!?!?" BUT, after reading what, about 20 SW novels now? After completing Revenge of the Sith and Dark Lord I pulled out my copy of Return of the Jedi and started reading bits and pieces here and there mainly reading through my favorite scenes. I discovered a WHOLE new depth to this novel!!!

Movie Poster

My Copy

 Amazingly a lot of the newer movies played into this one but they weren't even made then! There were a few things that wasn't right, but most was... down to the thoughts going through Vader and Sidious's mind! It's amazing back in 1983 so much of the story was kinda already there! I have to read the first movies to understand last book! Really weird and that depth is really what has made Star Wars what it is... laugh at it if you like but honestly it was a modern work of art in story telling!
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 Another interesting bit of info about the movie I came across tonight Click Here
I for one think the right chose was made for the ending. I gives a since of hope to the out come of everything that had happened. The light side won! Uh... Plus... who would have Leia ended up with in the next 100 novels to follow! As much as I dislike Han when I was a kid he has grown on me through the years... :-)

Revenge of the Sith

My Copy with holographic cover!

Wow... this book was pretty intense! Really love the authors approach in getting into the minds and feelings of the characters! A very important thing to me. I love depth! Long drawn out battles can be a bit boring partially when there is little depth but this author kept a fairly good pace with the action scenes adding the emotions and mind sets of the players in the scene.
Very different and dramatic writing style with a lot of insights in things there is no way you could spell out well in a movie. Too bad this author did not write a novelization of Return of the Jedi because I think he could do it justice! Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi are my favorites of the films. ROTJ being the top on my list which I have now watched it countless times. The official novel for ROTJ is not very good. I would love to see an updated one now that Darth Vader's story is known!
I haven't seen Revenge of the Sith in a number of years and not nearly as many times as I've seen ROTJ. I don't remember a quarter of this book even being in the movie... guess I'm going to have to go and watch it again now. But that was a good thing that I didn't remember a lot of the movie cause it made the book even better not quite knowing what was coming next.
The author sets a very dark mood with poetry and the book is segmented in three parts with a poem starting each one. The chapters are also named! Something I haven't seen in a book in a long time! In my own writings I have always liked to name chapters... just a personal thing maybe, I don't see it done much.
This has to go on my list of the best SW novels I've read so far!
By the way, I finished it on May 4th... May the 4th by with you! And this is being blogged on the Revenge of the 5th!

Labyrinth of Evil

This comes between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. I have mixed feelings about this book. I know James Lucendo has written other Star Wars novels but this is the first one of his I have read. Some of his way of putting down thoughts I find hard to follow, but that could just be me.
This is a post 9/11 (published in 2005) book and I was surprised at the fact that you could tell! The author clearly used current events and political topics in shapeing and telling his story. It seemed odd for a Star Wars novel and this is part of where my mixed feelings about this book start. I lived in AL in 2001 but today can walk out my front door to the end of the street and clearly see the New World Trade Center. That fact alone unnerves me, so reading something that was clearly inspired by the event brought back bad feelings as I can clearly remember the day watching it on my TV set.
As for the Star Wars Universe part of the book I would say it took reading about half of it to truly get into the story. I find this prequel era confusing as it is... so that didn't help... but in a way reading this may have helped me get some of the story better. I'm looking forward to going on to Revenge of the Sith!
The character of Anakin must be a hard one to write... as I grew up with Han, Leia, Luke... and all (as that was all there was) I have not figured out the personalitys of the prequel movies as well. I appreciated the attempt of the writer to show the soon to be Dark Vader's conflicts with himself and the Jedi way.
So like I said, I was mixed on how I felt about this one and I will leave it at that...