Books The Last Jedi by Jason Fry

Talking of the little details and extra scenes:

Spoiler

I enjoyed Snoke's withering critique of Hux's hyperspace tracker. That it was a brute force solution is, at the same time, very, very Hux.

 

I still don't understand that though...about the hyperspace tracker. Snoke's ship wasn't presence when the Resistance fleet jumped to hyperspace, so the tracker should have been on The Finalizer, not the Supremacy.

 

Spoiler

Given their track record about i troducing ideas on which they don't follow through, no.

 

Well, yeah, there is that elephant in the room, especially after TLJ.

Even so, they've been seeding the Unknown Regions a lot.

 

I'm enjoying it, especially getting into the character's mindsets, but the Kindle version has some glaring issues I'm not sure are in the hardcopy. Words being sep-arated as such, and "character speech being utterly ruined, he said" by punctuation errors." A paragraph during the part where Luke says "It's time for the Jedi to end" is also duplicated and placed in the middle of that scene as well as the end.
It's definitely a good read, and I look forward to finishing it.

 

One thing I found interesting (and had to re-read a few times) was a section about the Skywalker lightsaber:

Spoiler

when we're reading from Snoke's point of view when he is saying his line about the "darkness rises, and the light to meet it" and that Kylo's "equal in the light would rise." Then Snoke takes the lightsaber and begins to examine it.

"...To Snoke's eyes, the weapon's very form revealed the Jedi lineage behind its creation, a string of once mighty names that no longer had any meaning.​

'Skywalker, I assumed,' he said. 'Wrongly.'"​

Does this line refer to Rey being Kylo's equal in the light, not Luke Skywalker? I agree that's where we're being lead, but why insert an entire paragraph description of the lightsaber between those two spoken lines? Why shift the focus from Rey to the lightsaber?

Did he wrongly assume the lightsaber was made by Skywalker? Could this lightsaber have been constructed by someone else before Anakin Skywalker acquired it after losing his first saber, and Snoke sees some detail he recognizes? That might explain why it was drawn to Rey, and not Kylo, Anakin's descendant.

Or am I reading too much into it?

 

This is a good example of where the actual film can inform how to intepret a scene in the novelization. When you see the film, that extra bit of text is not present, and it is very very clear that line is about "equal in the light" and not the weapon at all. But you're right that the arrangement of the texts muddys things a bit. Though, the trick for the reader is that Snoke's out loud dialogue is separate from his internal thoughts. He doesn't vocalize the internal to the external (so that would be a clue).

When we say "canon except where it contradicts the movies" this the type of thing we're really talking about. The film makes it absolutely clear what Snoke's line of dialogue is referring to. The novelization clutters that a bit with the extra sentences, so in the case of confusion - use the film as your guide.

(I realize that areas of interpretation between film/book are not always so clear as this one. But, it bore remarking on.)

 

I debated about posting before I could get my hands on the DVD to rewatch that scene, but it's been weighing on my mind for a few days now. I thought where that character was looking as they said that line would be telling, but obviously I can't check it yet!

Regarding the vocalizing vs thinking: his thoughts inform what he says out loud. So when I read it, it seemed like it could have been misdirection. I know what they want me to think at this point in time, but if we find out something later, the misdirection would make sense. But again, there would have to be something in the movie to support where he was directing that comment to, and from what you are saying (and I trust you and many others are more familiar with it than I) there isn't.

Thanks!

 

I think Snoke is referring to Skywalker being the one he wrongly assumed was the equal in the light. It’s Rey. The paragraph of snoke ripping the lightsaber out of kylo’s grasp was meant to explain the idea that kylo’s life/destiny lied in snoke’s hands. message being sent to Rey that snoke was in control of kylo. A jedi’s Lightsaber has been referred to in SW as their LIFE. “Seemingly offhand” means that he was actually trying to make a point that kylo’s life was his to control. To drive this point home even further where they pick up next snoke reveals to her how he forged their force bond.

 

Yeah, that's a mucky placement that steps on the dialogue. I understand why I put the idea there, but in hindsight I either should have dropped it or licked up a transition back to what Snoke is saying.

Because I've seen questions about it elsewhere: "Jedi lineage" there refers to masters and Padawans, and how Padawans construct their lightsabers to recall those of their masters. The idea that Snoke knows enough to read that was cool -- so cool that I couldn't let go of it and allowed it to gum up the storytelling, which should never happen.

So there's a writing lesson in there, at least.

 

Some modest questions for those who read the novelization: What is it take on Canto Bright ? Does it give any true relevance to that part of the movie or explain why the characters looked so dumb betting it all on the hacker ? Does the book give any information about the real hacker Maz mentioned or justifies in any form the DJ cvharacter ?

 

Just finished the novelization. I'm going to copy a few things over from my Twitter, then expand.

Spoiler

Growing up, Star Wars seemed like a book series with some pretty good tie in films, but there was always a gap between book and screen. Fry closed that gap as successfully as anyone who has ever wrote for this franchise, rivaled only by Matthew Stover for ROTS. These are, inaurguably (for me), the two best novels, and shows why LFL/Del Rey should really only give novelizations to people who have previously written successful Star Wars books. Or, you know, keep Fry on retainer forever. I mean, we are not freaking out enough that the guy who wrote the ICS got to do the novelization AND had a sitdown with the writer/director. I don't think the kind of authors that get that down into the weeds got too much facetime with Lucas back before the sale. This is awesome.

One of the things that helped give this novel some consistency is how much characters explored in books - both Legends and nu-canon - feel like the versions of themselves we're already familiar with. Rose felt like a direct continuation of the character from Cobalt Squadron, and I liked her even more on page than on screen. Ackbar is the same fish-guy we knew and loved from the X-Wing books. Leia has probably changed the most from Legends to the new films, but she translates pretty directly from Bloodlines, and I find her much more grounded and fun in the new canon than the old. On the flip side, the novel made me appreciate just how much Adam Driver brings to Kylo Ren, as words will never fully capture the electricity and menace he brings to the character. This book shows just how little time Ren had in the story, but he's a much heavier presence on-screen.We need a standalone novel about this kid, and soon (praying for Stover on this).

Because Star Wars has largely been a literary experience for me, reading Luke's final moments hit me in a way that seeing them didn't. On film, it was pretty obvious that Luke will be back, and soon, as a Force ghost. Here, there was more of a sense of finality to it. We'll get backfill of Luke's adventures between Pillio and the destruction of his academy someday, I'm sure, and I'm sure we'll get plenty of future appearance on page from his ghost (see: Yoda in Rebels), but this was the last time we'll read internal monologue from Luke Skywalker. That's weird to say, but it was handled beautifully.

As others have noted everywhere, I need more argumentative spaceship brains in these stories.

This book confirms my sense that we're going to see a significant time jump between stories. I hope, though, that the Resistance (please don't start calling them Rebels again, that's boring) is going to make use of the planetary defense forces and Republic Remnants this book repeatedly alludes to.

I've said since TFA that if this series ends with Rey as the lone, half-trained Jedi in the galaxy, I'll be annoyed. It looks like we're heading that way, but I'm not as annoyed as I thought I'd be. Luke spent decades traveling the galaxy to reconstruct the intellectual history of the Jedi so that he can train the next generation. I can't see Rey doing that. Fry makes clear that she's a doer, not a thinker, and she's going to hit the ground running and stay there from here until the end of her days. To the extent that she becomes any kind of Jedi Master, I see her training regimen for students depending a lot more on practical experience and helpful advice from Force ghosts than any kind of formal academy. Props to Snoke calling the prequel Jedi a self-perpetuating debate society. I don't think we'll see their kind again.

The relevance of that section of the movie was always about Finn and Rose's character growth, and feeding into the film's bigger thesis that the big dumb heroic thing doesn't always work out. We don't find out too much more about the Master Codebreaker, other than book-Maz being a bit less lusty than screen-Maz. DJ, again, feeds into Finn's character arc and the film's message. DJ is the worst version of what a Finn can be: an amoral-self-interested man taking no side in the war and trying to hide out in the Outer Rim. He also shows that the fixation on Chosen Ones - in this case, the Master Codebreaker chosen by Maz - is limiting; turns out, he wasn't the ONLY guy that could sneak Finn and Rose onto the Supremacy. DJ, like Rey, is a nobody from nowhere that the heroes and villains in the story can ignore only at their own risk. We do get one new line from DJ that I think adds wonderfully to his character:

Spoiler

"I'm sorry for being exactly who I said I was," after turning Finn and Rose over to the First Order.

 

After reading the novel I’ve come to the conclusion that DJ is in fact the master code breaker Maz had intended for them to meet all along. I believe the force willed them to find him in the jail cell despite them “failing” to get to the guy with the red plume. I think DJ lost the red plume (jeweled broach) at the casino to that guy. Things are not as they seem was the general theme I found running through the canto bight parts. DJ says there’s no good guys/bad guys. He’s foreshadowing about what’s to come. The revelations in episode IX will be shocking.

 

I have a theory that Rey’s a relation to Kenobi. Maybe that’s why Anakin’s lightsaber calls to her and she can summon it? Also the flirty lines between Rey and Kylo when she reminds him that the lightsaber came to her over him and Kylo “says you’re in no position to dictate.” If she’s “the master” she most certainly can . Reminds me of the playful banter between kenobi and anakin as master and padawan, as well as touching back to padme flirting with anakin in AOTC when she says “that sounds like a dictatorship” and he slyly smiles at her “well if it works”. Loved your book. I think you did a great job!

 

My understanding of this was that the tracker itself is a program that was developed in the Finalizer, possibly with some portable hardware component, and then moved to the Supremacy along with Hux and his officers, and likely engineers assigned to it. This would mean the program uses the computer banks and hyperspace field generators available in any of the destroyers, though the Supremacy is likely to have the most superior hardware and may provide the best results. Finn knows what to target because he and Rose deduced that as an A-Class process, this program would use a dedicated power breaker, which Finn knew where to find in the Supremacy. I could be totally wrong, but I remember not getting this too well in the film and looking out for it in the novel

 

Again, a big part of this movie's theme is that lineages are nonsense and that nobodies from nowhere are just as good as anyone else. Snoke and Luke both say that the Cosmic Force has a way of choosing unlikely people as its instruments.

I don't think the hyperspace tracker was mobile, but this is otherwise correct. The First Order is built on rigid hierarchy, and as such only the flagship of any given fleet should be responsible for hyperspace tracking. As such, the Supremacy should be the only ship with its tracker turned on once it shows up.

I bolded "should" because neither the film nor the novel confirm that this theory is actually correct. It's apparently no big deal to have a tracker turned on, and transferring the information about an enemy's jump to a functioning tracker doesn't seem that hard. This means that, even in a best-case scenario, Poe's plan might not, and probably would not, have worked.

 

In an interview, Jason told us that originally the book was going to use a cut version of the plotline where they actually got involved in a heist with the master codebreaker before being arrested (and then the plot continued as in the film) but that change was cut at almost the very last minute because it deviated too far from the film.

In either case though, the codebreaker ends up being a red herring -- or sorry, red plom bloom. ​

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I think DJ was the code breaker Maz sent them to find all along. He probably lost the red plom to the guy who was wearing it when he was gambling at the casino.

 

1) Because she's stronger than Ben, and is chosen by the Cosmic Force right now to bring both Luke and Ben to their destinies.

2) I mean, a lot of this is basic hero's journey archetype stuff. This is the kind of stuff Chosen Ones have to do.

Maybe the Force just really likes desert planets?

True. What I meant to say is that lineage is not the be-all, end-all determiner of one's role in the story or power in the Force. If anything, Kylo Ren sees himself as the heir apparent to Darth Vader, despite the fact that he really super isn't and on some level doesn't want to be.

 

Maz to Rey in TFA: whoever you’re waiting for on Jakku they’re never coming back, but there’s someone who still could *whisper* it’s Ben
Kenobi to Anakin in ROTS “I failed you Anakin”
Rey to Luke in TLJ: “kylo ren failed you, I won’t”

 

So based on all the spoilers the book basically gives half assed explanations to all the flaws in the movie.