Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View

Star Bores: From a Certain Point of Poo (Or, The Force-Kin Awakens)

I've never met anyone who doesn't hate at least one Star Wars film. The dialogue from Clones, the mind-numbing pace of Menace, the blatant retreading of Awakens, the stupid teddy-bear things from Return, whatever the fuck Rise was about…

The only film that isn't someone's greatest disappointment since their son is A New Hope, so naturally, as the fortieth anniversary of its release approached, Disney graced us with From A Certain Point of View. Even I, a person whose sole experience with the expanded universe was reading the back of The Unseen Queen and deciding it sounded excruciating to the point of genuine illness, was engaged by the premise of FACPOV; it's A New Hope told from the perspective of forty-odd background characters, each chapter written by a different author and from the view of a different person. Or, as the case may be, scrotum-chinned alien.

The flaws inherent to such a venture become obvious after ten or so stories. Take your pick: either a scene ripped directly from the film with the odd original thought from whoever's POV it is that comes across as a glorified DVD commentary; an original story with elements of a New Hope shoehorned in, usually as trite and desperate as "Luke Skywalker walks through one scene, saying or doing nothing"; or reapplying context to a scene already in the film. The last option sounds superior at first, but once you've seen Han Solo shoot Greedo for the fourth time you'll be begging for a change of pace.

I'm highlighting the flaws inherent in the system not to criticize but to alleviate; yes, most of the stories are pretty mediocre, but given how difficult these restraints were "mediocre" could have been a lot worse.

The "retelling of a scene we already saw" stories end up being the weakest; about the strongest element introduced in any of them is "Greedo was an incel". I never found myself looking at a character in a new light or understanding their perspective more. The worst offender is the very first story in the anthology, Raymus. It's from the perspective of Captain Antillies, the poor guy Vader strangles at the very start after he refuses to reveal where the Death Star plans are. The story manages to make Antilles the most generic "brave military leader" archetype possible, and it had me worried most of the other stories would be this drab.

The lack of collaboration between authors is also obvious at times; Greedo is depicted as a known idiot in one story, then as a Rodian with a dangerous reputation in the next one. Towards the end we're hit with four retellings of the Death Star fight with so little variation you'll probably have memorized all of Luke's dialogue by the end.

Only three stories managed to enhance the original film while also being strong standalone pieces: The Sith of Datawork by Ken Liu, a blisteringly original take on the Empire as a beauracratic mess collapsing under its own weight; An Incident Report by Daniel Lavery, a darkly humorous look at the mind of Motti, the poor sap Vader force chokes; and by Alexander Freed, a brilliant character piece on Mon Mothma. A lot of stories are painfully close to joining them but screw up on a single issue; Not for Nothing and Stories in the Sand both have fantastic premises and openings but are let down by unsatisfying ending, primarily because they're forced to fit into the film's narrative. The Baptist is a brilliantly claustrophobic tale about the trash compactor monster of all things, but it tries to do far too much in too short a time. There’s a trite attempted rape scene early on, and it adds so little to the narrative it honestly comes across as crass and offensive. Please, sexual assault is so far from the tone of Star Wars it should be limited to scenes that have aged about as well as Jim’ll Fix It.  

Overall, From A Certain Point of View is a flawed if decent anthology for anyone interested in Star Wars. If the premise alone interests you it's at least worth checking out.

6/10

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Next week: Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders