40 years of Return of the Jedi can only mean one thing…a new edition of From a Certain Point of View! Does the third movie’s edition hold as much fun and excitement as the previous two?
Nowadays, how would you properly celebrate the 40th anniversary of one of the most influential movies of all time? The movie where the bad guys are overcome by the force of love and self-giving; where gangsters are choked by the people they oppress; where seemingly regressive societies defeat one of the most powerful governments of all time? The one where a woman is dubbed over by the voice of a man in the climax of the film; the one where fight choreography means the main hero kicks a man ten feet away; the one where a teddy bear mourns the loss of his friend? You write a book featuring all of these stories and more! And the beauty of From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi is that it does celebrate the movie – all of it, from the weighty and the serious to the wacky and the lighthearted. And this, really, is what the core of the franchise is: the massive space opera is ultimately a corny story about love and death, of family and friendship, and teddy bears and space slugs.
From its inception, based on A New Hope, I’ve been a huge fan of the From a Certain Point of View series. I’ve enjoyed reading all of the backstories for 40 random characters throughout the Original Trilogy, and I’ve mostly enjoyed the chance these books give new authors to come into the galaxy far, far away. Now, I wouldn’t say every story has been a hit – these volumes have produced some of my least favorite stories in the franchise, and this edition contributes yet another. But these volumes have also contributed some of the best writing in the franchise, which, again, this one gives some top-tier amazing stories. Return of the Jedi‘s specifically includes a crop of my favorite authors: Emma Mieko Candon, Jason Fry, Sarah Kuhn, and Alyssa Wong, so I knew I would like a lot of these, while it also includes a few more “controversial” choices, like Ali Hazelwood, noted Reylo and author. From the start, this volume seemed like it would be the most polarizing for me, personally. From the teasers, I found a lot of stories I expected to love, in addition to a few that I didn’t look forward to, either due to the focus character choice or due to the author chosen for the story. I’m happy to report FACPOV RotJ offered more to like than dislike, by a measure of about 35 good-to-great stories with maybe 5 that didn’t work for me personally.
I want to address these five first, as they (mostly) weren’t bad due to writing or character choice, but because of my personality. As a rule, there are always going to be stories that don’t speak to me: I categorize these as “too-quick-romances” and “forced tragedies”. One story is a romance that moves at hyperspeed, so it didn’t work for me. (That being said, the central romance of The High Republic: Convergence didn’t work for me, either, and it had an entire novel to blossom.) The “forced tragedies” are the ones where we know the character is about to die, so the story feels like a melodramatic attempt at injecting some heartbreak into a story we know, which doesn’t always work, either. Both of these, I think, boil down to the same thing: the stories are too short to really make the impact on me I think they were hoping for. But really, this is more the “fault” of the short story medium rather than the authors, most of the time.
But I do want to take this time mostly to say: these books are really good. This volume is really good. Most of the time, if a story didn’t work, I recognize it as not working for me. And that’s really the beauty of these books, that for every story that doesn’t work for you, there’s probably three more that do. (There is one story in here, that I won’t name immediately, that did turn out to fall entirely flat for me, based on the writing style, editing, and character focus.) Overall, I found myself enjoying quite a bit more stories than I thought I would, even some that weren’t very enticing from their previews in the character cards. In fact, some were easily all-timers for me, including the amazingly well-written Emperor Sheev Palpatine story; Logray’s theological crisis; and the Imperial who captured Luke Skywalker, harnessing all of the spiritual energy of The Legends of Luke Skywalker. Mike Chen’s story starring Anakin was one I was most hyped for, and I was greatly rewarded in the hype. And the beauty of these volumes is that even if you didn’t like these, the chance you’re going to find one you *do* like is extremely high.
I do think RotJ had an advantage over TESB, my least favorite in the trilogy, because it had more interesting characters to focus on. By memory alone, I categorize TESB as mostly: Hoth, Boba Fett, and a new character. I felt like it spent way too much time on Hoth (for every other story to end with “Rebellions are built on hope”); spent too much time talking about Boba Fett; and too many stories with characters who were “just off screen.” This volume lends itself much more nicely to moving at a quicker pace, between Jabba’s Palace, Dagobah, troopers, Ewoks, and Rebel pilots. This variety of scenes and settings helped the stories feel more fresh going to the next one, and helped it feel like there was more variety. It also helped knowing where the characters were in the movie, a huge part that helped flesh out the movie (rather than the just-off-screen part of the movie). This variety of characters and contexts also allowed for more movement when stories grew a little stale for me. Unfortunately, most of the pilot stories really didn’t do a lot for me, even if they were well-written. Even then, it never felt like we were in the Rebel barracks or Jabba’s Palace long enough for me to grow too tired of them, which helped my reading experience a lot.
Ultimately, anybody who counts themselves as a fan of the franchise, of the Original Trilogy, of the Expanded Universe, of the galaxy far, far away will find something to like in From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi. And this isn’t “oh, dig hard enough to find something. This is essentially a guarantee that at least some of the stories will resonate with you as you read; some may resonate with you forever. I know a few certainly did for me.
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DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this book from the publisher at no charge in order to provide an early review. However, this did not affect the overall review content. All opinions are my own.