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Damon Blalack is a visual artist and an award-winning filmmaker, journalist, and a college film professor, teaching courses on the Mythology of the Star Wars saga and on the Universal Classic Monsters. His films range across genres, and have appeared on PBS and festivals worldwide. As a journalist and photographer he's been writing professionally for a decade, regularly contributing interviews, articles, and photo sets to a variety of entertainment publications.
Contact Damon at monsterofmud@hotmail.com. |
Star Wars: Darth Plagueis is the first novel in 20 years of LucasBooks' publishing to actually feature the following tagline in the opening pages of the Advance Reader Copies: "This book is canon!"
Granted, all Star Wars novels exist within a level of canonicity to the overarching saga all their own: "C-canon", or continuity canon, is the designation given to the nearly two hundred novels that've been spawned since George Lucas' expansive space opera first made pop-culture history 35 years ago. But as Lucas had a direct hand in the shaping of this novel, as handed-down to author James Luceno via Lucas' long-running right-hand man Howard Roffman, this novel could conceptually supersede "C-canon", to be included at "G-canon" level, or material in which Lucas has had direct input (the films, The Clone Wars series, The Force Unleashed games).
As to "C-canon" material, many fans tend to overlook this wealth of material, either due to its enormity, or simply because just keeping up with the events surrounding the film saga's timeline is more than enough to keep one busy, as this new novel proves. For ten years now diehards have pondered such questions as Plagueis' life and origin, as well as that of his apprentice, Sidious, and one of his own apprentice's past: Darth Maul (As well as any new insights that can be given regarding his brotherhood to Savage); Palpatine's political career prior to becoming Sidious; The decade-long lead-in to the blockade of Naboo; Anakin's Immaculate Conception through the Force; Queen Amidala's origin and ascension to the Naboo throne; Dooku becoming disenfranchised and leaving the Jedi Order; Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas' order of the clone army from the Kaminoans; Palpatine killing Plagueis in his sleep; The Sith power over death (Darth Maul's forthcoming return anyone?).
Such are the riches that are actually delivered in James Luceno's novel - the effects of so much speculation being answered so concisely after so long is a bit disconcerting at first, taking time to fully-absorb: After having finished it weeks ago, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it, and it's likely going to demand a second read-through in order to fully realise the many-faceted implications contained within. Like The Godfather Returns (2004) and The Godfather's Revenge (2006) novels, Luceno's Plagueis novel does for the Star Wars saga what Mark Winegardner's novels did for the backstory of the Godfather saga. And it's fitting that both novels have the same level of complexity: the sheer number of events, place-names, and a cast of dozens makes for some tough reading at times; don't let the 368 page count fool you!
Not only does Luceno delve into the Sith mysteries with abandon, unlike we could've ever reasonably expected, but he does so in such a deft, seamless way that ties every minute detail into the already-rich lore of the existing C-canon (no mean feat in and of itself). In fact, though I've read at least 65 of the nearly 200 Star Wars titles over the years, I did have to occasionally resort to the Wookieepedia online resource to jog my memory about certain race names in order to correctly visualize the appearance of new minor characters.
To Luceno's benefit, he's penned many Star Wars titles over the years (8 novels, 2 short stories, and 2 reference books), and has had one of the heaviest hands in covering the machinations of the prequel era in books such as 2001's Cloak of Deception (the prequel to The Phantom Menace), Labyrinth of Evil (2005's lead-in to Revenge of the Sith), Dark Lord:The Rise of Darth Vader (2005's lead-out from Revenge of the Sith).
Though the Plagueis novel has its special dispensation as more highly-canonical than any other novels (aside from novelizations of both the films and the two The Force Unleashed games), considering Luceno's pedigree and the overlapping nature of material from Darth Plagueis overlapping so very much with his earlier prequel-era novels (particularly with Cloak of Deception), it seems those three other novels should receive a retroactively-branded pronouncement of holding the same stature.
As far as the flow of events in the novel go, I was surprised not only with how far the story begins (35 years prior to The Phantom Menace), and not only does it lead right up to the events of that genesis film, but even supersedes it, passing along through the narrative, adding additional glimpses of things occurring behind-the-scenes of moments fans know all too well. In fact, in one scene where Sidious sends his holonet transmission to Trade Federation Viceroy Nute Gunray, we learn that Plagueis is just off-camera, watching his apprentice put their long-gestating plan into action. And by extension, because a set-up that escalates us into this period, we also see the seeds that springs into events within Attack of the Clones, such as Sidious' manipulative puppeteering of Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas towards placing an order for the clone army. Going in the opposite direction, we learn much of Plagueis, as well as the master who shaped him, Darth Tenebrous (the ominous-sounding Latin term "tenebrae", meaning 'shadows' or 'darkness' has been used to suggest mystery and intrigue before with Italian filmmaker Dario Argento's classic giallo thriller, Tenebrae (1982)).
Knowing these markers have to be covered along the path occasionally makes the journey a bit frustrating: We're excited when we hit the expected notes, and though the joy is in seeing exactly how they play out (e.g.-Plagueis' trumped up assassination while he sleeps), it makes the exposition leading between each marker a bit of a slower read.
There's an early encounter Plagueis has with the crew of a kidnapped freighter that invests the reader with the names, personalities, appearances, and motivations of half a dozen crew members, only for them to be offed almost as soon as we've learned so much about them. Similarly, a scene further into the narrative has Plagueis tracking down a strong Force-user he's detected, through casinos and entertainment districts to no avail; as far as I can ascertain from memory, it's a loose thread that never sees return, unless to illustrate Plagueis' dedication to finding a suitable apprentice in the wake of learning his master had a replacement for him already lined-up.
But these tangents aren't overly long, and the book's sheer amount of information within such a short span of 368 pages means that the pace is always as briskly-paced as the films' "faster, more intense" design.
To Luceno's benefit, he had an additional five years to think about and plan this novel, beyond the 2007 cancellation. At that time, the author had decided to approach the narrative as a sort of compare/contrast between the character of Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Plagueis's methods, since both were concerned with immortality in their own way: Qui-Gon's Protestant-like rift from the Jedi Orthodoxy through his focus and study of "the Living Force" versus the older and more general Jedi study of the Universal "Force" meant a greater study on interaction between physicality and the ethereal spiritual energy via the conduit of midi-chlorian symbionts. Interestingly, it's this maverick thinking that allows the Christ-like Qui-Gon to return from the afterlife to shepherd the Jedi Order after his sacrifice to the forces of evil.
Darth Plagueis' mad-scientist-like desperate plea for immortality follows the ancient Sith tradition of trying to have immortality at all costs, but with an eye to retaining the "crude matter" human shell, as opposed to the Jedi's spiritual oneness with all life's dimensions. Such a dedication to physicality speaks of attachment, which we know full-well the Jedi teach against.
The dynamic between Qui-Gon and Darth Plagueis is one which would've made for an interesting novel premise, but once the publishing arm made the initial decision to indefinitely delay the announced title (perhaps due to the slate of other ancient Sith lord novels, such as Darth Bane: Path of Destruction (2006)), Luceno was able to rethink his strategy over the next several years.
The result is a deftly woven tapestry of everything you've always wanted to know about Palpatine and his master, with the novel being equal-parts about both characters, despite the more catching Darth Plagueis title. Suffice it to say there's little left to the imagination concerning either Sith lord, or for the timeline of their reigning ascent, so it's unlikely a follow-up could be easily created, especially given all the further detailed background intrigue Luceno already provided years ago in Cloak of Deception. But this is not to say that the author completely spoils the mystery and immersive threat of either lord; his vivid descriptions are factually rich, yet balanced with a more abstract telling of the dark moments of solitude and training between them.
To use an apt analogy from the Universal Studios' Frankenstein films Lucas has time-and-again paid homage to within the Star Wars saga, Plagueis is the Dr. Praetorius to Palpatine's Dr. Frankenstein, a rather direct line we can allusively trace to the monster in the eventual embodiment of Vader.
The arrival of this novel has been anticipated more so than perhaps any other Star Wars book title to date, and it does not disappoint. It's rare for me to journey outside of the live-action films, The Clone Wars series, and The Force Unleashed games, and even without the media hype of this novel being somehow elevated above the rest, the allure of knowing the background of so many mysteries behind the prequel films, and hence, the entire Star Wars saga, is too great not to delve into; and I'll go one further and say that it demands to be read twice-it's that deliciously satisfying towards our understanding of the Dark Side of the Force and all its myriad ways.
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