While the war between the Empire and the Rebels is the
foundation of the Star Wars universe, it is also a place ripe with crime. Those
criminals can be the genuinely vile likes of Jabba the Hutt or shades-of-grey
rogues such as Han Solo. Pablo Hidalgo’s new book Scum and Villainy: Case Files on the Galaxy’s Most Notorious is a
sort of mock dossier on the underworld types scurrying on the outskirts of Star
Wars’ main story.
A book of this type can be a lot of fun (check out Mark
Frost’s mock dossiers on the Twin Peaks
universe), and few properties are more fun than Star Wars, but Hidalgo has a
tendency to take it way, way too seriously. Scum
and Villainy should have been a light-hearted, frivolous romp not unlike
the recent Solo movie that likely
inspired its focus on Star Wars’ crime world. Instead it reads like a
particularly dry history textbook of a made-up world. Reading a Star Wars book should never feel like work. Reading this one does.
Scum and Villainy
also highlights how diffuse the Star Wars universe has become. While some of
the enemies of law and order in question will be familiar to all —both enemies
of the villainous imperial state such as Princess Leia and genuine crooks and
creeps like Jabba, Solo, and the beloved bounty hunters from The Empire Strikes Back—most are
apparently pulled from cartoons, novels, comics, or whatever else is now
considered canon. I had no idea who most of these characters were, which would
not be an issue if their stories were told in an engaging, entertaining fashion.
Since they weren’t, I didn’t really care who they are or what they do.
Consequently, Scum and Villainy seems
like a book aimed at the most hardcore and humorless of Star Wars fans. At
least the abundant painted art and slick slipcover add some panache to a book
that should have been more worthy of its cool design.
