Just finished Star Wars: Canto Bight, a collection of short stories tied into The Last Jedi. A mixed bag of low stakes tales, featuring a place I can't help feel should've played a larger role in the movie. This seems like a definite "Constable Zuvio" moment; referring to the character basically cut from The Force Awakens, who featured prominently in the run up to that movie.
Short descriptions of the four tales included, taken from the inside front cover:
Rules of the Game (Saladin Ahmed): An honest salesman meets a career criminal as a dream vacation turns into the worst nightmare imaginable.
The Wine in Dreams (Mira Grant): Dreams and schemes collide when a deal over a priceless bottle of wine becomes a struggle for survival.
Hear Nothing, See Nothing (Rae Carson): Old habits die hard when a servant is forced into a mad struggle for power among Canto Bight's elite.
The Ride (John Jackson Miller): A deadbeat gambler has one last chance to turn his luck around; all he has to do is survive one wild night.
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None of this feels like Star Wars. That may be the point of this new reboot, Disney stuff. I am not sure anymore.
All four are OK stories, I'd wager. Not really groundbreaking or even all that interesting, the stories feature a strange collection of "heroes": a moisture vaporator salesbeing of the year, a sommelier and a pair of eclectic twin sisters, a massuer, and a professional gambler.
Nothing earth-shattering occurs. Canto Bight sounds OK; but not even as nice as the descriptions I recall from the Kuari Princess or Pantolomin. Certainly not as opulent as locales on Coruscant. I've been to much better places with my friend Lando, a true master gambler (and hero of the Rebellion).
Cantonica feels like a quaint back-water, comparatively.
One thing I read in the Visual Dictionary: Canto Bight is a casino city on the planet Cantonica, which is in the Corporate Sector. Interesting. More on how stupid that makes certain TLJ plot points, in a future post reviewing the movie (with spoilers).
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The main characters in these stories are probably find-able extras in the movie. Not sure.
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| The Vaporator Salesbeing of the Year, Kedpin Shoklop |
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| Derla Pidys, the four-eyed sommelier |
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| Rhomby and Parallela Grammus. Worst SW names ever? Probably not. |
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| Lexo Sooger, the masseur |
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| Kaljach Sonmi, failed gambler |
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