Timothy Zahn in and out of Star Wars

During a recent conversation about the Star Wars expanded universe novels (which I think are now called legends), I commented on how I have only read the first three Zahn novels that helped start the line. (Yes, I know there are older non-movie books and other media but that trilogy is what started it’s own publishing imprint)

I commented how there have to be a lot of readers who think of Timothy Zahn as a Star Wars author. I then corrected myself and said that they thought of him as THE Star Wars author.

Why this amuses me so much is because the only reason I read the Thrawn trilogy was that I had already enjoyed so much of Timothy Zahn’s writing. He was the draw for me.

Most of my Zahn reading was in the 80s and early 90s. I am still amused that his Blackcollar books were ninjas in space before ninjas became a mainstay in pop culture (Thank you, Turtles!) and Cobra thoughtfully deconstructed super soldiers before deconstruction was cool.

But my entry point  with Zahn  was actually his novella Cascade Point. It’s the one that won the Hugo in 1983. (Nebula award winners make me think but Hugo award winners entertain me)

Unlike a fair bit of Zahn’s output, Cascade Point isn’t military science fiction or space opera (yes, I know there’s a lot of overlap between those two genres) Instead, it’s about what amounts to an industrial accident on a tramp freighter. If it had been written twenty years later, you could have called it Firefly Only Legal.

While Cascade Point had some fascinating visuals, particularly an infinite wall of diffeeent versions of the person observing, the character driven elements are what stuck with me. And what made me look for more Zahn.

Zahn is good at finding the intersection of the human element with the fantastic element. I may not have read a lot of his Star Wars work but I’m glad it’s there for those who have.

Now that I’ve seen the last Star Wars films...

Before we had our son, I read a comic strip that stated having a young child meant that you would see movies months after their release after they hit the secondary market. I took that to heart and waiting until movies were on Netflix or other streaming services was an easy adjustment.

And that means that I just saw Rogue One for the first time and I only got to see The Force Awakens earlier this year. Frankly, flat screen TVs and modern sound systems make the difference between seeing a movie at home versus the theater not as big a deal compared to when I was growing up.

While I liked Rogue One better, I also liked The Force Awakens a lot too. Despite a couple odd bits (really, just why is Han Solo smuggling Cthulhoid monsters and not caring about losing crew?), I felt it was a fun film that did the very essential job introducing Star Wars to a new generation.

What I found interesting is that my friends who were hardcore Star Wars fans hated the Force Awakens while folks who were just science fiction fans in general loved it. In particular, my friends who had kids and The Force Awakens was the real introduction to Star Wars for those kids really had a positive reaction to it.

And those same kids didn’t like Rogue One and found it too depressing. Which makes sense. It is a darker movie with a lot of unhappy themes. While the diehard Star Wars fans absolutely loved it. 

One of the problems that the friends who hated The Force Awakens is that they felt it was a retread of the original movie. That it reinvented the wheel.

But... that was kind of the point. Since that wheel was invented, that wheel has had Harry Potter added to it and the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Marvel Ciniverse and much more. Star Wars changed the way movies told stories but it kept evolving after that. If Star Wars was to continue and bring new people on board, particularly children, it needed a new jumping on point. 

And while Rogue One is second only to the Empire Strikes Back in my arrogant opinion, it is not that jumping on point and it really isn’t for kids. And I honestly believe that kids are a crucial audience component to Star Wars. I mean, I was a kid and I really liked it before I discovered the Tomorrow People and then Doctor Who. (Okay, I may have been a weird kid)

These are the conclusions that I have come to. The original Star Wars is the most important film out of all of them but it is not an immutable, perfect movie. There is clearly room for improvements.

And those of us who saw Stars originally in the theater are no longer the target demographic :D