Books Journey to the Last Jedi: Phasma

I think diet Coke is way better than diet Pepsi.

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STAR WARS: PHASMA is a book which I think really shows what the biggest problem with current Star Wars tie-in fiction is, which is the fact nothing is allowed to happen. This is the life story of Captain Phasma, the cowardly but dangerous leader of the First Order's Stormtroopers who brought down the shields of Starkiller Base when someone pointed a gun at her. The entirety of the book is meant to reconcile the fact she's meant to be terrifying but rolled on her fellow Imperials at the first sign of trouble. About the only time I ever think a cowardly but dangerous villain has ever worked in my history of reading fiction was Cobra Commander in the old Sunbow cartoon--so I'm not sure if this dual characterization was ever meant to work.

So what is Phasma's deal? Basically, she's Furiosa from Mad Max: Fury Road. It turns out she grew up in a post-apocalypse PG-13 savage land where she developed no morals but how to survive. This is actually a pretty awesome backstory but is kind of muted by the fact Star Wars is family friendly so the level of desperation and evil on display is kind of muted. It's like when they did adaptations of Conan the Barbarian, Robocop, and Rambo for kids.

It doesn't help we're really not following Captain Phasma either but a Stormtrooper named Cardinal, who draws immediate questions like, "Do they have Cardinals in Star Wars? Birds or red-robed high ranking priests of the Catholic Church?" He's one of the "Good" Imperials who has been cheerfully educating thousands of children to be soldiers for the Empire before, OH MY FORCE, realizing that this is a bad thing.

I'm a big fan of Imperials and humanizing them. That's why I wrote Lucifer's Star as sort of my Vorkosigan Saga-esque fanfic for Star Wars. I also note a lot of people dont seem to understand how indoctrination works as they seem to think being educated in soldiery from birth turns people into soulless robots when it actually just tends to turn them into mentally unstable fanatics as indoctrination isn't Hollywood mind-control. However, I do find it weird that the guy in charge of making ruthless killing machines doesn't seem to realize he's working for the bad guys--I wonder if he was a Grand Admiral Sloane appointment.

Overall, much of the book fails from the fact we don't really get to know Phasma much more than when we met her. She's a two-dimensional monster at the start of the story and remains a two-dimensional monster at the end. Cardinal is interesting as a character but I can't help but find him a bit unbelievable.

5/10

 

Thank you, this all seems pretty much spot on with my overall thoughts for the book too. The 'nothing happens' seems to be a major symptom of the new canon. Bloodline,which I had just read before this.... nothing seems to HAPPEN happen. At the very end, in the epilogue stuff happens.... but its all things we know NEEDS to happen.... and its summed up in a few paragraphs (Leia making the Resistance). The Aftermath series had the most 'actual events' and timeline progression. Shame the books were so horrible. And it was a shame how horribly used Han and Chewie (and Leia, and definitely Luke) in the new timeline.

 

Spoiler

I thought they used pieces of old EU KOTOR storyline, to describe what was happening to the people of Parnassos. First they had great technology and lands, then all of a sudden they're put into the stone age. The Robots talking about the Creaters. It all reminded me of Rakatan in KOTOR and the Star Forge. It's funny to me how Disney destroys the old Cannon, but wants to takes small pieces to make their new story. I think the Author did the best she could with what they allowed her to use, but overall I'll give it 5 out of 19.

 

Exactly. And while her fellow Scyre traveling companions aren't nearly as evil as Phasma is, they too weren't very believable as post-apocalyptic survivors. There's several times in the book where they're grinning over snarky comments and nudging each other in the ribs playfully, which to me seemed way out of character for these people.

This is certainly more nitpicky, but I agree. It's the age-old question as to how "contemporary Earth" Star Wars should be. Some don't care at all while others get bent out of shape over hot chocolate. But this just seemed way too disingenuous to me. We have Cardinal, a stormtrooper commander who wears bright red armor and then we have the cardinal, a bird endemic to North America, known for its bright red plumage. I'm sure there were plenty of people who didn't bat an eye at that, and perhaps I shouldn't have, but it really pulled me out of the story.

Ducks in Star Wars is perfectly OK. A character named "Mallard" known for wearing a bright green helmet, is not (IMO).

 

Whilst I get not wanting to set thing explicitly in stone in case they ever need to move things around due to a future story I really wish they'd give us a bit more info on the timeline. Everything seems to be pretty nebulous at the moment!

 

The "now" storyline is nebulous, but the book says Phasma, Armitage and Siv are the same age, who is 34 by TFA. You could do the math and place the older events more or less accurately.

 

Well, and even further to that degree, the bird Cardinal was only named because its colors closely resembled to that of the Cardinals from the Vatican (their robes). Take out the Vatican church, and whoever names the Cardinal bird, most likely names it something different but based on its red colorage. Would we then have a character with Insert-New-Cardinal-Bird-Name with Red Armor?

There were a few cases where things stuck out weird to me. Like when Hux mentions Politics and the Scrye folk ask "whats that" but then later on they use a term all but the same thing, and its common verbiage for them. The things where Siv brings up about the gaps of their knowledge seems spurious, because I'd think there would be *A LOT* outside of their general knowledge. Especially considering Siv even mentions that "old age" for them is something around 30~. Which also makes me wonder how many generations were they there like this? Siv mentions her great-great-grandma passing the detraxor knowledge down the line, so that means at least five generations with Siv being the youngest of those 5 generations. Assuming old age is 30, and kids are most likely born at 16, that puts it at roughly 16x5 =80 years (minimum). And Vi tells the story as "10 years ago on Parnassus", and I believe Phasma (the novel) is supposed to be 1 year before TFA. So that means the events of Phasma and Scrye is happening 9 years pre-TFA, which is 32 years after Endor right? So that would mean the event that turned Parnassus into what it is, happened roughly 42~ years before Endor. So, about 5-10 years before Naboo right? (I could be way off on all of this timeline numbering though).


Also, interesting tidbit, apparently Firefox doesn't red-underline Parnassus, meaning its a "real" word to them. Which Dictionary.com gives me:

Interesting. Always thought the sound of that seemed familiar.

 

I generally assume a Translation Convention is in effect.

There's no Cardinal but it's something which has the similar connotations.

 

Yea, I get that, its still a bit jarring though.

 

Best novel of Nu-Canon in my opinion!!!!

 

I thought it was pretty good. I like how we always saw Phasma from the PoV of someone else. And I thought it was suitably desperate. I mean there are bugs that literally make people pop open like over-ripe fruit, and sunscreen made from the blood of dead people. A couple characters bleed out, have their necks snapped, or have other suitably awful things happen to them.

Just because there are moments of brevity doesn't mean these people don't live horrific lives.

 

Care to say why? Like to actually GIVE an opinion? Though from what I've seen in various other threads, I highly doubt you will.

 

Didn't he just explicitly say what his opinion was?

As you said, he didn't give a reason why for his opinion. But it's is his opinion and also his prerogative. He doesn't owe you an explanation to justify his opinion.

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I thought it was pretty good. The Journey to the Last Jedi comic series complimented this book quite well. I enjoyed getting a look at Phasma's background.

 

All of this Phasma build up will look totally stupid if she just ends up being killed by Finn in TLJ.

 

And he doesn't have to reply to that either. I never said he HAD to. Nobody *HAS* to do anything. You didn't *HAVE* to make a snark reply. But you did. And I made the thread. And I made that comment, and I'm making this comment. I have no gun to his head forcing him to reply and give an actual opinion. But if he ever wants to offer anything of substance, or to have a debate, or discussion, or to have others view him worthy of listening/reading his one-sentence thoughts - then he should give opinion. If he doesn't care (and from what I've seen of his posts, I imagine it will fall into this category), then he doesn't have to reply. Just like you didn't have to. Just like I didn't have to.

See how that works? Nothing but meaninglessness now. He contributed nothing to the thread. And neither did you now.

 

That wasn't snarky. I'd say pretty direct.

I'm not sure you get what the difference between an opinion and supporting an opinion is. The opinion is there.

In any case, you are right: you absolutely do have a right to be an *******. Carry on then. (Now that was snark.)



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I do like it as a "background" novel on Phasma. We got to see her past and whatnot and as far as TLJ it might be important or it might, we'll see in a couple weeks. I agree not much is being allowed to happen of importance. I've felt we're just establishing histories within Canon. I think the Aftermath trilogy gave us the most interesting stories in some respects as well. I am looking forward to more Luke stories after TLJ comes out. Phasma wasn't terrible though. It was enjoyable and left me actually wanting to know more about Cardinal.

 

After signing up the great Gwendoline Christie to play her, hype her up, then give her 2 mintues of screen time, one of which is to be a plot device to help blow up the 3rd Death Star before literally being thrown in the trash. Now for her to be killed off by the guy who threw her in the trash !
I like to think of this as the Tragedy of Captain Phasma

 

Wow, maturity thy name is Stymi. To think, you've been on these forums for 15 years, and you have a newcomer, and this is how you treat them. You must be a pleasure to behold in public spheres and I can only imagine the scintillating conversations and debates you have with people.

Now, that's SNARK. Facetious snark.

What you did was more PETULANT and BRATTY behavior, and far from snark. Attemptive sardonic humoristic writing is not SNARK by definition moreso than saying "It was good" is a GOOD or worthwhile endeavor of anyone's time - albeit an opinion. Like you said, he was TECHNICALLY correct in saying drivel like "It was good" is an opinion. But likewise, going about the world just saying things of this simpling nature is akin to walking the streets of Paris yelling "I Like Bananas"; good, good for you, and congrats. Just realize you haven't added anything of value to anything or anyone by doing so.

 

I'd say value is subjective.

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So you think someone saying "It was good" contains value? Or has value? Or is a valuable statement?

 

I like bananas.

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