with his friend and maker in the midst of the final battle of the Galactic Civil War, save him from certain doom, only to be destroyed in front of the boy turned warrior. The young man holds what’s left of his only friend in his arms as he cries amidst the backdrop of the Empire’s fiery fall.
How’s that for a story pitch? It’s a beautiful moment, tear inducing to many, myself included, and absolutely a reason to love Star Wars. The journey to get to that point, though, was a delightful challenge. The kind of challenge that makes you grow as a fan.
If you love Star Wars long enough, eventually you’ll run into a character, a story, or moment that you, well, just don’t like. It’s ok. Don’t feel guilty about that; just try to not let the hate flow within you. The Star Wars saga is big enough to take your resistance to parts of it. You can be a Star Wars fan and not like the new Sarlacc monster in the Return of the Jedi Special Edition. You don’t have to love porgs. It’s not a requirement that you cheer on a frog officer or boo a shark villain. Star Wars is a big universe; there are things for everyone to like and dislike. And some fans thought they found one such thing when Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath series introduced the best buddy of Temmin “Snap” Wexley, a repurposed and reprogrammed battle droid named Mister Bones.
Yep.
Mister Bones.
Allow me to break out with an editorial piece here. I hated Mister Bones. It was a hard sell for a lot of fans. Silly name even if it is a play on B-1. (B One—Bone—Mister Bones.) Comic book–like modifications to the droid itself. And a relic of the prequel era. Fun nostalgia for some, sensitive topic for others. To be clear, if you haven’t noticed, I like the prequels. Even the “Roger-Roger” of the battle droids doesn’t spin me off into a world of Star Wars fan angst.
But Mister Bones, though…
It was a hard sell for me, but I am not just speaking for myself here. Mister Bones was a hard sell for many. Yet a funny thing happened on the way to the collective Internet comments section. Mister Bones, with his devotion to Snap Wexley and his violence, often the order unclear, started to grow on me. With each ALL CAPS line, each plot point—including him chasing and ripping the wings off a butterfly, and each instance of murderous droid rage, Mister Bones slowly took his place in my heart.
And then he died.
That’s when I knew it. I loved Mister Bones.
As described above, the death of Mister Bones is wonderfully dramatic. Even as you read it, you can see the cinematic nature of it. One of our heroes, Snap, sends his beloved droid off to help his mother Norra pursue Grand Admiral Rae Sloane and help secure the end of the Empire. Then, as the teenager takes to the skies in his first major battle, he almost takes out his own mother as she flies a stolen Imperial shuttle. Mister Bones emerges ON the shuttle, and the young boy and his pet—I mean droid—are reunited. Then the droid saves his maker as three sandtroopers and an AT-ST walker are about to kill him. This…this is great stuff. As you read this, you are pulled into this reunion so sweet songs should be sung about it.
Then two A-wings destroy the walker and take out Mister Bones with it in a tragic friendly fire incident.
Wait, what?
Looking back, we all should have seen this emotional gut punch coming. Not just right then, but from the beginning. Like any classic fairy tale with a younger child and their only friend, someone’s gotta go…and it isn’t going to be the child. Mister Bones is a tough sell at first and that’s the point. He’s a bit different while being very much from an era of Star Wars some fans struggle to love. Mister Bones is a challenge. However, piece by piece, moment by moment, Chuck Wendig makes you get to know Mister Bones. Understand him. You start to grasp his importance to Snap, essentially orphaned by the war. As Mister Bones starts to grow, even famously learning that hugs are like violence made of love, we, too, learn to let our own walls down. Our preconceived notions of who and what we like in this franchise fade away. If we can learn to love a murderous battle droid, what other characters can we learn to love in this large galaxy? What stories can we connect with despite any misgivings early on?
We didn’t know we needed Mister Bones in Star Wars until Snap Wexley finds nothing left of the droid to hold onto as he weeps into the hot sand of Jakku. In the pantheon of Star Wars death scenes, this moment deserves its revered station. It gets you perhaps because you never thought it would.
Goodbye, Mister Bones. Your violent ways will never be forgotten.
81
The Last Smirk of Tallie Lintra
The cost of fighting evil
in The Last Jedi
Star Wars: Episode VIII—The Last Jedi
Writer: Rian Johnson
Director: Rian Johnson
There has always been death in Star Wars and not just on the bad guys team. The good side pays a price as well. A New Hope starts with Rebel soldiers being gunned down in a hallway and ends with Luke Skywalker’s childhood friend Biggs Darklighter being blown out of the sky by the villain later revealed to be his father. (Yes, many died on the Death Star, but at the time it was a fist-pumping moment because the good side won.) Death has absolutely been ingrained into every Star Wars story, but for the most part the focus was those losses being part of the battle. An almost celebrated red badge of courage. Then The Last Jedi, the eighth chapter of the saga, arrived and taught us how to feel a little deeper for the losses. There are faces connected to this death. Bright souls and valuable minds laying down their lives for the greater good, yes, but often needlessly. Saving what you love is a theme Rose Tico helps learn in the end, but there are deaths along the way that teach us why that’s important. (Her sister’s death being one that requires a deeper look later on.) The death of Tallie Lintra is a signpost of the tragedy to come.
We meet A-wing pilot Tallisan Lintra in the opening moments of the movie as Poe Dameron recklessly leads an assault on the First Order’s Dreadnought the Fulminatrix. British actor Hermione Corfield brings the character to life in an immediately engaging way. ForceCenter podcast host Joseph Scrimshaw once said that Hermione should teach classes on How to Act in the Cockpit of a Spaceship and he’s very right. Tallie Lintra jumps off the screen and into the story as she leads the Resistance Bombers of the Cobalt Squadron into battle. She’s in command, but charmingly excited to fight back. We instantly like Tallie Lintra.
And as we should. The character of Tallie Lintra represents the new face of the Resistance in this part of the Star Wars saga. General Leia brought some of her oldest and most trusted allies into her new cause. Veterans like Admiral Ackbar, Commander Larma D’Acy, Major Ematt, and Admiral Amilyn Holdo rushed to Leia’s side to fight back, but they all knew the cause needed to be built from the strengths and passions of new heroes. Tallie Lintra is a poster child for that movement.
Hers is a story not unfamiliar in the Star Wars saga. Raised by a farmer on a faraway planet, Tallie longed to be a pilot and dreamed of being part of the bigger galaxy. But her quest for adventure turned to a role in a rebellion. She could have kept her head down and not gotten involved, but, like Luke Skywalker before her, Tallie Lintra entered the fight.
She was a natural and quickly impressed the top brass of the Resistance. She was still young and bright eyed, but she was a leader and a fighter. Soon she was given command of the Blue Squadron. Grizzled vets and young upstarts alike looked to her for guidance in the heat of battle and this was very much on display during the Resistance’s escape from D’Qar and counterattack on the dreadnought. Yes, there
