When Tim Zahn's Heir to the Empire came out in 1991, it featured a scene between Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian, where Luke sampled an "exotic beverage" called ... hot chocolate.

This rubbed some fans the wrong way. I think it's a perfect example of the "spaciness factor" -- namely, how much should the Star Wars universe feel like a comfortable, well-worn pair of jeans, and how much should it reflect the bizarre exoticism of things that you never could have imagined?

George Lucas did a masterful job straddling this line. The cantina scene in ANH is frequently cited as an example of Lucas' vivid imagination, but unlike other sci-fi movies of the period (see Alien), Lucas showed his monsters getting drunk and slapping each other on the back. Because the scene has been parodied and copied so many times, it's difficult to remember that at the time, this was completely fresh and funny. Space monsters, enough to populate a dozen separate space monster movies, sitting together in the same bar and sharing a beer!

Here's my personal areas of complaint whenever I judge the "spaciness factor."

Names.
Luke, Ben, Owen ... those are SW names. Heck, there's even a Y-wing pilot named Dave. The more time I spend in the SW universe, the more I find it difficult to embrace names with apostrophes or lots of consonants (especially the letters Q, X, and Z). I'm a big fan of the Evasive Action webstrips, and I think "Drake Logan" is a pitch-perfect SW name -- so I cringe that it's actually spelled "Drake Lo'gaan." For the same reason, I dislike "Jacen," when "Jason" is more straightforward and carries more mythological resonance.

Animals.
It's the Millennium Falcon, right? And there are mouse droids. Star Tours has goose droids. There are rats in Jabba's dungeon, and snakes and monitor lizards on Dagobah. The Ewok movies have ferrets and horses. Yeah, I know many of these on-screen animals were used for budgetary reasons, and that these beasties might have completely different SW names, but I think it shows that Earthly animals can live comfortably in the galaxy far, far away (alongside that very common Earthly animal, the human being). On the other hand -- and here's where I'm having it both ways -- the fact that Luke once owned a dog, and his infamous "What's a duck?" line (both from Alan Dean Foster's novelization of A New Hope), still kind of bug me.

Alphabets.
While I think that aurebesh looks cool, and I've gotten to the point that I can almost read it unassisted, it doesn't offer anything other than spacey window dressing. If each aurebesh letter represents a specific phonetic sound, and if the letters are strung together in the sequences seen in the prequels and elsewhere, then the characters are speaking English -- so from a suspension-of-disbelief standpoint, you might as well use Roman lettering. (Yes, it bothered me that the DVDs changed the Roman lettering on the Death Star's tractor beam controls.)

Also, if aurebesh is the SW alphabet of choice, what to make of X-wings and Y-wings? They're not called Xesh-wings and Yirt-wings, nor do they bear any resemblance to the aurebesh letters xesh and yirt.

Calendars.
I'm on record as being no fan of West End Games' 10-month calendar, as it offers no advantages other than upping the spaciness quotient.

In summary -- world-building is a balance, and I don't think anybody did it better than George. SW might have a planet where people mine an anti-gravity metal called zertroonium, but under George Rules, the settlement would consist of a rookiee sheriff, a bumbling deputy, a madam with a heart of gold, and a band of thievin' claim-jumpers. And there would be a saloon where patrons tie up their six-legged saberdiles at the watering trough.

Also keep in mind that I've written more than a million words on Star Wars, and therefore I'm a big hypocrite because I've broken all these rules several times over.

So anyway, what about the hot chocolate? Truth be told, it kind of bugged me too. I think it was because it was presented as an exotic drink, as if Lando had somehow entered our own universe and escaped carrying a packet of Swiss Miss.

Dan
(writing projects and current releases)