Review

Recent Star Wars Novels, Reviewed

And by recent, I mean, within the last couple of years.

Star Wars: Tarkin

This novel explains the rise and career of Wilhuff Tarkin, up to his appointment as a Grand Moff. It jumps from period to period (boy, young Judiciary Force commander, Imperial Officer), skipping over his appearances in Clone Wars. If you thought Tarkin just got a bad rep for blowing up an entire planet just to test the Death Star, but was otherwise an okay guy, then this book will correct you of that gross misjudgment of character.

Rating: Decent

Star Wars Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel

This novel starts right near the end of the Old Republic, and goes up to a couple of years before Rogue One: A Star Wars Story starts. It is primarily a story about Galen Erso and Orson Krennic, particularly since Jyn isn’t born, and when she, is she is a young child. It explains some of the hardships it took to construct the first Death Star aka, the 20 year project to build a moon-sized space station. (And yet, they built a second functional one like 4 years later which was larger in size). This book doesn’t exactly endear anyone to Galen Erso, either.

Rating: Fine

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Andy Weir’s Artemis: A Novel

From the Amazon description:

Propelled by its heroine’s wisecracking voice, set in a city that’s at once stunningly imagined and intimately familiar, and brimming over with clever problem-solving and heist-y fun, Artemis is another irresistible brew of science, suspense, and humor from #1 bestselling author Andy Weir.

Artemis is set on the moon. And follows the exploits of one Jasmine Bashara (Jazz for short), a smuggler. She is one of some 2000 odd residents living on the moon in a settlement called Artemis, so named for the Greek goddess of, among other things, the moon. The facilities have existed for at least twenty years, and with weekly launches to and from the moon, space travel seems to become fairly regular. Jazz takes on a job that might be out of her league, and therein the story lies.

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Justice League Does Fans, and DC, Justice

I had the opportunity to see a special fan screening of Justice League last night (the Monday before the official release). I ended up having to stand in line for 3 hours to do it, get scanned by security (with actually metal detector wands), and turn off my phone (even though the screen wanted you to scan a Snapchat code). Once the movie started I quickly forgot about the hassle of actually getting to my seat.

First, I want to talk about expectations and hype. Mine were truly low. I’ve seen all the DCEU movies, watched all the JL trailers, and I was not expecting a Wonder Woman type of hit. As much as I enjoy Snyder’s Superman, I can’t say the previous Superman films were examples of great film. And I don’t want to talk about Suicide Squad, because Folding Ideas has done it better than I could. After everything we’ve seen, I expected Justice League to be a mess of grimdark origins that barely formed a cohesive plot.

So, watching the movie I felt my expectations constantly rising.

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War For the Planet of the Apes is Strong

As the opening to the film explains, War takes place 15 years after Rise and a few years after Dawn. The apes have retreated further into the forest, but are being hunted by the military force called in at the end of the previous movie. The apes want to find a new home, away from humanity and away from the war Koba started.

I’d like to keep this review fairly short and sweet, since we’ve all got other things to do. To start, here’s the great:

Like Dawn, War excels at showing the humanity in the simians. They are believable and relatable characters. Andy Serkis shines as Caesar, in what I’d considered my favorite performance of his to date. His motion-capture body acting and the animation team delivered the most emotive, captivating scenes in the film, connecting you to the character more successfully than any other sci-fi movie I can recall of late.

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