ANOTHER galaxy, another time.1
The Old Republic was the Republic of legend, greater than distance or time. No need to note where it was or whence it came, only to know that… it was the Republic.2
Once, under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the Jedi Knights, the Republic throve and grew. But as often happens when wealth and power pass beyond the admirable and attain the awesome, then appear those evil ones who have greed to match.3
So4 it5 was6 with7 the Republic at its height. Like the greatest of trees, able to withstand any external attack, the Republic rotted from within though the danger was not visible from outside.8
Aided and abetted by restless, power-hungry individuals within the government, and the massive organs of commerce, the ambitious Senator Palpatine9 caused himself to be elected President of the Republic.10 He promised to reunite the disaffected among the people and to restore the remembered glory of the Republic.
Once secure in office he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from the populace. Soon he was controlled by the very assistants and boot-lickers he had appointed to high office, and the cries of the people for justice did not reach his ears.11
Having exterminated through treachery and deception the Jedi Knights, guardians of justice in the galaxy, the Imperial governors and bureaucrats prepared to institute a reign of terror among the disheartened worlds of the galaxy12. Many used the Imperial forces and the name of the increasingly isolated Emperor to further their own personal ambitions.13
But a small number of systems rebelled at these new outrages. Declaring themselves opposed to the New Order14 they began the great battle to restore the Old Republic.
From the beginning they were vastly outnumbered by the systems held in thrall by the Emperor. In those first dark days it seemed certain the bright flame of resistance15 would be extinguished before it could cast the light of new truth across a galaxy of oppressed and beaten peoples…16
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This rules.
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When people say Star Wars isn't political, what they should say is that Star Wars was, in fact, political six months before it even came out. Greed and evil are inextricable in the Star Wars universe and there are essential political outcomes of that stance you cannot avoid.
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Oh, I should explain what this is. To promote his upcoming movie "Star Wars", George Lucas partnered with ghostwriter Alan Dean Foster to write the official novelization "Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker". This novel contains exclusive details about the Star Wars universe from Lucas's own notes, and contains scenes, such as Luke palling around with Fixer, Camie and Biggs on Tattooine, and Han meeting Jabba the Hutt in the spaceport, that wouldn't be seen until the Special Editions or in deleted footage revealed decades later. In this way, this novel, released six months before "Star Wars" debuted in theaters, also marks the point of Star Wars canon expansion beyond the films.
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I've been thinking a lot about the Expanded Universe lately-- the strange way it knit itself together, the surprising tautness of its canon despite its many creators and creation in a period where nobody, much the least George Lucas himself, much cared for ongoing canon in Star Wars, and its astonishing longevity beyond its own decanonization. I think there's a good argument to be made that Star Wars "Legends", as its now called, is more impactful to the shape of Star Wars now than at any time in history before. Its an astonishing thing.
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So, I'm going to try and write some deep dives into the EU-- explore its foundations, its creation, its existence as a, and maybe the first, great transmedia work, and see how that can speak to Star Wars as a franchise today, and our lives as creators, readers, and viewers in and outside of Star Wars. Homestuck nothing; Star Wars made this world, and it still does.
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So let's start here, with the first point of divergence-- the first seed of Expansion in the Star Wars Universe... which, fittingly enough, are the first words ever seen about the Star Wars Universe itself. Instead of the now famous text crawl (legendarily written by Brian de Palma!), the story begins with an excerpt from "The Journal of the Whills". The notion that all of Star Wars exists in something called "The Journal of the Whills" goes back to the very very very first draft-- the first scrap of paper itself!-- of George Lucas's original screenplay, titled: “The Journal of the Whills: Part I: The story of Mace Windy, a revered Jedi-Bendu of Ophuchi, as related to us by C. J. Thorpe, padawaan learner to the famed Jedi.” If your eyes are bugging out at some of those words, that's because if there's one thing true about Star Wars its this: nothing created for Star Wars ever fully goes away. Even the scrapped ideas will eventually worm their way back into canon one way or another, and that's really the heart of why the Expanded Universe is so crucial-- its not that it represents a Star Wars that was and now is not, but that the places, people, ideas of the Expanded Universe always will be in Star Wars, some way, some how, because nothing ever goes away. And that starts before the first movie ever comes out, with George bringing back the Whills for the novellization. Anyway, back to the commentary:
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This statement reads a lot like a Clone Wars epigraph, don't you think?
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First named here! Palpatine is, somehow, the very first named character anybody on Earth could have experienced in Star Wars! I think that maybe makes bookending with him in Rise a little more palatable? No? Well, who asked you anyway.
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Super interesting that we have Palpatine's ambition here, but not the use of the Clone Wars to gain power. We know by the time of Empire Strikes Back we have George Lucas equating him with Richard Nixon, so that idea must have come around after this.
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SUPER INTERESTING. The idea that the bureaucrats are just as- if not more- responsible for the evil of of the Empire than the Emperor is a VERY George Lucas idea. There's a lot of Dune energy to this bit too. Is this the first contradiction with future canon? The first point of retcon?
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Again, we know we're going to say Darth Vader helped exterminate the Jedi in the course of the text of this novel-- it doesn't diverge from the movie script at all there-- its fascinating to imagine a world where the Jedi are destroyed not by a traitor on the inside and not by a military campaign, but simply through the administrative state itself.
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I wonder if JJ pulled the First Order from this wording??
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"We are the spark that'll light the fire that'll burn the First Order down." Poe Dameron, general of the Resistance
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THIS RULES. What a companion text to the first film! What a way to start a universe! What a place to begin! Star Wars!
