One interesting (and purely speculative) point that’s come to light for me in recent research - it looks like, despite being published in 1988, Killing Joke was actually written fairly early in Moore’s DC career. Specifically, it was written pre-Crisis.I admit I’ve no strong evidence here, but given that, I really wonder how permanent Moore expected the shooting to be. 

(Also notable: Killing Joke merely goes with “she may well be in a chair.”) 

I thought TKJ wasn’t supposed to be canonical, that it was an Elseworlds story (or whatever DC called their alternative timeline stuff at the time), and it was an editorial decision to make it in-universe?

you know, it is important, for more reasons than just the above, i think–Finn exists in the same canon, and we know that he was raised from early childhood to be a killer & did not have the support around him (such as Leia, Luke, Han, Chewie) to show him the light or drag him from the dark. the only thing he knew was darkness and he was just like “nope, not for me.”

so i agree that it’s something that should’ve been at least hinted at in the movie (”He has too much Vader in him” wasn’t really a hint at all), that Kylo Ren is a rather tragic figure with a complex history. but i also want to note that what happened to Finn is also incredibly traumatic and very likely involved brainwashing and manipulation (given what is known about Brendol Hux and how he created the First Order’s stormtroopers), so i’m really, really curious how they play the two arcs out. because now you’ve got two characters who were basically stolen as children and forced into these roles, but they end up on completely different paths. and i kind of wish they’d added a little bit to Ren’s background in VII, like they did when they showed Finn’s personnel file & it had a photo of him as a kid on it.

The thing about the novelisation is that I’m not sure how much to trust it, exactly. I know bits of, say, the ANH novelisation got over-written/ignored by everything else… actually I think that’s true of all of them.

And the novelisation is not telling the same story as the film. The novelisation says this is the first time Han’s seen his son’s face as an adult; Harrison Ford simply is not playing that. There’s no surprise. If anything, it’s recognition. Which suggests a much older Ben falling to the Dark Side, which suggests a completely different narrative, contrasting Finn’s, not complementary.

Ben was ten when he was sent away, and fifteen when he wrecked everything. So fifteen would be the last possible time he’s seen Ben, and that’s if there was any interaction (I can’t imagine luke would have kept him completely away from them)

No, that’s what I’m arguing against. Those ages are from the novelisation. That timeline is not supported by Ford’s acting.

It appears that the novelization is considered canon.

I feel no obligation to consider what a novelization says when judging a movie.

Perfectly reasonable, but it’s worth noting that Star Wars is one of those silly franchises with an actual official canon policy.

Alan Dean Foster has adapted many films, and in most cases has to work from what is not the final script. With Alien 3, his novel was very different to the film as it contained the 30 minutes Fox cut from the film, plus fundamental changes like the animal in which the Alien gestated.

In the case of Star Wars, he kept the scenes with Biggs going off to fight the Empire. You can see these same scenes in the Marvel Conics adaption too, but here he filled in the gaps of the characters thought processes and a little of the background. Just like TFA.

He also played up the romance angle, since, despite his later claims, Lucas had not decided Vader was Luke’s dad, nor that Luke/Leia were siblings. The book now feels very ‘off’ and I doubt it’s canonical. The same will be true of the latest one.

As an aside, ADF had a deal where his Star Wars novelisation was credited to George Lucas and he got to write a sequel, which would be considered as the source material for the next film. This was Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, and it shows just how different the vision for Star Wars was in 1978: it’s the second of the 'Adventures of Luke Skywalker’, doesn’t feature Han or Chewie or 3PO, and Leia only features when Luke’s wondering whether she fancies him or not. Oh, and he fights Vader, who confirms he killed Luke’s dad.

It’s an appropriate follow-up to the first novelisation, but about as accurate as the original Marvel run’s Jabba the Hutt in terms of the films.

Don’t put too much stock in spin-offs till the films are done.