Star Wars Speculation: Creatively Celebrating 40 Years of Star Wars

Greetings everyone! It's been a little while since I last shared a Star Wars Speculation post, but I recently finished reading the Star Wars novel From A Certain Point of View and felt a strong desire to discuss it in a blog post, so I'm back to talk Star Wars with you once more. In order to diversify my Star Wars Speculation series of posts, I'd like to occasionally highlight various facets of the Star Wars canon that most of my followers may not be familiar with already. This means you'll probably see me backtrack to share my thoughts on many books I've already completed to analyze what makes them all so unique. As always, the topic of conversation will change from post-to-post, but if there's anything you'd like to read about, just give me a heads-up and I'll write about your request. 

Creatively Celebrating 40 Years of Star Wars

What is From A Certain Point of View?

From A Certain Point of View is a collection of 40 short stories written by 40 different authors who retell moments in A New Hope from the perspective of 40 different background characters. It was released last year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Star Wars and readers will be treated to every viewpoint they could imagine including Stormtroopers, Jawas, droids, Tusken Raiders, and even an assortment of aliens in the Mob Eisley Cantina. So long as you're not hoping to see things directly from the perspective of Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, C-3PO, or R2-D2, you'll probably be immensely satisfied. Just remember you won't get their outlook because a film exploring that already exists.

The book was first teased on social media under the hashtag, #OperationBlueMilk. This is, of course, because of the blue milk prominently shown in a scene from A New Hope where Luke is drinking a glass of blue milk at the Lars homestead. Anyways, how fitting that such a staple of the first Star Wars for some fans would become this book's codename considering the book is essentially a celebration of not only of Star Wars' 40th anniversary, but also a tribute to 40 years of the Star Wars fandom. What better way to celebrate that then exploring various scenes from A New Hope through forty different perspectives? That's not even to mention that the book's title, From A Certain Point of View, which alludes to both the book's unique approach and a specific line of dialogue from Obi-Wan.

If you're a Star Wars fan, then reading this book is a no-brainer. I'd daresay it was one of my favorite Star Wars books to read because of its unique approach. I found it to be immensely enjoyable reading about specific sequences of events from a background character's frame of reference. Each author did a wonderful job of getting inside their character's head space in a limited number of pages through their unique writing style. Some stories are longer than others, but I was able to understand enough of that specific character's history, personality, motivations, connection to other characters, and outlook on life to get a grasp on who they each are as individuals in the larger galaxy.

Of course, certain characters have the luxury of further development outside their specific story like Boba Fett, Greedo, Grand Moff Tarkin, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Lando, Yoda, and so many other characters Star Wars fans are otherwise familiar with. What makes the whole notion of retelling a familiar scene through those character's lenses interesting is learning what those characters were thinking during those moments and finding out where some of those characters were at that point in time. That's a gimmick that could have worn thin, but it didn't because each story felt fresh and unique because it came from a fresh and unique perspective in varying writing styles. If you don't like a particular story, chances are you'll like the next chapter since they're all so drastically different. There were some stories that I read with a giddy smile from ear-to-ear while I felt others were a little overlong and too silly.

Some stand-out stories for me were "The Red One," "Stories in the Sand," "Master and Apprentice," "Time of Death," "There Is Another," "Bump," "Added Muscle," and "Verge of Greatness" which were about R5-D4, Jot (a Jawa), Qui-Gonn, Obi-Wan, Yoda, TD-110 (the storm trooper who bumps his head), Boba Fett, and Grand Moff Tarkin respectively. My absolute favorite two were "Master and Apprentice" and "Time Of Death" because they explore the process of becoming a Force Ghost and what that would be like as an experience. I've long championed the idea of an Obi-Wan Kenobi spin-off film because the canon material's done a lot so far to flesh out his time on Tatooine, and I felt there were a few stories that heavily hinted at possible plot points and storylines which could be utilized in a Kenobi spinoff.

Needless to say, I loved this book and would be glad to see Lucasfilm and Del Rey repeat this process for the other films for their respective anniversaries because it's such a fun way to pay tribute to them. Also, if you're a fan of audiobooks, the audiobook features a fairly recognizable cast of narrators that you'll likely enjoy listening to. These narrators include Jonathan Davis, Ashley Eckstein, Janina Gavankar, Jon Hamm, Neil Patrick Harris, January LaVoy, Saskia Maarleveld, Carol Monda, Daniel José Older, and Marc Thompson. If everything I've said is not enough to entice you to pick the book up and read it, the authors wrote their stories for free and the proceeds from the book are being donated to The First Book organization, a non-profit that seeks to provide quality education for kids in need. Not only will you be treated to a fun read through, you're contributing to a great cause as well! Whether I've convinced you to read From A Certain Point of View or not, I hope you've found this post to be interesting and informative. 

-As always, May the Force be with you!