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Goodbye, Mister Bones

Or how I learned to love a battle droid

Empire’s End: Aftermath

Author: Chuck Wendig

A young adolescent child has to endure his father being captured by the dreaded Empire and then watches as his mother leaves to join the Rebellion against said Empire. Though left with his mother’s sister and her wife (one of the first same sex couples in Star Wars), he feels alone on a small planet in a galaxy now exploding in war. Skilled as an engineer and builder, he rebuilds an old Clone Wars-era B-1 battle droid, modifies it with weapons and a red paint job, and programs it to be his only friend…and murderous bodyguard. It’s a coming-of-age story fit for any children’s movie, perhaps even including the droid’s tendency to resort to joyous violence. Maybe. Years later, the droid would be reunited with his friend and maker in the midst of the final battle of the Galactic Civil War, save him from certain doom, only to be destroyed in front of the boy turned warrior. The young man holds what’s left of his only friend in his arms as he cries amidst the backdrop of the Empire’s fiery fall.

How’s that for a story pitch? It’s a beautiful moment, tear inducing to many, myself included, and absolutely a reason to love Star Wars. The journey to get to that point, though, was a delightful challenge. The kind of challenge that makes you grow as a fan.

If you love Star Wars long enough, eventually you’ll run into a character, a story, or moment that you, well, just don’t like. It’s ok. Don’t feel guilty about that; just try to not let the hate flow within you. The Star Wars saga is big enough to take your resistance to parts of it. You can be a Star Wars fan and not like the new Sarlacc monster in the Return of the Jedi Special Edition. You don’t have to love porgs. It’s not a requirement that you cheer on a frog officer or boo a shark villain. Star Wars is a big universe; there are things for everyone to like and dislike. And some fans thought they found one such thing when Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath series introduced the best buddy of Temmin “Snap” Wexley, a repurposed and reprogrammed battle droid named Mister Bones.

Yep.

Mister Bones.

Allow me to break out with an editorial piece here. I hated Mister Bones. It was a hard sell for a lot of fans. Silly name even if it is a play on B-1. (B One—Bone—Mister Bones.) Comic book–like modifications to the droid itself. And a relic of the prequel era. Fun nostalgia for some, sensitive topic for others. To be clear, if you haven’t noticed, I like the prequels. Even the “Roger-Roger” of the battle droids doesn’t spin me off into a world of Star Wars fan angst.

But Mister Bones, though…

It was a hard sell for me, but I am not just speaking for myself here. Mister Bones was a hard sell for many. Yet a funny thing happened on the way to the collective Internet comments section. Mister Bones, with his devotion to Snap Wexley and his violence, often the order unclear, started to grow on me. With each ALL CAPS line, each plot point—including him chasing and ripping the wings off a butterfly, and each instance of murderous droid rage, Mister Bones slowly took his place in my heart.

And then he died.

That’s when I knew it. I loved Mister Bones.

As described above, the death of Mister Bones is wonderfully dramatic. Even as you read it, you can see the cinematic nature of it. One of our heroes, Snap, sends his beloved droid off to help his mother Norra pursue Grand Admiral Rae Sloane and help secure the end of the Empire. Then, as the teenager takes to the skies in his first major battle, he almost takes out his own mother as she flies a stolen Imperial shuttle. Mister Bones emerges ON the shuttle, and the young boy and his pet—I mean droid—are reunited. Then the droid saves his maker as three sandtroopers and an AT-ST walker are about to kill him. This…this is great stuff. As you read this, you are pulled into this reunion so sweet songs should be sung about it.

Then two A-wings destroy the walker and take out Mister Bones with it in a tragic friendly fire incident.

Wait, what?

Looking back, we all should have seen this emotional gut punch coming. Not just right then, but from the beginning. Like any classic fairy tale with a younger child and their only friend, someone’s gotta go…and it isn’t going to be the child. Mister Bones is a tough sell at first and that’s the point. He’s a bit different while being very much from an era of Star Wars some fans struggle to love. Mister Bones is a challenge. However, piece by piece, moment by moment, Chuck Wendig makes you get to know Mister Bones. Understand him. You start to grasp his importance to Snap, essentially orphaned by the war. As Mister Bones starts to grow, even famously learning that hugs are like violence made of love, we, too, learn to let our own walls down. Our preconceived notions of who and what we like in this franchise fade away. If we can learn to love a murderous battle droid, what other characters can we learn to love in this large galaxy? What stories can we connect with despite any misgivings early on?

We didn’t know we needed Mister Bones in Star Wars until Snap Wexley finds nothing left of the droid to hold onto as he weeps into the hot sand of Jakku. In the pantheon of Star Wars death scenes, this moment deserves its revered station. It gets you perhaps because you never thought it would.

Goodbye, Mister Bones. Your violent ways will never be forgotten.