Page 22 - Star Wars Insider #187

THE SKYWALKER SAGA

Analysis droids have replaced Archives, maintained by Chief
intuition and insight; it is Dexter Librarian Jocasta Nu, have been
who makes the connection with compromised—something which
Kamino. The Jedi Masters in the should be impossible; yet someone

Chancellor’s office cannot see the has deleted a planet from the
truth behind either their former databanks. Even before the Sith

compatriot Dooku or Palpatine, pull the final strings in their master
sat right in front of them; it is plan, the Jedi Order has long since
Padmé who correctly determines been compromised.
that the Separatists were behind On Kamino and then Geonosis,
the assassination attempt. The Jedi Obi-Wan learns that the mystery
is far more sinister than he ever
expected, and the moral quagmire
Tracking Jango Fett into which the Jedi have slipped

to the droid foundry goes far deeper than he imagined
possible. Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas,
world, Geonosis, once a leading member of the
SIR CHRISTOPHER LEE Jedi Council, secretly ordered the
THE KNIGHT BEHIND Obi-Wan realizes production of millions of clone
THE COUNT that the Separatists troopers to serve as an army for
As is often the case in Star Wars, the the Republic—a massive military
actor who played Darth Tyranus brought are preparing for buildup authorized by neither the
much of himself to the role. Knighted in Senate nor the Jedi Council. Sifo-
2009 by Queen Elizabeth II, Christopher galactic war, too.
Lee was the step-son of a banker sent off Dyas believed war was imminent
to boarding school at a young age, where
his passion for theater was fi rst stoked. As
the shadow of World War II spread across
Europe, he volunteered for the Royal Air 05
Force. Although he trained to be a pilot,
a problem with his optic nerve consigned
Lee to ground-based duties. Nearly killed
several times, he attained the rank of fl ight
lieutenant; his ability to speak several
languages put him on the front line of
hunting down war criminals. In an interview
with the Telegraph newspaper, Lee spoke
about those formative years: “I had seen
enough horror to last me a lifetime,” and
recalled seeing “dreadful, dreadful things.”
Unwilling to return to an offi ce job after
the war, Lee revisited the passion of his
youth. It took nearly a decade for him to
get his big break, playing Frankenstein’s
monster in The Curse of Frankenstein
(1957). The titular character was played by
Lee’s friend Peter Cushing, who would go
on to portray another notable Star Wars
villain, Grand Moff Tarkin, in Star Wars:
A New Hope (1977). In speaking about
his successful run as horror icon Dracula, 06
Lee once said, “With me it was all about
the power of suggestion to make the
unbelievable believable.”
Cushing and Lee, alongside the likes of
Boris Karloff and Vincent Price, became the
faces of horror, a genre that has dominated
the fi lm lexicon and continues to break
boundaries in the industry. It is no surprise,
then, that two of those men were tapped
to play characters capable of horrors in Star
Wars, which has become a genre in and of
itself. While his credentials in villainous roles
made Christopher Lee an obvious choice
for a character like Darth Tyranus, it was his
time spent as a soldier that gave him the
insight into a character who believes he is
on the right side of history, and is willing to
commit any atrocity to advance his agenda.

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