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Post by boot on Oct 10, 2019 13:05:46 GMT -6
A thread about the books that are the best examples of continued Star Wars stories written to date!
And, here's a comment....
Dark Force Rising
It's moot now, now that the book is deemed a "Legend", but in the story, Mara Jade tells Luke that the Emperor cut off (or caused to be cut off) Vader's hand after Yavin--because he was pissed at losing the Death Star. Remember, in RotJ, Luke cuts off Vader's hand, and we see it is mechanical. Cybernetic.
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Post by boot on Oct 10, 2019 13:08:23 GMT -6
The Death of DengarDark Force Rising: I caught something that I never before noticed in all the times I've read and listened to this book (the trilogy is a my favorite). On Rishi, where Talon Karrde takes his operation after fleeing Myrkr, Mara Jade is confronted by a bounty hunter looking to cash in on the Empire's contract on her. The bounty hunter is named Dengar Roth in the book. The Dengar? The same from The Empire Strikes Back?  I did some digging, and it looks like Zahn did intend for this to be Dengar. He kills off the bounty hunter in Dark Force Rising. Then Lucas Film and WEG realize that Dengar is featured in the Dark Empire comic, which is set about a year after Zahn's trilogy. In order to "fix" this, WEG publishes, in The Last Command Sourcebook, that the bounty hunter killed in Zahn's book was a man named Gunner Roth who had picked up Dengar's ID and was using it to get jobs and disguise himself.
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Post by boot on Oct 11, 2019 21:36:43 GMT -6
DARK FORCE RISINGLightsabers: I don't know if this is new or just one author's opinion. If it is true, then I never knew this about lightsabers. In Dark Force Rising, Timothy Zahn describes the damage done to a human from a lightsaber blow that killed the person as a near microscopic cut with some cauterization. I always thought of a light saber as this big, half-inch to inch wide pillar of burning plasma. Of course, the heat must not travel that far off the blade--heat like that, just getting close to it would cook raw skin. We've seen the weapon cut off limbs, through pipes and catwalk caging, and be shoved handle deep into a blast door so that the other side turns to molten steel. But, we've also seen a lot less damage. Check out Finn, when he is sliced up the back in The Force Awakens. I would expect a trench to be cut in his back--instant death. But, that's not what we see in the film... LIGHTSABER DUEL IN THE FORCE AWAKENSIn Attack of Clones, Anakin chops the aliens into pieces... ANAKIN SPLIT 'EM IN HALFOn Jabba's sail barge, we see more of the type of damage that we see with Finn above... SARLACC FIGHTSo, what's the deal? Reading Zahn's explanation does fit all the things we see in the films. The big, wide beam does not. I thought that the films were just "PG" and, while we can see make believe flying aliens be cut into pieces, it was appropriate to show limbs and body parts go flying except at dramatically appropriate times (Obi-wan at the Cantina, Luke's Hand, Vader's Hand, Anakin's hand, Dooku's hands). Are the lightsabers actually thread-thin beams, and all the light we see is just the intense light we see emitting off that very thin--almost microscopically thin--energy blade? Or, is all the light we see plasma energy? In that case, are the Jedi barely touching the blade to targets (as with Finn and Luke on the sail barge) because...they don't want to make a bloody mess? Or, is it both? The lightsaber is all the color energy we see--as thick as that--but the user calls upon The Force to shape the blade when using to create an energy edge--the blade folds or protrudes into a very sharp, almost microscopic edge, all at the control of the Force user wielding the blade? Thoughts?
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Post by Falconer on Oct 12, 2019 16:52:59 GMT -6
Zahn’s explanation rings true to me. But I don’t think I had ever considered an alternate point of view. Older fans explained this to me when I was a kid.
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Post by boot on Oct 12, 2019 17:33:33 GMT -6
Zahn’s explanation rings true to me. But I don’t think I had ever considered an alternate point of view. Older fans explained this to me when I was a kid. So, you're saying that the light saber's blade is actually extremely thin--that the wide light we see is just the glow from the thread-thin beam--correct? |
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Post by Falconer on Oct 14, 2019 14:53:09 GMT -6
Yes.
So we’ve just re-watched ESB last night, and dang, but there were so many moments where I thought about the Thrawn Trilogy and how it expands on or just keeps going with things ESB set up!
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Post by boot on Oct 14, 2019 14:59:34 GMT -6
Wow. Our estimation of the lightsaber can't be any different. I've always thought of it as this wide strip of energy--a round "blade" of energy that is an inch or so in diameter.
Now, after all these years, I'm learning that the thing is actually as thick as a hair??? It's more like a laser garrot than a blade! Just an arc of energy.
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