Thu, 04 Nov 1999

Dear Mister Wonderwall,

It's been a while since we've seen one of those "If all the characters in the Peanuts comic were in a battle to the death, who would win?" questions, probably because most of the good ones got gobbled up in a greedy rush.

Have we done one with Star Wars characters yet? If this topic hasn't been breached yet, I'd say pick and choose your faves from all four movies. If we've already covered this, I don't think we've done The Phantom Menace characters in a battle to the death, at least. Who gets to waste Jar-Jar?



Dear Momma White Meat,

Yes, it has been a long time since we saw the death battles of the Pooh Characters ("THE WONDERFUL DARKNESS OF MALICE" 3/98), The Comics Page ("FOUR COLOR WONDERFUL ROYALE" 4/98), Lewis Carroll's Alice Characters ("THUNDER IN WONDERLAND" 4/98) and... errr, that's it. Hmmm. Not such a popular and recurring theme as you may have been led to believe.

Still, the trouble here is that the Star Wars characters exist in a world of violence already. Their fighting prowess, rankings and weaponry are matters of record, indeed, can be considered their raison d'être (or h’hhooghlurghuugh as the Wookies say). What can a poor man of wisdom do to enlighten and amuse in such well-worked territory? Well...

In A New Hope, the query is moot, for there are no characters in that film, only archetypes. Plus, they can't act for shit.

In The Empire Strikes Back, the only character is Han Solo (Harrison Ford becomes an actor roughly halfway through the film, probably because he's gettin' some); since he cannot beat himself, this one is a draw.

In Return of the Jedi, the effects of carbon freezing have made Han Solo three years older, twenty pounds heavier, and removed his personality. So the winner here is clearly Merchandising, which is the only explanation for the Ewoks in a world not ruled by Satan.

The Phantom Menace is, again, a moot query. The characters have all been killed by George Lucas' writing.