The Force is Not Strong With This One
While you may mostly know him from the backstory in Revenge of the Sith, Plagueis was an important character. In the Star Wars Universe, he was responsible for the training and development of Darth Sidious. Or better known as; Emperor Palpatine.
In other words, he’s a pretty big deal in the overall story of the three trilogy arcs. If it was not for Plagueis, we pretty much would not have the trilogy stories. James Luceno, who’s penned a number of Star Wars books, wrote a novel about the training that Palpatine went through under Plagueis. George Lucas oversaw the creation of the story in order to make it tie in with the movie canon.
Even then, Plagueis always remained a mysterious figure. A man who’s story would forever be shrouded in mystery, deceit and a veil of lies. We were never really quite meant to know the entirety of the story for Plagueis, but he was extremely important nonetheless.
A Mystery No More, Not for The Better
Now, in June of 2020, it appears that Disney does not share that sentiment all that well. Within the new book written by E.K. Johnston, ‘Queen’s Peril’, writes a story that directly contradicts the original story by Luceno. Unfortunately, this means that the original version is no longer canon under Disney’s rules for Legends.
Alright, so Disney doesn’t want the story of Plagueis to be one that was set within the boundaries of the trilogy stories. Or at the very least they just want to have the freedom to rewrite the in Universe history of it all.
My favorite part of today was telling everyone on the Not Another Race Panel about the origin story of how Anakin Skywalker came to exist, which was hidden in half a sentence in a block of exposition in the Star Wars book “Darth Plagueis” which WAS canon.https://t.co/rWyUTsglBZ
— K Tempest #NoJusticeNoPeace Bradford (@tinytempest) May 24, 2020
Here’s where it gets kind of annoying though. See, this also makes the majority of what we know about Palpatine non canon in the Universe as well. His training, how he became Chancellor, how he learned the Dark Side, it’s all up in the air.
You might be thinking that’s no big deal, Disney just wants to write different histories for the characters. To which I have to ask, why can’t they just make new and original characters instead of just rewriting old ones?
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I mean, they just recently announced The High Republic storylines which will be telling wholly original stories set before the prequels. Why not start establishing those characters and moving on from the ones that we had already built rapport with? We wanted the story with Plagueis and Sidious to remain, we wanted to know the the mystery still existed. Despite that demand, it appears that we are the minority of people.
This is not the first time that Disney has directly contradicted the established lore for Sidious. Earlier this year they also confirmed that he was a clone during pretty much the entirety of the Original Trilogy. Meaning that he dies sometime between the events of Revenge of the Sith and The Force Awakens.
Thank you Disney, very cool.
If you’re excited to see where they take the story of Darth Plagueis, that is completely understandable. It does potentially open the door for some more cool storytelling and some different perspectives. That being said, it just feels almost disrespectful for what was already set up in the movies.
Not only the movies, but what was set up and explained in the games, comics and books. Can we not just move on to some new characters instead of just overwriting ones that we already kinda loved? Do we really need to just undo everything in this Universe?
Nevermind the fact that Disney also said that the very first Jedi ever alive was a Skywalker. And yet that was literally not true either. There was already an established story about a character called Matka Kordai. Just say the first ‘force user’ even if that isn’t true either, saying he was the First Jedi is just blatantly false.
He was the first Jedi, the first Jedi Master, he created the Order and crafted the first lightsaber. Went down in history as one of the greatest members of the Order for several reasons. But sure, now it’s just some random Skywalker that none of us know about, alright then.
What do you think of Disney’s decision to undo Plagueis? Do you agree with them and want to see what they do with his character? Or would you rather they stuck with the original and created new characters instead? Let us know in the comments below!
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