Blue Milk Special

Threepio demonstrates that sometimes, you just have to roll with it. 😉

With Xizor’s palace now swarming with pokemon (a slight mistake on Lando’s part when he was sold a phony case of Thermal Detonators), our heroes, Luke, Leia and Chewie need rescuing. Leebo, Dash Rendar’s droid, flies the Outrider when Dash needs to go on a first-person shooting rampage planet-side. Perhaps this over-achieving droid stirred Threepio’s inferiority complex. Fortunately Artoo knows a thing or two about flying, but we all know that Artoo is a dick. Naturally he is going to milk Threepio’s tribulations for all they are worth! The Hildebrandt’s art from the Shadows of the Empire trading card series says it all. Look at Artoo trying to hide his smile. Threepio got Punk’d.

Unfortunately, two characters that seem to fall by the wayside in Shadows of the Empire are those lovable droids, Artoo Detoo and See Threepio. It looks so weird to write it out the way the novels do it. R2D2 and C3PO. Anyway, they just don’t get much to do of any real significance until right at the end. It feels a bit like the committee behind putting this convoluted, over complex multimedia story together remembered at the last minute that the droids had been woefully underused. Thinking quickly, they tacked this comic relief action-scene-rescue onto the end! Problem solved. It’s not pretty, but the box is checked. *sigh*

One reader commented recently that he missed seeing R2D2 and C3PO in BMS. While it’s true that I don’t have to emulate their absence in our parody, the reality is that Shadows of the Empire is an epic. it’s loooong. A lot of disparate mini-adventures take place that aren’t really essential to the core story. I never wanted to delay the debut of Return of the Jedi, but at the same time I didn’t want to do a really patchy and confusing job on Shadows either…

The compromise is that the parody is set to hit about 55 strips, ending two Monday’s from now, and although I believe readers have generally been able to follow the story, we have skipped one or two sequences that are honestly little more than stocking fillers. I know that, because seeing Luke get accosted by lizard-like bounty hunters who kill Koth “Ron Perlman” Melan, only for Luke to start swinging his lightsaber and be rescued by Lando on a swoop bike, just doesn’t really matter to the plot. It’s just an “action sequence” and its sacrifice hasn’t hurt the communication of the story. All you guys needed to know was that Luke and the Bothans worked together to acquire the plans for the Second Death Star.

Technically, this side-adventure is only obliquely connecting to Xizor, who is responsible for giving the idea to the Emperor of leaking the old set of plans to the Rebels. It doesn’t matter to the actual story of Shadows of the Empire, it’s just a Return of the Jedi thing. And the only reason I even bothered with anything from this sub plot was that I loved the idea of the Beauty & the Beast 1980s Television show character, Vincent, being the leader of the Bothan underground. It was somewhat random, but had enough of a feline Bothan connection to fit, and it was nice retro nod to one of the best makeup actors in the business. Also, I didn’t think my gag of Lando pulling up on a swoop bike, wearing shades and toting a pump action shot gun, saying “come vith me, if you vant to live” was really worth it. 😉

I have to admit, I like Lando, especially our BMS Lando. But now I’m just rambling.

Last week I slapped you in the face with Voyage Trekkers. I first pimped these guys out last year when Season 1 was still fresh out of the can. Last week I gave you episodes 2-6 of the latest season of this great webseries. Today sees episode 7, the final episode. However, Nathan Blackwell, series creator, decided the final was too good to be the regular 3-5 minute duration. Instead, episode seven is a four-parter! At the time of writing, the final part has not been released. So, for the next three blogs I will post each part. I really hope you guys check out the series and enjoy it. It helps if you have seen the very first episode of Season 1, which introduced the Lizard Men.

Voyage Trekkers – Season 2 – Episode 7 – Revenge of the Lizard Men (part 1)