A new Leia Organa novel, Star Wars: Bloodline by Claudia Gray, has a character that would be perfect for Star Wars: Episode 8, a bureaucratic sleazebaggano by the name of Ransolm Casterfo. Unless, that is, he died on Hosnian Prime.
In The Force Awakens Hux fires up the Starkiller Base, points it at some unnamed planets conveniently located within easy viewing distance of Maz Kanata’s castle, and blasts the entire star system out of existence.
“It was The Republic!” Finn shouts, and that’s that for everything Leia had fought for across the entire Star Wars Original Trilogy.
It’s easy to see why the Galactic Senate was reduced to a few concerned faces reacting to their imminent destruction in Star Wars: Episode 7 The Force Awakens. Huge swathes of the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy played like an audiobook of Robert’s Rules of Order, with all the votes of no confidence and parliamentary tricks of a typical high school mock congress. So giving us a narrative that’s all propulsion seemed like the right move. Let’s not get bogged down in politics.
Well, Star Wars: Episode 8 could use a bit more politics.
The Force Awakens was here to show us it could be done: a Star Wars movie could be made in the 21st century and feel like a Star Wars movie!
But if this is a series that’s meant to go on forever and ever (and boy is it), or at least until the sun winks out and our progeny becomes those idiots from Battlestar Galactica, then Episode 8 is going to have to introduce a few new political wrinkles to the Star Wars galaxy.
One of the most fantastic elements of Star Wars: The Force Awakens is its complication of the standard Dark Side narrative. Kylo Ren is deeply troubled and struggles to hold on to his faith… in evil. It’s a fantastic inversion of Luke Skywalker’s internal struggles.
Unfortunately, the Resistance and their relation to the New Republic wasn’t given the same well-drawn complexity. But that seems to be changing in in the new Disney Star Wars continuity, as the novels fill in the political intricacies cut from The Force Awakens.
Gray described her new character Ransolm Casterfo to USA Today as "an ambitious young senator who's Leia's political opposite in virtually every way. He even collects artifacts from the Empire, like pro-Palpatine banners, pieces of armor, and so on." It seems the New Republic has a right wing.
Whether or not enough of the Republic remains to have a role in Star Wars: Episode 8 remains to be seen. But if Rian Johnson, the Episode 8 director, hopes to open the new Star Wars galaxy we’ll eventually need a more expansive picture of what’s been going on in the galaxy.
Giving Leia a political enemy, whether Casterfo or a new character, would be a fantastic start.
