Books Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Bomber Command by Jason Fry

"Complete with stories, secrets, and insights, this guide will immerse readers in the world of Cobalt Squadron from Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Includes gatefolds with exclusive artifacts including starship schematics and more!"

Release Date: 12/15/17
Author: Jason Fry
Pages: 96

I know we have a thread for the separate Cobalt Squadron book, but I wanted to make sure we have a thread for this awesome book as well.

December is officially Jason Fry Month, what with this book, the cross sections, and the novelization.

--Adm. Nick

 

Man this really is the year for Fleet Junkies

 

Hmmmm. Any clue if it'll be a children's book or a reference or something else?

 

I keep having to pinch myself! I can't imagine all the awesome information and goodies that Jason will work into his THREE upcoming books.

--Adm. Nick

 

Thanks! I'd laugh, except that's pretty much what Classic Paint by Numbers was.

 

Yay, another Jason Fry book! I wonder if there will be a recommended reading order for these things (like see the movie first, then read the visual guide, cross-sections then this book, or reverse that?).

Well, I'm planning to be in line before midnight so guess I'll see the movie then go pick up this book the next day.

 

So, it has short stories too? What exactly is this book?

Sent from my Moto X-Wing

 

Novelization coming in March 2018 along with junior novel.

 

I'm sure the novelization will be epic! As someone who loves it when the lore is expanded on, the prospects of a author/fan like Jason being the one to flesh out details via the Cross Sections book and things like Bomber Command just make me smile. Factor is the amazing Pablo Hidalgo doing the Visual Guide and I can barely contain my excitement.

New bombers, new warships, new fighters - it's a great year to be a Fleet Junkie. Onwards to The Last Jedi!

--Adm. Nick

 

So has anyone purchased this yet??

I wont be able to get to it for a little bit, and was curious as to what it includes. Most Importantly, does it have any references to the New Republic??

 

I have it but I have been reading through the visual dictionary and Art of book first. I'll be tackling this next, I think.

 

Ah! I may need to buy to it soon as there doesn't seem to be an overwhelming amount of TLJ related literature

 

Question concerning TLJ and this novel...

Spoiler

Since there is no gravity in space, does this book elaborate on details of said bombs being dropped on an enemy in outerspace?

 

The Visual Dictionary elaborates on this:

Spoiler

The bombs are electromagnetically impelled out of the bomber.

 

Wait, but Havac said that clearly the filmmakers don’t understand how space works and personally that’s the take I like, not one where, you know, the filmmakers actually do have an idea as to what they’re doing.

 

Ah, interesting. I had a feeling this was the case.

Well, this book wasn't written by the filmmakers.

The filmmakers do what they think looks good, and the reference book writers rationalize it later. Sometimes it works pretty well and we get some interesting ideas, sometimes not so much.

 

No, I have an extraordinarily difficult time believing that bombs falling in space was the filmmaker’s intention and it had to be “explained” somehow by a writer. There’s no doubt the filmmakers intended there to be some mechanism causing the bombs to “fall.” They just don’t explain it in the film because that would be really boring and pointless.

If you really want to argue that Rian Johnson thinks there is gravity in a zero-G environment and that literally no one told him otherwise, fine. I wouldn’t buy that for a dollar, personally.

 

Considering how little Hollywood filmmakers tend to know about actual physics when it comes to space travel, I definitely buy that.

 

Given that in the same sequence we see damaged ships falling "down" relative to the camera rather than the planet, regardless of where they hit, and that later on we see the Supremacy's shots arcing towards their target like physical artillery on earth....

Some stuff just isn't as common knowledge as you'ld think it would be. Particularly when it comes to space.

 

Star Wars has never accurately portrayed space and I don't expect them to start on the 8th chapter. It's fantasy. Let it go.

The post-movie explanations are fine and make sense. But they wanted the bombers to behave like WW2 bombers, and they did and that's all you need to know.

 

I just assumed the bombs fell because of the artificial gravity in the ship. It's not like they were going to slow down when they hit space.

 

Exactly. Lucasian physics -- as I called it when I ported it over for Jupiter Pirates -- has been the rule since 1977. If you're going to hammer Rian for bombs falling in space, I assume you're also in the habit of hammering George for dogfight acrobatics that require an atmosphere.

I included the bit about the bombs being electromagnetically drawn to targets for consistency with other reference material, but omitting that wouldn't have bothered me in the least. They're bombers and the bombing runs are supposed to look like the ones in Twelve O'Clock High, the Dam Busters, etc.

Segue time! Something that might amuse folks: From the beginning Bomber Command was a complement to Elizabeth Wein's novel Cobalt Squadron, which was simply called "MG Bomber Novel" in development. MG stands for "middle grade," i.e. the intended audience for the book. But I opened the Word file of Elizabeth's book so many times that the bombers got in my head as "MG bombers." When it came time to name them, I let my accidental headcanon carry the day and called them MG-100s.

 

As someone who consumes what you and others create, to occasionally criticize after, please understand that I respect for the explanations, and the work you do.
*Some TLJ discussion, spoilers for the film's opening*

I overall liked TLJ, but the a few scens, the bomber scenes in particular left me rather cold, both for the pace they slowed the film down to, and the fact that that we didn't get to really know any of the crews.

I'll elaborate. It's like, I'm instinctively more attached to Derek Robinson's books about WWII Fighter squadrons like Piece of Cake, over his books about bombers (Dammed Good Show and Hullo Russia, Goodbye England), because the bombers are by nature less immediately exciting.

It's easy to identify with a fighter pilot. Fighters and strike craft protect other craft or head off on fast, exciting raids. You're thrust into a heady, active world surging with adrenaline, the smell of avgas and the thrill of the hunt. If the pilot's played by a likable gent like Oscar Isaac and he gets good lines, we don't need much more in the moment because we can get to know the pilot more later.

You mention Dambusters, an ANH inspiration, but Lucas' strength here was giving a slower, more deliberate attack run by ponderous-looking Lancasters to the Star Wars equivalent of Mustang/Spitfire (X-Wings) fighters and P-38/Mosquito attack aircraft (Y-Wings,) with editing (Thanks Maria) and dialog that ratcheted up the tension.

Bombers, and bomber crews are harder. We have to get to know them and get invested like in Dambusters and particularly in Twelve O'Clock High which deals with combat fatigue and morale drop in the face of massive loss on daylight raids. We have to know and sympathize with the characters because In the WWII period these bombers emulate, they're sent to hit large targets for murky stratiegic reasons, sometimes to little immediately tangible result to the crews.

There's hours of slowly-increasing tension, the smell of stale oxygen and a rubber oxygen mask, and the knowledge that at any moment ground fire, mechanical malady or an enemy fighter can send you down in flames. To be invested in the bomber, we need to care about the crews, and understand their purpose and aircraft environment, which becomes a sort of flying home to the crew for the duration of the strike/movie.

In TLJ, we don't get to meet the crews or see them interact with each other in the bombers. We don't have time, and honestly, while the visual dictionary may list the bombs as "electromagnetically impelled out of the bomber," in the theatre, we're seeing seemingly-unguided metal bombs fall out into space, straight down.

Now. I know space combat in Star Wars doesn't accurately portray space. SyFy's Expanse does Newtonian space combat a bit "harder" if that's what anyone's looking for, but the plain metal bombs in the theatre still looked wrong in a way X-Wings zooming around like WWII planes didn't. At the very least I would have bought an ESB TIE-Bomber-esque glowing blue implying a "Space-y" thrust and guidance.

I can watch ANH and say "Oh yeah, I see how this is inspired by Dambusters/633 Squadron." With the bombers as insistent and quickly-disposed of as they were in TLJ, it was more, "Okay, I get it, someone watched Memphis Belle/Twelve O'Clock High."

Making bombers interesting and compelling, and getting the audience invested quickly is hard to do, and respect to Johnson for trying.

However I would have personally preferred seeing some attempt to explain the bombs, making them
"feel" more science-fiction/fantasy-y, giving us more dialogue and interactions between their crews on the raid a la "The Mighty Eighth" treaser video:


Apologies for the somewhat excerable footage.

I'm rooting for the author and the book. I'm a big fan of fleet actions and Rebel pilots. I wanted to care about the bomber pilots in the film itself. If the book can create a way for them to make a meaningful contribution to the GFFA, great.

It just feels a bit futile to read a book released afterward introducing these crews, only to have them all killed off so slowly and completely in TLJ as a way to teach Poe a lesson when they're destroyed.

Best of luck with the writing and myth-building.

*EDIT* As a friend pointed out, 633 Squadron is more of the inspiration for the Trench Raid in ANH.

 

All good, SJ. Nothing wrong with amiable disagreement about storytelling, inspirations, physics or anything else.

But try Cobalt Squadron and Bomber Command. They do fill in the crews' stories more, as you want.