Lit Literature member interviews

11. ROTS and ROTJ are tied for the top spot. ROTS had a bit of a shaky start(the duel with Dooku and Grievous) the rest of the film more than made up for it. The scene at the opera and indeed the entire film from the moment Anakin stands in the Chancellor's office as Darth Vader are, simply put, the best parts. I always get cold chills when Anakin marches into the Jedi Temple with the 501st behind him. ROTJ is great, too. I noticed that if you watch the scene where Luke jumps off the skiff plank in slow-mo, you can just barely see that Han has what looks like a disbelieving expression on his face. The Death Star scenes were phenomenal, especially the Emperor goading Luke and the duel between father and son. As for the Ewoks, I didn't mind them at all. Yes, they were primitive, but so what? They gave help to the strike team when it was most needed.

ESB is second, and of course the revelation scene is the most powerful moment in it.

I don't have a particular order for TPM, AOTC, and ANH. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. TPM did an OK job showing Anakin's childhood and the reemergence of the Sith, but Jar-Jar was a little grating. AOTC gave us the beginning of the Clone Wars, but I think the scenes between Anakin and Padme could have been trimmed. ANH was a little slow paced for my taste and the Vader/Obi-Wan duel seemed a little lackluster.

My order would probably be this:

I. ROTS & ROTJ
II. ESB
III. AOTC
IV. A New Hope
V. TPM

10. Matt Stover's ROTS novelization and Jim Luceno's DP, LOE, & DL: TRODV.

ROTS is easily the best of the movie novelizations. Stover really gets into the character's heads. I was thrilled to read the Obi-Wan/Anakin/Dooku duel as he really gave a lot of depth to it, showing Dooku's smug arrogance/confidence and then his surprise when the Jedi turned the tables on him. It also gave more insight into Anakin's conflicted feeling and his slow fall with Palpatine subtly corrupting him. The only thing that bothered me was the short paragraph given to Order 66. I wish he had written a little more about that. Oh, and the opening and closing epigraphs. Sheer brilliance, especially Stover's "night is falling on civilization itself."

LOE and DL:TRODV serve as perfect bookends to ROTS. LOE reads at times like a breathless thriller as Obi-Wan and Anakin, along with Mace and his team of Coruscant, get closer and closer to uncovering Sidious' identity. The first time I read it, I was wondering if the Jedi would find out who Sidious was before the end, but it didn't happen. Yoda's introspection on Coruscant was pretty neat.

Not much to say about DL except that it's absolutely great.

DP - DP has got to be the best pre TPM book out there. It started off a little slow but once Palpatine appeared things really kicked into high gear. Palpatine's murder of his parents and siblings was chilling. So were the deaths of Pax Teem and the other Gran. I was completely floored that Plagueis actually lived through the events of TPM. I've watched the movie a few times since reading DP and have always visualized Plagueis lurking in the background. Even my mother, who has never read a single SW book before and is only a casual Star Wars fan, read DP earlier this year on a recommendation from both me and a friend. After she had finished, she told me, "They should have done TPM like this."

 

Oops, mislabeled question #12 as #10. Sorry about that.

FYI, don't expect the rapid blitz of answers I posted yesterday to last for the rest of the interview. I just found out that a family member is having surgery tomorrow morning. Another family member is having hip surgery next Monday, and my B-Day is this weekend as well, so the next couple of days are going to be pretty crazy and I may not have much time to check the thread. Rest assured, though, I will answer questions when I can find time.

 

13. Luke Skywalker
Anakin Skywalker
Darth Vader
Emperor Palpatine
Anakin Solo
Chewbacca
Jacen Solo
Thrawn
Corran Horn
Tycho Celchu

14. I would say my favorite era is the Clone Wars. There's just something about reading how both sides were so thorougly manipulated to fight the war, and in the end they both lost; the CIS the war and the Republic its freedom.

While I don't dislike Legacy per se, I think LOTF could have been scripted better. It was a little too prequelish for me in Jacen's portrayal and his motives.

 

15. I've never played any SW video games. Never had an Xbox or any other game console and our old computer wasn't equipped to handle PC games. We've had a new computer for several years and I have my laptop,but I've never made the jump to playing SW games.

I have played several other PC games that I bought, though. My mom and I both like the Nancy Drew series from Her Interactive, but we only have several of those. I've also played the Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest/At World's End combo video game and the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian video game.

16. I'm not really thrilled with the TCW show. Maul's return was unnecessary, and Anakin having a Padawan, especially when no mention was even made of such in ROTS, just doesn't seem right. I've seen bits and pieces of the show here and there and it seems OK, but if George Lucas wanted to do this show from the start, he should have done it between AOTC and ROTS's releases instead of waiting until three years after ROTS.

 

17. Hmm ... I'd go with telekinesis so I could threaten to lift anybody in the air if they bug me too much.

18. One issue that really matters the most to me is Israel. Even leaving aside the fact that the Lord chose Israel as his people, they have always been misunderstood and oppressed. They were driven from their homeland and scattered across the continent after the Romans sacked Jerusalem. Now they're back in their homeland ... but they're still facing threats from the neighboring countries, countries who seem to have forgotten that Israel has a stronger claim to the disputed land in the Middle East than the Arabs do. The US did the right thing in supporting Israel's reestablishment back in 1948, but I'm concerned about the direction US-Israel relations seem to be taking lately. Israel seems to have very little support in the international community and I think the US should maintain relations, even at the risk of displeasure from the Arab nations.

 

Just threaten to? You wouldn't actually lift them in the air? Then I have good news, you can do that now! You've had the power within you all this time!

 

19. Coruscant after the Vong War but before the Killik Crisis.

20. Pay off my student loans. Seriously.

 

You spelled "American presidents" wrong.

 

Dog.

Green.

Tough one. I'll go with grilled cheese sandwiches.

Autumn.

Baseball.

 

Crikey.

Roast - regular or pork roast.

Gospel.

Sweat.

History.

 

We're getting avant-garde in here.

 

21. Michael Romanov and his son Alexis. They had to govern Russia during a time of upheaval and try to put the country back together after the Time of Troubles. Michael, of course, left the affairs of state to his father while the latter was alive, but after Filaret's death Michael really came into his own. Even with the threat of the Poles hanging over his head, he still maintained Russia's borders and did not cede any land. Alexis was known as the "Mild" and it was under his reign that Western civilzation slowly started to enter Russia, though it was his son who would take it further than he did. In a sense, Alexis paved the way for Peter the Great's reforms.

22. OK. This is going to take some thought.

I think that Church and State should not be allowed to dictate to each other on issues without considering the others' positions and why it believes that way. Stating a certain stance and running roughshod over those who disagree is not the best thing to do. We all (even Christians) should be respectful of other people's beliefs, but we do not have to like or agree with those beliefs. A lot of people today keep saying "tolerance", but that is virtually impossible to do. The government needs to realize that not all people will agree with the beliefs of others and should not try to force them to accept such. At the same time, Christians, Jews, ect. need to realize that people of other faiths often are not willing to be converted. Its a tricky line to walk.

Religious influence in today's government is, I think, too little. In the past, our leaders were, for the most part, God fearing men. We've lost that today, and I think with the multiple efforts to take "under God" out of the Pledge and the Bible rarely allowed in schools, that our country has turned its back on what once made us great.

 

23. Complete and utter surprise. I heard about it on the TV, and my first reaction was "This is a joke." But after I got on the Internet and found EU Cantina and other SW sites blowing up with the news, I realized it was no joke.

About all I really hope for the ST is that they're good films with stories that will draw me in like the other films did. Some nods to the EU would be nice too.

24. This summer the science center where I volunteer had a live butterfly exhibit for a couple of months and I worked in there once a week. Sometimes parents would come in with really young kids, and it's not easy for young kids to try to attract a butterfly to their finger. I usually made a point of getting at least one butterfly to land on my finger, and then I would transfer it to the kid's finger so they could hold one. It was worth it just to see the smiles on their faces.

 

Great interview, both of you. SkywalkerNumbers: Is there some particular aspect of the Romanov dynasty or Russian civilization in particular that sets them apart from other royal families in terms of your interest?

 

Great interview, Skywalker. You mentioned your love of history and your desire to visit some Civil War battlefield sites --- what are some of your other favourite historical periods/events/people/anything? Both American and worldwide?