7. Parallel successes
If you look at Doctor Aphra’s primary cast of characters as an itemized list, it may sound familiar—A scoundrel, an angry Wookiee, an astromech droid and a protocol droid. It’s Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2, right?
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Yes.
But it’s also Doctor Aphra, Black Krrsantan (I knew he’d pop up in here), Triple Zero and Beetee. The characters mirror some of the more memorable characters of the Skywalker saga, but without wanting to be identical, they took completely different spins on what was already proven successful.
Rather than have a dainty protocol droid, how about a hard-nosed, evil one. Why have a mischievous astromech when you can instead have one that boasts and explosive arsenal that can take down entire platoons. Oh, but still make them best friends.
And the Wookie/Scoundrel pairing may not be quite as prevalent in Doctor Aphra, but it still exists enough, and possess enough charm, that it carries the same strength within the relationship as Han and Chewie’s did. Perhaps even more so, in its own unique ways.
The structure of these characters is proven to work. It will work again. More on this later. But first, No. 6.