501st

I wanted to do something special for blog post #501, albeit a very different kind of "special" than for the previous post.

This is all about Star Wars.


The 501st Legion

The 501st Legion, also known as "Vader's Fist," has been around since the beginning. At first, it was just another of Lucas' many visionary footnotes to the universe that permeated fan culture. Later, with Timothy Zahn's re-invigoration of the Star Wars franchise, the "Expanded Universe" would find the 501st Legion becoming more and more well known.

The 501st would evolve from arcana to icon. Only the avid fan knew that Daine Jir, the officer who spoke with Vader on the Tantive IV, was with the 501st. (He was one of the few officers comfortable enough to speak plainly to Vader without fear of being Force-choked, saying, "Holding her is dangerous. If word of this gets out, it could generate sympathy for the Rebellion in the Senate.")

By the time the prequels came out, it was more or less common knowledge who the 501st were. The elite of the elite. The 501st. The name that struck fear into the hearts of would-be Rebel Alliance sympathizers. Vader's Fist.

The 501st would be featured in more than just novels, however; the video games gave us a glorious glimpse of them. In particular, I loved the cutscenes from Battlefront II, the "501st Journal." The narrative voice-overs were appropriately ominous, as you were privy to the full context of events. Very well done, if a bit on the concise side.

In real life, the 501st Legion is a massive fan force actively involved in conventions. They have a newsletter and everything. These are the people who have authentic stormtrooper armor replicas that cost more than my laptop. They are also involved in charity work, so they aren't just total LARP-ing losers. So yeah... the 501st Legion is a real organization. That's how prominent the name has become.

Naturally, with the prequel trilogy came retcon. The 501st Legion was now "originally" a unit of the Grand Army of the Republic, therefore comprised entirely of clones. With the escalation of the Clone Wars, Palpatine expanded the Grand Army as needed, including new generation of flash-grown Spaarti clones (from Timothy Zahn's elaboration of the Clone Wars in the 90s) as well as regular recruits by the time of the formation of the Galactic Empire. The burgeoning Empire needed an even mightier military presence during peacetime than the erstwhile Republic did during wartime. Eventually, it would seem that the stormtrooper standards had been reduced more than marginally, since they couldn't even hit Luke Skywalker from fifty feet away in the chasm crossfire scene. Maybe the Imperial Academy on Carida just had a quota to meet, so the bureaucrats churned out inept stooges once in a while. At any rate, the Expanded Universe has become damned interesting in its cluttered timeline. Retconning is part of the appeal, really. With so many authors contributing, even with Lucas holding the leash we still have some kinks to be ironed out.


Republic Commando

Karen Traviss dealt with this ostensibly self-contradictory lore in a particularly fascinating and efficacious way, with her book 501st. It is actually the fifth in a series--the Republic Commando series, which originated as a tie-in to the computer game of the same name. The books are, in order:

Republic Commando: Hard Contact
Republic Commando: Triple Zero
Republic Commando: True Colors
Republic Commando: Order 66
Imperial Commando: 501st

These books focus on the early batches of clones who were less... domesticated than the average clone. They were also indoctrinated into Mandalorian culture by their sergeants.

I picked up Hard Contact when I was living in Overland Park, KS. My impression of Karen Traviss was a good one. She was gritty to the extreme. This was like Star Wars meets Black Hawk Down. I mean, I could tell just from her narrative that the author had been a combat journalist. She gave a truly sympathetic view of the clones while addressing the moral quagmire of a Jedi Order that essentially condoned the cold-hearted breeding of human beings to have an accelerated aging process, born purely to fight and die, never to have the rights of the citizens they would die to defend. The Mandalorian sergeants whom Jango Fett recruited to help train the clones had their share of guilt as well. Beyond that, Traviss' brutal portrayal of war was startlingly realistic for Star Wars. These are by far the most harrowing Star Wars novels you will find. Whether or not that's your thing, I just thought I'd tell you.

In all honesty, I'm a little hazy on the first three books. I should mention that Karen Traviss was also one third of the writing force behind the latter-day Legacy of the Force series, which you shouldn't even think about reading so much as the back covers until you've read everything else. So naturally, a lot of that series tied into the Republic Commando series, even though the two series are separated by about fifty years. Basically, Karen Traviss retconned Boba Fett and the Mandalorians in such a thorough and ingenious way that we have a complete view of both the Mando culture and Fett's entire biography, thanks to her. But my point is that both series were going on simultaneously, so I think Order 66 actually came out after the other series was finished. A certain character was only a baby during True Colors but if you had already read everything that had been published up to that point, you'd have a different understanding than if you read the books in chronological order... but reading in either order seems to work equally well (unlike the film trilogies).

Karen Traviss will always be the "mother of the Mandalorians." She really fleshed out an entire culture here. Her books sometimes read like an ethnography report. You can tell she has chops as a journalist by reading these books. The Mandalorians are so very real in her writing. Complex, nuanced, and fascinating. In addition to creating a complete culture, she also generated an entire glossary of Mando terms, slang, and expressions. Perhaps she didn't do so to the laborious extent of Tolkien's work, but still. That's... thorough.

These books are also brilliantly written as far as the characters' point-of-view being convincing to the reader. So much so, in fact, that there is a huge, polarizing controversy among the fans. Some say she went a little too far with her sympathetic view of Mandalorians and her near-demonizing of the Jedi. More on that in a minute.

So while I was impressed with the gritty style of the first two books, the end of the third one, True Colors really touched me. I prefer to keep this review spoiler-free, but I might as well give away one bit of information. It's kind of major, actually, but necessary to reveal for the purpose of this blog post. [Spoiler Alert!] One Mandalorian clone has an illicit affair with a Jedi. She gets pregnant but Force-alters the length of pregnancy to protect the identity of the father, who doesn't know. There is a scene at the end, where he meets his child but doesn't know it's his. It's surprisingly poignant. I don't know, summarizing it like this makes it sound old hat, but it was quite a bittersweet moment. I'm too much of a tough guy to cry, but... damn. Getting misty from a Star Wars book? It happens. That means you have a damn good writer on your hands, if you can get that invested in the characters.

That was just one of the arcs in this ensemble cast that had me hooked. When the fourth book, Order 66 came out, I was stoked. Finally, the Clone Wars were coming to a head. What was going to happen to all my beloved characters?

All I will say about Order 66 is that it was heartbreaking. That... was a great book. I can't even go into it. Not without spoiling everything. And the cliffhanger ending... this book affected me deeply.

So when I was cruising Barnes & Noble and saw the fifth book, now with the appropriately altered series name Imperial Commando, I stopped in my tracks. I didn't even know it was coming out, as I normally don't follow book news like I do movie news and rumors. I saw that beautiful paperback sitting on the shelf, and immediately grabbed it. 501st. Knowing what I knew about the 501st throughout the years, the idea alone was exhilarating. I was finally going to know what would become of the fourth book's cliffhanger ending. (I keep calling it a cliffhanger, but only as much a cliffhanger as was The Fellowship of the Ring, so you tell me if I'm using the word too lightly.)

I read Imperial Commando: 501st this past December (after much procrastination due to the whirlwind of real life getting in the way of my motivation to read), mostly while sitting at the most cozy and comfortable Starbuck's I could find. I'd go there and read chunks of this book and just indulge in the emotions of the characters. Sadly, that Starbuck's closed recently. It was a great escape, and I don't even like Starbuck's.

I attest that Karen Traviss' Republic Commando series only gets better with each installation. 501st had me hanging on every word, absorbing the richness and tragedy of it all. This book had me in a state like few other books have done before. Not saying you'll feel the same way, but...

Overall, I'd say the Republic Commando series is a great read. Highly recommended. It's extremely mature in its ideas, views, and themes. And it's refreshingly original in perspective, when held against the vast library of existing EU canon.


Controversy

Now, a word about Karen Traviss. The "Karen Traviss Controversy," as it were...

There were supposed to be, I believe, at least two more Imperial Commando books, but the series was canceled. This is especially terrible because the way 501st ended was on an unspeakably awesome cliffhanger. I'm extremely grateful that we have 501st, but bitterly disappointed that we won't have the follow-up. Here's the thing. Okay. Remember what I said earlier about the "clutter" of the timeline, with the Clone Wars being expounded upon in the novels prior to the prequel trilogy? One post-ROTJ book, Children of the Jedi, reveals a backstory that occurred during the height of the Clone Wars, a mystery unraveled by Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. Karen Traviss introduced some of the characters from that backstory in 501st, which was awesome for two reasons. First, it was an EU fanboy's thrill to have the old and the new come together in such a way as she wrote it. Second, having known what happened from reading the much older (but chronologically much later) novel Children of the Jedi, the omen factor was rich. And 501st ended on a hell of a cliffhanger that more than suggested that the following book was going to reveal the events described in Children, including the Emperor's very first superweapon, but using the characters from Republic Commando as the catalysts for those events. I'm not sure how that sounds to you, reading my blog, but all of this had me truly excited when I finished reading 501st, which portended a betrayal among clones. The next book was going to be staggeringly awesome.

Was going to be.

Now, the controversy.

Basically, fans are dickheads and ignorance is bliss. I prefer to avoid the stupid osik on the Internet and think I am the only person reading these books. And sometimes, the authors think the fans are dickheads, too. Sometimes (often) the authors are right.

Apparently Karen Traviss blogged a rant, complaining about the overly nitpicky nature of the fastidious and implacable uber-fans, calling them, among other things, "Tali-fans." Personally, when I heard that term, I laughed my ass off. But apparently a lot of humorless fans felt that she bit the hand that feeds her. The thing is, she's absolutely right about the vast majority of Star Wars fans. Go walk into a comic shop and tell me I'm wrong. Go.

Anyway, that's part of the controversy. Weirdly, the controversy largely consists of Mandalorian versus Jedi. Among the fans themselves. Um... okay, grow up. Ever since the beginning, Star Wars has used the expression, "from a certain point of view," but sadly most people are incapable of seeing more than one. I found her narrative to be engrossing and well thought-out, but I wasn't indoctrinated or anything. Her "anti-Jedi rhetoric" that half of the fan base is still inexplicably furious over was really just a matter of telling the story from the kriffing point of view of the people who don't like the Jedi. It's called good writing. Then again, in interviews she did seem genuinely disdainful of the Jedi, but... on the other other hand, a huge arc of 501st was about the prejudiced Sergeant Kal Skirata coming to terms with the fact that more and more ex-Jedi were either coming into the fold or otherwise being a boon to his band's expatriate cause (oops, minor spoiler). So it's not like Karen Traviss was wildly anti-Jedi; she was writing from a point of view, and that point of view was actually in the process of softening towards a reconciliation.

However, like I said, that was half of the base. The other side, of equal and opposite stupidity, was ferociously pro-Mando and anti-Jedi. And these are Star Wars fans we're talking about here. I'll repeat that: these Star Wars fans were ferociously anti-Jedi. I'd avoid Internet message boards if I were you, because it's often a surreal display of the kind of blind following that people are capable of that you'd expect to only find on a Glenn Beck message board. Some people are quick to adopt an ideology--any ideology, and they will fight tooth and nail over any dissent. They just need a charismatic leader. Yeah, we're still talking about fictitious factions here. Again, ignorance is bliss. I read all the books, but I'm not insane about it. Then again, I'm probably more insightful as a reader and writer than most of those people.

So, while much of the controversy is fan-versus-fan, there is a more relevant issue at heart.

Apparently Karen Traviss herself canceled the contract to write more books. I guess she got fed up with the challenge of navigating all the rules of continuity that have cropped up over the decades. She was doing a damn fine job of it, but she had enough. I'm sure part of it was having lousy dealings with fans and reviews, and to those who read her Gears of War novels, I just have to say that I hope things go well for you over there in that universe. Really, though, the controversy is about the Flanneled One himself, George Lucas.

The Clone Wars cartoon essentially shit all over her work. Mandalore was portrayed in a contradictory way (and it gave me a cognitive migraine to watch those three episodes in Season 2). This could still be explained away in retcon, but it would have admittedly been a pain in the ass for her to do so with her next book, considering she was already basically retconning the old-school (pre-prequel?) novel Children of the Jedi with the events going on in her series. Also, Death Watch was one of the arcs she was already incorporating into the story, which also appeared in the cartoon. So it was turning into a mess.

What's interesting is that Karen Traviss wrote the novel adaptation of the cartoon's debut movie Clone Wars, which I would think also didn't quite fit her vision. I haven't read that book, however, so I cannot comment on that. But it's interesting that she wrote the adaptation.

So. That's the Karen Traviss controversy in a nutshell. On one hand, I am annoyed with the cartoon for doing what it did to the Mandalorians, but it was hardly a complete portrayal of the culture anyway. On the other hand, Karen Traviss has come off as a little immature. I personally don't judge too harshly for her lambasting the problematic fans, but many indignant fans think that it is an unforgivable sin to do that. But if you ask me, it sounds too egotistically self-empowering of the so-called fans to be talking that way. Also, George Lucas is considered a bit of an Indian-giver in this situation, but to be fair, Karen Traviss had done her share of transmuting other writers' established ideas as well. And she killed off a character in the later chronology that didn't even belong to her, without the consent of the author who created said character. So... yeah. Nobody's innocent.

Yes, I feel like I have been robbed of what could have been one of the best Star Wars novels ever written (not to mention the inevitable one after that). All because people don't want to work together. It's part George Lucas' fault, but let's be honest: it's mostly Karen Traviss' fault. She quit, after all.

So there's your fair warning: if you take my recommendation and read these five books, you are going to be pissed off that the series was canceled on such an awesome cliffhanger. However, you get a reasonable amount of Mandalorian closure from reading the much-later Legacy of the Force series, but really you shouldn't read that until and unless you have read absolutely everything else. Current prints of the novels have a chronology at the beginning of the books, so you can use that as a guide. I don't expect anyone to want to embark on that epic of a journey, so I will just say that the Republic Commando series is worthwhile (but not absolutely essential) and leave it at that.

But there should have been seven books, not five. Not five.


Adaptation

After the fifth Harry Potter film came out, the seventh and final book was also released. Only then did I decide to read the books. So, when time came for the sixth movie adaptation, it was actually the first movie of the series of which I had read the book prior to seeing the film. It was a different experience, to be sure. And I had to wonder just how hard it was to write a film adaptation of a book.

I started getting all these ideas for an animated film adaptation of Shadows of the Empire, the highly influential novel that takes place between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. It has even been adapted into a video game, and Joel McNeely composed a mock film score. I would listen to Mark Griskey's score to The Force Unleashed as well, and I pretty much had the entire SOTE film scored in my mind. So I started outlining Shadows of the Empire.

Eventually, however, I put that project aside, because it was turning into an experiment in creating an "unabridged" adaptation to film. The objective was to make it "as close to unabridged as possible," and see if it could be done in a single screenplay (and if so, just how long a movie that would be), or if it could be broken up into a miniseries.

By this point, the new Clone Wars cartoon was going on. It was in its first season. I had seen the "microseries" of the same name, which necessarily has a very different story structure. So part of my inspiration was from Clone Wars. "Instead of making new cartoons, what if all the books were adapted?"

Of course, adapting all of them would be absurd. Besides, many of them are simply too deep to water down for film. But then I started thinking in many directions at once, and before long my little writing experiment began to grow into a full-blown ambition...

With the Clone Wars series mucking up the EU timeline somewhat, I decided not to bother trying to adapt any of the Clone Wars-era novels or comics. Instead, I looked to the future...

I must admit, a major impetus for this "project" of mine was the New Jedi Order series. NOT, mind you, the desire to adapt that nineteen-book saga (because I firmly believe it simply CAN'T be adapted well, as it is too good, too deep, too cerebral, and too comprehensive of a story), but the desire to introduce it to the fans of the films who aren't terribly interested in reading and are missing out because of it. Basically, I made a list of every single novel and comic that takes place between Return of the Jedi and Vector Prime, deciding which ones could be adapted.

Naturally, another motive I had was to have an excuse to compose my own Star Wars scores. "Hey... it's me."

Obviously, none of this will ever happen (although technically it could), but I envisioned a fan-made series of animated films to pick up where the film saga left off.

Some books are one-offs, some are trilogies. Some are crap, some are too complicated and awesome. I not only decided which ones could and should be adapted, I also determined which medium would be most appropriate. And by that I mean that I classified each according to the following adaptation options:

1. heavily abridged/altered into a microseries in the vein of the original Clone Wars cartoon.
2. abridged for short episodes (or miniseries) in the vein of the current Clone Wars cartoon.
3. as faithful an adaptation as possible to work as a feature film.
4. as unabridged as possible, perhaps epic-length film or miniseries.

At this point, I was just outlining for the sake of outlining, because that's the sort of creative organization I find very fun. But then I sat down and actually started working on a screenplay.

The first logical choice was The Truce At Bakura which takes place starting literally the day after Return of the Jedi. The writing style is relatively superficial, which makes for a fairly straightforward approach to adapting it. Also, Kathy Tyers dedicated the book to John Williams, because she listened to his scores while writing it, which gave her inspiration (and seemed to be reflected in the pacing of the writing).

I bought a second, beat-up old copy of it at Half Price Books for the sole purpose of writing notes in it, still having my other, pristine copy on the shelf. I immediately began reading through it again, carefully envisioning every scene and marking in black ink where the camera would cut. I outlined all the dialogue in green for quick reference. I wrote on a notecard every single scene cut that I had flagged. I listed every plot, sub-plot, and character development arc and resolution. I took the notecard scenes and numbered them in two ways, in two different colors of ink: one for the corresponding page number in the book, another for my proposed chronological order after doing some shuffling around, reconsidering pacing and omissions.

Basically, I did a lot of leg work. It was fun. But it was work, too. Basically, it was a fun way to learn about the writing process. And then I started typing the first draft of the screenplay. I analyzed the crap out of the opening scrolls of all six films, trying my hardest to write an opening scroll that felt consistent with the saga.

By the time I adapted the first thirty pages or so in my first draft, however, I was burnt out. I hit a snag with one scene, and it stopped being fun. I have real work to do, after all. So if it's not going to be fun there's no point doing it. But I have learned a lot from the process. Really.

But the motivation won't go away...

I've been picking up copies of other books on my list. I already own all the books, though. They're at my parents' house, but I want second copies for writing my notes in. And then I reconsidered my post-ROTJ rule. If I'm really keeping the New Jedi Order in mind, with the cardinal goal of keeping the adaptations "true" to the EU history, then I should also adapt Rogue Planet, which takes place three years after The Phantom Menace. The events become important later, and after all, kind of the whole point is to provide entertainment while essentially providing the viewers with the information they'd need to fully appreciate the NJO series.

So Rogue Planet made it to the list, but everything else is after all the movies (except for Shadows of the Empire, which is during). I went through it, working on my notecard outline the same way I did for The Truce At Bakura. I then sat down and looked at the chapter selection on all six Star Wars DVDs. 50 each. Take away the opening logo, opening crawl, and end credits, and every Star Wars movie is divided into 47 chapters, but that says nothing about the actual number of scenes... though it certainly helps me get an idea for pacing.

Of course, this is just for fun, and my "fun time" is extremely limited, so that's why it has taken me a year and a half to do essentially two weeks' worth of full-time "work" as a writer. If I were a Hollywood screenwriter employed by Lucasfilm, I'd be the freaking man. But all of this is just something to do when I have the time but don't feel like composing. Right now, I'm outlining Heir to the Empire.

I've learned a lot about writing just by picking things apart. It's interesting.

Maybe someday I'll finish a screenplay adaptation of one of these books and recruit some animators to help on a "good will" project. I know for a fact that it could be done, that the final product could go viral and gain huge notoriety, and even be featured at Celebration. At Celebration, even more notoriety would be gained. Sure, it could be done, and I'd be competent enough (and control freak enough) make sure that every aspect of art design was consistent with existing designs out there, from costumes to ship designs. And of course I'd be happy to score original music, or enlist the help of one of my composer friends. Off the top of my head, I can name three people I know who would be better at emulating John Williams' sound than I.

Anything could be done, but I don't even have a script ready.

It's all in good fun. But also, I wanted to learn about writing screenplays. And that much I've accomplished.

Still, though... I call dibs. Nobody else can make Star Wars adaptations but me! Nobody!


Glossary of Profanity

Star Wars books circumvent censorship from the films' equivalent PG rating by having fictitious curse words, much the same way they say "frak" instead of "fuck" in Battlestar Galactica. It works because the galaxy is a melting pot of different cultures and languages. So here are just a few of my favorite fake curse words commonly used in Star Wars, for your edification. This is by no means a complete list, just a few. I am not including the many Mandalorian words Karen Traviss created, either. But I figured this epic blog post was lacking in profanity, so this ought to make up for it.

Kriffing. A substitute for the F-word, which I actually use in daily life. "This is kriffing stupid."
Kark. Another substitute for the F-word. "Oh, kark this!"
Borked. Another substitute for the F-word. "We're borked."
Stang. An interjection, originating on Alderaan, equivalent to "Damn."
Blast. An interjection, not actually profane, equivalent to "Dang it!" or "Shoot!"
Sithspawn. An interjection, equivalent to "Hell."
Sithspit. An interjection, slightly more acerbic than "Sithspawn."
Poodoo. Huttese slang, double meaning "fodder" or "crap."
Fierfek. Originally a Huttese slang for "hex" or "curse," more widely understood to literally mean "poison," but adopted by clone commandos during the Clone Wars as a curse word. Yes, a curse word literally meaning "curse." Possibly my personal favorite, next to "kriffing."
Emperor's Black Bones. An interjection which came about after the explosion of Death Star Mark II, commonly used by New Republic personnel, not necessarily profane but considered crass and jarring.



And so ends my 501st post. If you read the whole thing, then you must be a Star Wars fan. Or you're just really, really bored. Me, I'm both. Can you tell?

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...