The new Expanded Universe

Does anybody else remember these things?!?!

The dopest shit

As a kid, new Star Wars movies meant new toys, new adventures, and new giant, wholly unnecessary books explaining all of the pedantic details of machinery, background characters, and location names like the temple of Uthulu-m'tph'thplk.  And these were from the shitty movies.  Being but a tiny child, I loved it all anyway, and now, being a childish adult, I spent actual money to do it again.  But this time it's different, for two reasons:

1. The Force Awakens is pretty dang good, so I care way more about pedantic garbage
2. Since Disney bought Star Wars and wiped out the richly populated, 90% trash expanded universe of comics, video games, novels, guidebooks, etc that existed before, Star Wars now desperately needs pedantic garbage.  I have to do my part to help make sure the people making that garbage can eat.

So, here are five completely unnecessary details that I didn't know about Star Wars before I got this book, but that I know now.  In no particular order, because whatever.

1.  BB-8's circle-thingies are way more important than I thought

If you don't like BB-8, you don't like fun.  You don't like anything.  You also don't like existing, because everyone likes BB-8 because BB-8 likes everyone.  BB-8 is literally a droid that's just a happy ball.  How can you hate that!

You can't.  But you can hate how there's another cool element about BB-8 that isn't really discussed in the movies.  Those circle-thingies on BB-8 are actually tool drawers, which can be removed and swapped out as necessary.  That's right: BB-8 can get BB-UPGR8s.

I'm not apologizing.  We're moving on.

2.  The actual political situation is pretty simple and summed up in a chart.

They don't have the chart online, because why would they, but it's actually super basic:  after beating the Empire, the Rebellion became the New Republic.  The remnants of the Empire that wouldn't surrender to the Republic fled to the unknown reaches of space, re-organizing as the weird, cultish First Order we see in the movie.  The New Republic took one look at this, looked back at its tired, war-weary populace, and said "nah," and disbanded its army.  Princess Leia took one look at them, probably said a bunch of curse words, and founded a scrappy, under-funded private army called The Resistance that used surplus military goods and, like, six really good pilots to fight for justice.

Maybe they could've just slapped that paragraph in the opening crawl and called it a day?

3.  You can tell a lot about a person by their mid-to-upper face

Oh yeah, you couldn't tell by his cheeks? You only get cheeks like that by being fiercely devoted to your friends.

This book is full of amazing annotations like this, and they're mostly in the face area for some reason.  Poe's hair is very clearly tousled from wearing helmet.  Finn in stormtrooper garb boasts the left eyebrow of someone with 23 standard years spent training (from birth).  Rey's forehead has adopted to extreme UV radiation.  And, most helpfully, Chewbacca possesses keen blue eyes.  Thanks, Visual Dictionary.

4.  The names and details of all the weird alien critters

We already knew that Teedo's name was Teedo, but did you know that his cyborg-horse is called a Luggabeast, or that his shoes are built from droid treads?  I mean, you didn't need to know that, but now you do.  Similarly, you didn't need to know that the pink shrimp-mosquitos in the cantina are the Dengue Sisters, or that the guy with chin-teeth that was cuddling with the First Order spy was a big-game hunter named Grummgar.  Or, for that matter, that the First Order Spy was named Bazine Netal.  Even if this knowledge is peripheral, I always like knowing all the weird names and whatnot.  However, there is one alien critter that, if there's any justice, will not remain peripheral for long...

5.  Sidon Ithano is the fucking coolest

Remember this guy? One of the two guys that were going to take Finn to the Outer Rim?  Well, his name is Sidon Ithano, a space pirate that goes by the following nicknames:

• The Crimson Corsair
• The Red Raider
• The Blood Goddamn Buccaneer

He raids starships by telling them to "lower ye shields and come about," his first mate is an alien named Quiggold with a peg-leg that has a rosary made from hyperdrive parts.  One of his blaster rifles has a monster bone in the for the stock.  His ship is called the Meson Martinet, and I love him unconditionally.  Such a cool, underused character existing in the new movies is such a nice surprise, that the only way the situation could possibly get better is if he had somebody just as awesome and underused to fight.  I mean, he's an outlaw, so maybe there's some kind of lawful figure he could fight.  A soldier, perhaps.  Another captain...

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO