Star Wars, Geek Culture, and Power Converters
In an e-mail sent out to Celebration VI attendees earlier today, it was disclosed that the event program schedule will be released first on the Celebration mobile app. If you have a smartphone or a tablet, you may want to go download it now if you haven’t already.
Mary Franklin also teased this. Get to it, cryptologists.
Math clue for 2 new CVI programs: Multiply me by 2, or remove the zero and add a D.
— Mary Franklin (@MaryLFL) July 27, 2012
(via)
While this isn’t exactly news (Dave Filoni said this was going to happen during San Diego Comic Con), the Celebration VI staff made things super official today by announcing that season five of The Clone Wars will debut at the event this year.
Attendees of Star Wars Celebration VI will be the first in the world to see the action-packed premiere of Season Five of Star Wars: The Clone Wars at a big screen red carpet event featuring stars of the hit series from Lucasfilm Animation.
On Friday, August 24th at 5 pm, the Digital Stage at Celebration VI – the venue optimized for high-definition digital theatrical exhibition with state-of-the-art surround sound – will present an evening of Star Wars: The Clone Wars entertainment beginning with a special presentation of the Season Four finale, the episodes “Brothers” and “Revenge.” These are followed by “Revival,” the long-awaited Season Premiere, on Cartoon Network this fall, that continues the story of the resurrected Darth Maul.
Get ready to queue, because you’re going to be in line for a long time for this event.
Kicking off the show, the hosts highlight what’s new on the blog. We ask just what’s in a Power Converter. Nanci asks EU fans to give Crucible and Troy Denning a chance. Brian looked back at Solo Command. On this week’s Cosplay Monday, the blog featured a magnificent Heimdall costume.
Fixer’s Flash is somewhat light this week. Both the hosts have Icarus Hunt tales to share. Nanci finished the first draft of her book and Brian finally put academia behind him.
In Deak’s Dirt, there’s a host of Celebration VI news including announcements of a Rancho Obi-Wan exhibit and the return of the Bounty Hunt game. Mary Franklin claims that the CVI schedule currently stands at nine feet long in the physical printout. Leland Chee discussed the Holocron on the official blog. Jena Malone was officially confirmed to play Johanna Mason in Catching Fire. In some bizarre (but awesome) rumors, will Mary Poppins duel a gigantic Lord Voldemort at the Olympic Games? Finally, we bid farewell to pioneer and trailblazer Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.
Camie’s Concerns this week brings us back to the X-Wing retrospective. This time around, the hosts dig into the Wraith Squadron arc and talk the plots and characters as well as examining the impact Aaron Allston’s novels have had on the Expanded Universe. It’s far more than just dogfights and blaster skirmishes.
For Wormie’s Works this week, Nanci highlights Star Wars Yoga and Brian links to an Indiana Jones vocal cover.
Rounding out the show, the hosts answer questions from listeners. Remember, if you’ve got a question you want to ask us, e-mail and tweet them to us, or leave us a message on Facebook.
Tosche Station Radio is the official podcast of Tosche-Station.net and a part of the Solo Sound network. If you like what you hear, please leave a review on the iTunes Music Store or the Zune Marketplace. We can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.
Nanci and Brian are the co-founders and writers of Tosche-Station.net. You can find Nanci on Twitter with the handle @Nancipants and you can find Brian with @LaneWinree.
Perhaps you were once a devoted Expended Universe reader, but fell away at some point. It could have been the killing off of a young and useful character in Star by Star or dropping a moon on Chewie in Vector Prime. Maybe you had enough when Mara Jade was killed off in confounding, out-of-character fashion in Sacrifice. Perhaps you just haven’t picked up a book since Vision of the Future.
Well, lapsed readers, Del Rey and LFL want you back. Pop Culture Shock writer (and all around awesome person) Bria lays it out.
If you thought that the Star Wars universe was limited to six films and the Clone Wars cartoon, you’ve been missing out on a vast number of books, comics, and video games that comprise what is known as the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Ever since a little novel called Heir to the Empire was published by author Timothy Zahn and Bantam Spectra about twenty years ago, the Expanded Universe has grown and expanded to the point where it could take a new reader years to catch up on all the novels alone, never mind the countless comics and video games.
However, some readers have drifted away from the books over the past few years, often because of mega-series fatigue. Originally, story arcs were kept to standalone novels or trilogies. The one exception to this was the X-Wing series, which could more accurately be described as a four book arc, followed by a three book arc, followed by two standalone novels. Everything changed with the New Jedi Order series, a 19 book epic written by multiple authors and published over the span of five years. Since then, the major storytelling in the continuing timeline has been contained in one trilogy and two nine book series, the latest of which was published entirely in hardcover. The first of these series, Legacy of the Force, saw the controversial deaths of two major characters and the second, Fate of the Jedi, stirred the Internet into a flurry of anger and debate every other book. In short, the Expanded Universe has not been easily accessible to new or more casual fans as of late.
2012 is the perfect year to either delve into the Expanded Universe for the first time or to return to it from a self-imposed hiatus. In August and December, Del Ray will be publishing two stand-alone novels by well-respected Expanded Universe authors: Aaron Allston and the aforementioned Timothy Zahn.
Be sure to read the rest of the article, especially if you’re someone that needs more convincing that 2012 is the year you get back into the Star Wars Expanded Universe.
Are you heading to Celebration VI? Planning on bringing a costume or two? If you are, you’ve got a chance to show off your creative skills at the Celebration VI Costume Pageant.
Celebrations are a showcase for amazing fan-made Star Warscostumes, and the Celebration VI Costume Pageants are your chance to show off your creation, or watch incredible costumers strut their stuff. Registration is currently open!
The Costume Pageants are currently scheduled for the afternoons of Friday, August 24 and Saturday, August 25, planned for the Celebration Stage with celebrity host James Arnold Taylor. Costumes will draw inspiration from across the galaxy of Star Wars, from movies and television to books and comics to the fertile imaginations of creative costumers.
For rules, guidelines, and to enter, head to the event page on the CVI site. Hurry, though. Today’s the last day to register!
It’s a slow day. Which means we’re liable to turn to our readers to crowd-source.
The Hoth Ice Bar needs to have a drink called “Power Converter,” so we can all pick one up. #StarWarsCVI
— Nancipants (@nancipants) July 18, 2012
So we’re in agreement there needs to be a drink called a Power Converter at #StarWarsCVI we can pick up. Question is, what’s in one?
— Brian (@LaneWinree) July 24, 2012
Okay folks, here’s where you come in. Just what should go into a drink called a Power Converter? We’ve collected some ideas below and we’re taking more.
To the jump for the suggestions! Don’t forget, tweet us your own ideas.
I just plotted six ways to take over the world in the last five minutes.
After a week off (unintentional, mind), we’re back with another edition of Trope Tuesday, our weekly sojourn into the great timesink in the cloud that is TV Tropes. We’ve got another trope lined up that’s relevant to our ongoing X-Wing retrospective: The Xanatos Gambit.
A Xanatos Gambit is a plan whose multiple foreseen outcomes all benefit its creator. It’s a win-win situation for whoever plots it.
At its most basic, the Xanatos Gambit assumes two possible outcomes for the one manipulated — success or failure. The plan is designed in such a way that either outcome will ultimately further the plotter’s goals.
Since the Xanatos Gambit can involve an obvious goal’s apparent failure, this is a convenient device on an ongoing series to let the villain occasionally win (preventing Villain Decay) while still giving the heroes a climactic pseudo-victory. The only way to escape a Xanatos Gambit once you’re caught up in one is by somehow foiling both presented options and leaving the organizer thoroughly beaten.
One of my favorite examples of this trope takes place in The Krytos Trap. You would think that the Rogues capturing Coruscant would be a bad thing for Ysanne Isard, but no, you would be mistaken. That was just one way she could prove to be victorious, because on her way out she infected the planet’s alien species with a disease intended to create an unwinnable political disaster for the New Republic. That was just one of her contingency plans to ensure her victory. Unfortunately, she didn’t quite account for the Rogues knack for beating insurmountable odds.
The Big Three, Together Again in Crucible
At San Diego Comic Con, the Star Wars Expanded Universe editors and authors announced several new projects, including Crucible, the first post-Fate of the Jedi novel to feature Luke, Han, and Leia. It should not have come to a surprise that Troy Denning received the contract for this novel. Denning has been involved in the SWEU for a very long time, and has become a staple among post-Return of the Jedi authors. This is not to say that all of his contributions have been welcomed with open arms; many fans credit Denning for the increasingly dark and gritty tone of Dark Nest, Legacy of the Force, and FotJ.
Reaction to Crucible has been, in a word, audible. Fans on message boards, the Star Wars Books Facebook page, and on Twitter expressed dismay that Crucible would focus on the Big Three and be written by Troy Denning. I understand those concerns, of course. Del Rey and LucasBooks have assured fans that the megaseries format is going away, and that they’ve heard fans complaints about the direction of the post-RotJ novels. The announcement of Crucible, which many fans see as “more of the same,” doesn’t demonstrate any sort of major changes in that storyline. For so long, fans have endured galaxy-spanning wars, character derailment and death, and not enough focus on developing new characters. Trust me, I understand all of this. If you listen to the podcast, you’ll know that I often make the same complaints.
And yet, strangely, I find myself cautiously optmistic, dare I say excited, about Crucible. Yes, I’m looking forward to a Troy Denning book; I know, I can hardly believe it myself. While I also want future novels to focus on the next generation as well as characters who’ve been shoved to the side in the megaseries, I still want to read about the Big Three. I love them all, especially Luke, and I want to see them interact in their own storyline. They’re a family, and after all that’s happened in their lives they deserve to be together. I can’t remember the last time they were involved in an A plot together – maybe for a few pages in Backlash? The chemistry of the Big Three is what drew me into Star Wars, and I’m excited to see them go off on an adventure again. Do I expect this to be a “last hurrah” of the Big Three? It would be nice, but probably not. And that’s fine if it’s not.
Because now that the megaseries format is going away, Del Rey can publish lots of different novels taking place in the post-RotJ time period. We can have novels featuring the Big Three; we can have novels featuring Jaina, Jag, and the rest of that generation; we can have novels featuring Ben and other Jedi his age; we can have an Allana and Chance team-up series (you know that would be fun); we can have novels about side characters in the vein of the X-Wing series. We can have all of these at the same time, just like it was in the Bantam era. The existence of a novel like Crucible does not mean we won’t also be getting all the novels we’ve been asking for. This was just one round of announcements; Pablo Hidalgo clarified that there will be more at Celebration VI.
To address the other concerns, this about Troy Denning personally: his sole standalone contribution to the SWEU is Tatooine Ghost, a novel I greatly enjoy and that was not merely another “apocalypse of the week.” As for the characters, there’s no doubt that Denning can write a good Han and Leia (especially when Allana isn’t around for them to be the worst parents in the galaxy). And while I’ve read concerns about the way Denning writes Luke (and have shared in those concerns many times), I think the tendency to write Luke as dark is steadily fading away – at least I hope it is.
Judging from the Comic Con announcements, are there reasons to expect that the status quo will change? Probably not. But, like Luke, I’m willing to be optimistic in this case, and wait for the Celebration VI announcements to really pass judgment. Expecting the worst never does any good, and there’s been enough doom and gloom in the EU of late that right now I just want to look for the positive in whatever we’re given. (Case in point: I loved that the Horn family was given such a prominent role in Apocalypse, even if I didn’t like the book as a whole.) Now, that’s not to say that I won’t be disappointed if we keep getting more of the same types of novels, and all the wonderful characters who’ve been shoved to the side and marginalized for so many years don’t get their time to shine. But I can’t deny that the idea of a Big Three novel gets me excited, no matter what the time frame. (My only complaint about Crucible, well, besides wishing it was being written by Matthew Stover? I wish Mara was still alive to join them. Cue one lone tear.)
I never thought I would ever write a blog post encouraging people to be optimistic in regards to yet another Troy Denning book, but here I am. I’m not saying you have to like the book, or even that you have to read it. You’ll definitely be hearing my complaints if the novel is typical of Denning’s recent works. But outside the megaseries format, and focusing on just a few characters who I love – well, I’m willing to give him – and Crucible – a chance.
The Celebration VI staff is promising a bunch of news about guests, events, and a surprise or two this week. Kicking things off is the announcement that the Bounty Hunt game will be back this year and registration is now open.
Ever wanted to be a bounty hunter? Think you’re as good as Boba Fett, Bossk or Cad Bane? The Bounty Hunters Guild is looking for the smartest and quickest trackers at Star Wars Celebration VI to compete in one of the Bounty Hunt challenges. Three different Bounty Hunt competitions will be offered at Celebration VI: Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. Teams of two to four will compete to rack up bounties in each two hour event by solving clues and searching the Celebration VI grounds for their quarry. Now back for the third time at Celebration, the Bounty Hunt will put your Star Wars skills to the test!
Will you and your friends be counted among the galaxy’s most notorious bounty hunters?
For rules and to register, head to the official game page.
Everything comes to a head for the Wraiths in Solo Command, the final entry in the three-book Wraith Squadron arc by Aaron Allston. Do the Wraiths survive? Will Lara be unmasked? What will be the fate of the illustrious Lieutenant Kettch the Stuffed Ewok?
Most importantly, can a book succeed when the reader knows going into it that the villain will live to fight another day?
Our X-Wing retrospective continues with a look back at Solo Command below the jump. Beware of spoilers!