Why Star Wars Battlefront's "Twilight Company" Is The Best So Far

[Abacus]

Hey there everyone. I recently finished re-reading Twilight Company and using up all my cousin's PS4 account time to play the game Battlefront itself a few times. While the game itself is not exactly inspiring, the book they released to promote the game and to further flesh out the story surrounding TESB was fantastic. The new cannon material for the books thus far is a hit or miss. Most of us all agree that "Aftermath" was a horrific piece of ink and paper that should have been relegated to being a podcast or radio play; as a novel, it just sucks imho (and others).

But why do I say that Twilight Company is the best so far? Because its author, Alexander Freed, understands the scope and scale of Star Wars unlike nearly all other authors that have written for the Star Wars franchise in recent memory. I would put him down behind Zahn as my favorite Star Wars author. Why? Because, like I said, he understands the scale.

Yes. This is kind of a rehash of the old argument: minimalism versus true-scale. Karen Travis and others have either actively participated in or accidentally fallen into the trap of minimalism within the Star Wars universe. Some may be blamed more than others. Freed takes it to a whole new level and even blatantly comes out and says it twice within his novel:

"You still think like a man from Crucival. You don't understand the scale of the enemy."
- Star Wars Battlefront: Twilight Company p.315

Everything about the novel shows you the sheer, awesome scale of what the Galactic Empire truly is; from the descriptions of average worlds where minor outposts and storage facilities are, to larger, more important worlds, such as Sullust.

"He wondered briefly if he was reading the data correctly: Surely there shouldn't have been such a massive difference between departures and arrivals? It seems like for every hundred ships that reached the planet, a thousand left. He asked Chalis about the discrepancy. She shrugged and re-claimed the datapad. "Manufacturing," she said. "Sullust isn't Kuat, but it does handle small-scale production of starfighters and assault shuttles. Nothing important."

"Thousands of ships a year is small-scale production?" he asked. His voice was low, but he felt the others glance his way."


Freed gets it. Like no other recent author, he understands the scope of what it means to have a story set in the Star Wars universe, especially one that pits the Rebel Alliance against the Galactic Empire (and is not a story about a single character on a single world). For that reason alone, I believe Star Wars Battlefront: Twilight Company is the best book so far.

[Galvatron]

I'm still reading it, but I like what I've read so far. I like that we're finally seeing a glimpse of the actual war that followed the Battle of Yavin since I've long said that the dissolution of the Senate, the destruction of Alderaan and THEN the Death Star should have been a rallying cry to the galaxy.

To me, the biggest flaw TESB had was that it failed to depict an escalation of the conflict to something on par with the Clone Wars. I also think the rebel fleet in ROTJ was pitifully small for what was supposed to be a climactic final battle.

[Crazedwraith]

So aside from getting the scale. Can he y'know, actually write a compelling story, characters you care about etc?

Because to be frank, minimalism or lack of it is very far down the list of criteria that I care about.

[Abacus]

So aside from getting the scale. Can he y'know, actually write a compelling story, characters you care about etc?

Because to be frank, minimalism or lack of it is very far down the list of criteria that I care about.

Yes, he can. He did quite well on that front. I cared a lot about the members of Twilight Company.

[Adam Reynolds]

I'm still reading it, but I like what I've read so far. I like that we're finally seeing a glimpse of the actual war that followed the Battle of Yavin since I've long said that the dissolution of the Senate, the destruction of Alderaan and THEN the Death Star should have been a rallying cry to the galaxy.

That doesn't mean a full scale war, it means that the political will of the Empire is crumbling, that officers aren't going to keep taking orders from their command structure.

Shootouts with stormtroopers in the streets and blowing up star destroyers are not what wins this sort of conflict. What wins this conflict is the fact that the political legitimacy of the Empire was fading, fitting with what we saw in the aftermath of Endor across the galaxy.

To me, the biggest flaw TESB had was that it failed to depict an escalation of the conflict to something on par with the Clone Wars. I also think the rebel fleet in ROTJ was pitifully small for what was supposed to be a climactic final battle.

The Rebel Alliance was never that powerful overall. And they did escalate, from the level of a single base with fighter support to that of the the Mon Cal fleet that we saw at Endor, powerful enough to take on Executor and a couple dozen star destroyers.

The level of the Clone Wars also wasn't actually that big at each individual engagement. Apart from Coruscant, Endor was bigger than almost all of the battles in the Clone Wars. Most of them were resolved with the total number of capital ships numbering less than a dozen, often with only three ships in a Republic fleet. While you could argue that this was a production constraint, it is also consistent with most of the battles shown in ROTS as well, in which a couple Venator class ships show up.

Executor alone could often take on the entirety of the fleets we saw throughout the Clone Wars.

Because to be frank, minimalism or lack of it is very far down the list of criteria that I care about.

Indeed. Very few are really bothered by the minimalism in the Wraith Squadron series because they enjoyed the characters enough to not care.

[Elheru Aran]

Because to be frank, minimalism or lack of it is very far down the list of criteria that I care about.

Indeed. Very few are really bothered by the minimalism in the Wraith Squadron series because they enjoyed the characters enough to not care.

Wraith Squadron is a case where minimalism can be explained away (to some degree) though-- the Republic forces there are going after former Imperials trying to carve out a niche for themselves, not the entire Imperial Remnant.

Of course it's still minimalism (Zsinj really should've had a pretty decent fleet, considering) but it's not quite as egregious as some of the other examples out there...

[NecronLord]

I'm still reading it, but I like what I've read so far. I like that we're finally seeing a glimpse of the actual war that followed the Battle of Yavin since I've long said that the dissolution of the Senate, the destruction of Alderaan and THEN the Death Star should have been a rallying cry to the galaxy.

To me, the biggest flaw TESB had was that it failed to depict an escalation of the conflict to something on par with the Clone Wars. I also think the rebel fleet in ROTJ was pitifully small for what was supposed to be a climactic final battle.

Would you really rate these as flaws? Given the period they were produced, Return of the Jedi, notably, had a great amount of effort thrown at the size of the fleet - I'm not one to bash CGI, but the fact is modern effects make it easier to do a battle sequence. The Battle of Coriana VI from Babylon 5 dwarfs the Battle of Endor in the number of ships shown on screen (though the effects are mostly inferior) on a much smaller budget simply because they could afford to mass-replicate the ships with CGI.

A lot of behind the scenes information about Jedi shows just how close to the wire ILM worked to deliver the battle. There are unfinished or partial models used on both sides (the rebel tuning-fork ship, the five-bridge imperial destroyer) and such things. There's no comparable spaceborne battle-scene of its era.

Jedi looks quite modern, but it came out a the year after Wraith of Khan, as another early 80s space-battle film, and it pretty much knocks its socks off in terms of scale of action (which by no means is to say Wrath of Khan is bad!) and the year after Star Trek was still doing 'there are only two ships in Earth Spacedock' stuff in Star Trek III.

[Galvatron]

Not flaws so much as an unfortunate result of resource limitations. If CG was a thing back in 1983, would the Battle of Endor have shown us thousands of warships on both sides duking in out in an apocalyptic space battle the likes of which we haven't seen outside of anime?

[NecronLord]

I'm not wholly certain - the Battle of Coruscant suggests so... Though, people seem to view minimalism as part of the charm of Star Wars now; looking at you TFA. Depends who was making it I imagine.

[Galvatron]

If the Japanese made it, I can easily imagine that it would have been something on par with the final battle in Macross which was something like four million Imperial warships and their moon-sized mothership against one million rebel warships (with most of them on both sides being at least as big as an ISD).

Alas, we in the US are still confounded by scope and scale of that magnitude (unless it's a giant superweapon).

[NecronLord]

Cell animation, western or anime, has long enjoyed the advantage of easy replication compared to photography. Which is why say, a direct reproduction of the same thing in live action from animation (say, a live action conversion of the broom sequence in Disney's Fantasia) took sixty years to come about as live action compared to the 1940 animation. Anime has long enjoyed the freedom to depict massive space battles that are only comparatively recently becoming available for live action.

There are no other live action space opera motion pictures that I am aware of that match Revenge of the Sith in scale of starships on screen, no matter what side of the pacific they come from. Though given that George Lucas is a noted Japanophile, it's conceivable that anime space battles were an influence on the Battle of Coruscant.

There's a degree of truth to cultural attitudes to numbers in sundry world cultures (for instance in the age of the world described in Judeo-Christian myth vs Buddhism as an example) but I'm not sure it's relevant compared to the technical limitations of film-making.

[Adam Reynolds]

If the Japanese made it, I can easily imagine that it would have been something on par with the final battle in Macross which was something like four million Imperial warships and their moon-sized mothership against one million rebel warships (with most of them on both sides being at least as big as an ISD).

Alas, we in the US are still confounded by scope and scale of that magnitude (unless it's a giant superweapon).

The 2004 classically animated Clone Wars series did something approaching this, with a scene showing the starfield resolving into Republic and CIS fleets. I am not sure if it is millions of ships, but it is certainly more than what is seen in ROTS.

Though this was also the series that featured Mace Windu defeating a few thousand battle droids, without a lightsaber, and Anakin wiping out dozens of enemy fighters in a few minutes. It almost makes Dark Empire look like a rational portrayal of the SW universe.

I'm not wholly certain - the Battle of Coruscant suggests so... Though, people seem to view minimalism as part of the charm of Star Wars now; looking at you TFA. Depends who was making it I imagine.

While I doubt this is the idea of those who created it, it fits my general idea for the setting at that time, that no one is really in control of the galaxy.

[Galvatron]

The 2004 classically animated Clone Wars series did something approaching this, with a scene showing the starfield resolving into Republic and CIS fleets. I am not sure if it is millions of ships, but it is certainly more than what is seen in ROTS.

It doesn't have to be millions of ships as long as they're so countless that the mere sight of such a force is an awesome spectacle to behold. The characters telling us how many there are is just gravy for numbers-obsessed geeks like us.

Anime has been doing that sort of thing for decades, but even in an age of CG where it's possible to depict such a thing in live-action, Star Wars STILL doesn't do it.

[Adam Reynolds]

The scene in question: https://youtu.be/XVk9lPotcW4?t=1h39m17s

Can't embed it without ruining the timestamp. Though as you can see in the scene immediately preceding this, it also features Mace Windu riding a droid starfighter across Coruscant and earlier features Grievous defeating a half dozen Jedi at once, without his guards.

It is also no longer canon.

[NecronLord]

Pretty much a perfect example. The same battle depicted in animation by broadly the people working from the same resource (the producers of that animated series had studio access during the making of RotS, hence Grievous) simply has more ships, because of the sylistic nature and technical ease of production. I suspect if Lucas could have shown that scale of battle in the live action film he probably would have too (though there's no contradiction with what it does show)

[Elheru Aran]

One thing I notice immediately in that scene, though-- the ships are all Venators and Separatist Dreadnoughts. They've very obviously been copy-pasted all over the place. In a live action film you can't do that (well, technically you can with CGI, but) because it's far too repetitive. You need more visual variety to keep from having obviously copy-pasted-- heh, 'cloned'-- ships all over the place. And it takes time and effort to individualize the various ships, at least the ones in the foreground or near background.

Another problem is with that ridiculous mass of ships-- maximalism aside-- they're packed entirely too closely. Even the Battle of Coruscant in ROTS wasn't *that* packed.

[NecronLord]

This was, in fairness, hours before; many could have hypered out or been destroyed.

[Adam Reynolds]

One thing I notice immediately in that scene, though-- the ships are all Venators and Separatist Dreadnoughts. They've very obviously been copy-pasted all over the place. In a live action film you can't do that (well, technically you can with CGI, but) because it's far too repetitive. You need more visual variety to keep from having obviously copy-pasted-- heh, 'cloned'-- ships all over the place. And it takes time and effort to individualize the various ships, at least the ones in the foreground or near background.

Another problem is with that ridiculous mass of ships-- maximalism aside-- they're packed entirely too closely. Even the Battle of Coruscant in ROTS wasn't *that* packed.

That was because the CIS was jumping literally on top of them intentionally. Perhaps it was a conceptually similar tactic to Han Solo in TFA, they were doing that to prevent the Republic from raising the shield over them and preventing additional reinforcements from arriving as well as to allow Grievous a safe passage out of the system.

Was there anything other than Venators in ROTS? I don't recall anything else in the Republic fleet, though obviously the CIS fleet was much more diverse.

[Elheru Aran]

One thing I notice immediately in that scene, though-- the ships are all Venators and Separatist Dreadnoughts. They've very obviously been copy-pasted all over the place. In a live action film you can't do that (well, technically you can with CGI, but) because it's far too repetitive. You need more visual variety to keep from having obviously copy-pasted-- heh, 'cloned'-- ships all over the place. And it takes time and effort to individualize the various ships, at least the ones in the foreground or near background.

Another problem is with that ridiculous mass of ships-- maximalism aside-- they're packed entirely too closely. Even the Battle of Coruscant in ROTS wasn't *that* packed.

That was because the CIS was jumping literally on top of them intentionally. Perhaps it was a conceptually similar tactic to Han Solo in TFA, they were doing that to prevent the Republic from raising the shield over them and preventing additional reinforcements from arriving as well as to allow Grievous a safe passage out of the system.

Was there anything other than Venators in ROTS? I don't recall anything else in the Republic fleet, though obviously the CIS fleet was much more diverse.

I want to say there were Acclamators in a few scenes, but it's been some time. I know Acclamators were definitely in Clone Wars. I have less issue with there being only Venators on the Republic side than I do with the CIS only showing Dreadnoughts, though, given that in the original Battle of Coruscant scene we see two or three different makes of Separatist craft besides the Dreadnoughts.

Point about the close jumping. I suppose in a setting with FTL, it makes sense to figure out some combat tactics which would involve that.

[KraytKing]

Freed gets it. Like no other recent author, he understands the scope of what it means to have a story set in the Star Wars universe, especially one that pits the Rebel Alliance against the Galactic Empire (and is not a story about a single character on a single world). For that reason alone, I believe Star Wars Battlefront: Twilight Company is the best book so far.

While I did enjoy his portrayal of the Empire's industrial capability, I did not like his interpretation of the Rebel Alliance. As illustrated by Namir's surprise at the number of vessels being produced at Sullust, the Rebellion cannot possibly bring enough firepower to bear to take on the Empire in a conventional war. If a Rebel company ever landed on an Imperial-controlled world, it either left very quickly or never left at all. There is no fighting off the Empire. They win. Guerrilla engagements are the only way.

In addition, if you remember Namir's angry talk with Howl about "being used," didn't you think that was a bit odd? If you didn't want to be used, how come you've been following various leaders for years as a meat-can? Seems to me that the author wanted to generate conflict and had no good idea how.

Lastly, the final battle. Nothing shorter than a kilometer can hold its own against an ISD for that long, and no rebel company can fight off 9,700 stormtroopers without air support of some kind. I'm pretty sure that the term "company" was chosen simply because it sounds cool, anyway. The force pictured is somewhere between a company and a battalion.

[Galvatron]

I thought it was a bit odd that Twilight Company was successful at taking whole worlds away from the Empire with a mere two or three small cruisers and a few hundred troops.

These worlds must have had defenses of their own that could be used against Imperial reclamation forces, but the novel never made that clear.