Share your favorite Star Wars memories

[Darksi4190]

You know the more I think about it, the more I realize if it weren't for TOR, i'd probably be bowing out of the SW fandom entirely. There just isn't anything else coming up that i'm interested in. TCW is done, and Rebels looks mildly interesting but i'm still expecting network interference from Disney XD.

As for the sequel trilogy, it's obvious that they intend for the main "hook" to be "find out what happens to Luke, Leia, Han, and the rest of the galaxy after Return of the Jedi." That might work fine for the average movie goer, but here's the thing. For better or worse, I already know what happens to them. Luke redeems and marries the emperor's assassin and they have one son whom he names after his Jedi mentor. Han and Leia marry and have three children. After twenty years of war, the New Republic makes peace with the final remnants of Palpatine's empire and the Galactic Civil War ends. Five years after that, a race of monstrous extragalactic invaders attack the galaxy in a brutal war that costs the lives of Chewbacca, Anakin Solo, and countless others before they are ultimately defeated and the Galaxy is brought together under the banner of the Galactic Alliance.

[RogueIce]

And then Legacy of the Force happened.

[Darksi4190]

No it Didn't.

[RogueIce]

Well, now it didn't.

Along with that other stuff you posted.

[Darksi4190]

You know, with the EU officially being over, I think we can safely point to LotF as the point where everything just went wrong. Just, completely, irreversibly wrong. The NJO was dark to be sure, but there were moments of comedy or triumph, and it ended on a hopeful note. LotF took the Star Wars franchise and made it almost as dark as fucking 40K. It was so bad that the next book series essentially had to serve as a fix-fic for it. LotF was so terrible, it essentially ruined the last seven years of the EU. First by being its shit-tastic self, then by forcing the next book series, Fate of the Jedi, to fix its mistakes, which prevented it from being better than mediocre.

That's my biggest annoyance with the Disney buyout. The EU finally broke free from the shit-spectre of LotF, just in time to get killed off.

[Ralin]

Indeed. The NJO wasn't perfect and I did get bored and skip to the finale around the time they started looking for the magic planet thing, but it was something new, got the EU moving in a coherent direction and told an epic story. I skipped the Dark Nest books because I'd already kind of fallen out of it. I picked up the first Legacy of the Force book, had mixed feelings but thought it had potential because hey, Aaron Allston...then I got to Traviss's part and went "...The fuck is this shit?" and stopped.

Also weren't there gay people in Star Wars towards the end?

[Darksi4190]

Indeed. The NJO wasn't perfect and I did get bored and skip to the finale around the time they started looking for the magic planet thing, but it was something new, got the EU moving in a coherent direction and told an epic story. I skipped the Dark Nest books because I'd already kind of fallen out of it. I picked up the first Legacy of the Force book, had mixed feelings but thought it had potential because hey, Aaron Allston...then I got to Traviss's part and went "...The fuck is this shit?" and stopped.

Also weren't there gay people in Star Wars towards the end?

Gay mandalorians. Traviss put them in to show that not only were her super spartan manly men perfect warriors, perfect engineers and perfect farmers, they were also super tolerant too!

I'm all for diversity, but the fact that it was used as an excuse for a terrible author to wank her pet faction even further is not something to be proud of.

[RogueIce]

Was the EU getting better? Because I remember reading somewhere that Denning had sort of become The Man of the novels, and he sort of went off the deep end a little.

[Darksi4190]

With the big three bowing out in crucible and the lasting effects of LotF dealt with there was certainly potential for it to be interesting again.

Whether or not that potential would've been squandered is something we'll never know.

[Crazedwraith]

As to Denning. Everyone liked his first couple of efforts Tattione Ghost and Star By Star (never read the fomer) But I think people's opinions changed come Swarm War. But never read anything post The Unifying Force Timeline wise, save Mercy Kill.

[Darksi4190]

Denning seems to take a lot of the flak for how LotF turned out. I don't know if it's warranted though.

Was he more involved in the overall planning of that god-awful shit show than the other two?

[Ralin]

Denning seems to take a lot of the flak for how LotF turned out. I don't know if it's warranted though.

Was he more involved in the overall planning of that god-awful shit show than the other two?

I stopped reading well before, but from the summaries I read the scenes where Tahari tries to seduce a very young Ben Skywalker and Jacen and Jaina's final duel where Jacen is described as having a bunch of used syringes sticking out of his face after a fall through some garbage spring to mind as "Fucked up shit Denning is responsible for that should not be in Star Wars"

[Crazedwraith]

Jaina and Jacen fight to the death at the end of LotF? Somewhere the yuzhaan vong are laughing their asses off.

I wonder who came up with the idea of Jacen going dark side? Shits all over his Matt Stover's books but then his veiws on the force seem controversial, even though he incorporated them very well in the EpIII novelisation.

Okay, I see why BO posts like this now.

[RogueIce]

Denning seems to take a lot of the flak for how LotF turned out. I don't know if it's warranted though.

Was he more involved in the overall planning of that god-awful shit show than the other two?

I stopped reading well before, but from the summaries I read the scenes where Tahari tries to seduce a very young Ben Skywalker and Jacen and Jaina's final duel where Jacen is described as having a bunch of used syringes sticking out of his face after a fall through some garbage spring to mind as "Fucked up shit Denning is responsible for that should not be in Star Wars"

This post (as well as some of the conversation following it) sums up the issues with Denning pretty well, IMO.

How much was his fault alone is of course debatable. Yes, he's the one who made Daala Chief of State of the GA, but Traviss was the one to bring her back from obscurity in the previous book, so was that his choice or decided by someone else and he just had to make it happen?

Still I think he certainly bears quite a bit of blame. If that stuff about Corran and Kyle Katarn cajoling Saba into giving Mara's eulogy because they were besties for some reason (which according to that TFN thread was only mentioned - out of nowhere - in the DNT, also by Denning so... ) that's really damning, IMO. At least in Corran's case, given Stackpole and Zahn being BFFs IRL I can be okay with that, because Zahn was probably okay with that as well given their collaboration. But Saba being Mara's "best friend" just feels like...I dunno, Denning shoehorning his pet character in. Yeah, I know, you could make that same argument with Corran and Mara, but that's why I brought up Zahn and Stackpole's collaborative efforts and RL friendship, something that Denning AFAIK doesn't have on his side.

But yeah overall I guess I can see where Denning gets a lot of the post-NJO flack. Let's face it, by writing the final books to both LotF and FotJ he's responsible for setting the status quo at the end of both series; and from what I understand neither of those were especially well received. Same thing with Crucible it looks like, people didn't like that much either.

With the big three bowing out in crucible and the lasting effects of LotF dealt with there was certainly potential for it to be interesting again.

Whether or not that potential would've been squandered is something we'll never know.

Indeed we won't. It seems Denning had fallen from the highs we had from SbS and TG, both of which I will grant were pretty good, even though they had their own issues. So how involved would he be, and would that make things better or worse?

I didn't read FotJ so I don't know if Christie Golden would have been expected to do good things with Sword of the Jedi but hey, moving on from the movie characters would be refreshing, even if I personally think it would've been a little premature. But I can get the desire for that, so whatever.

Incidentally Darksider, as someone familiar with the shitshow that was LotF, what do you think of this post summarizing the overall issues with the series and why it failed?

I'm not entirely sure, and this is all just speculation, but assuming I understand how fictional writing works, there has to be a beginning and end, and the journey between those two points. The way LotF was presented, it seemed like they had a beginning, but not much of an ending or middle and only vague ideas left up to the authors to decide, which is why they all focused on their areas of expertise/pet characters.

Again, just speculation, but maybe they wanted Jaina vs. Jacen for the final fight. But short of Luke getting hit on the head and tied up like Jaina was for the TUF finale (and while TUF was good, too bad Jaina's Tsavong Lah victory was already in the past by then, and it might just be me, but often it seemed like Lah's successor, Nas Choka, kept going on about what a fanatical obsessed idiot Lah had been), it'd be hard to come up with a reason for Jaina vs. Jacen instead of Luke vs. Jacen. Unfortunately, instead of simply being restrained like Jaina was during TUF, they came up with another way to sideline Luke- have him "tainted" by Mara's death and then killing Lumiya for it. So since Mara had to die, they just had Jacen kill her and use it as his accidental sacrifice.

The whole Sith sacrifice thing was silly, but then Lumiya was mostly just spouting rubbish anyway, and Jacen was always too dumb to see past it. Sure, he has to fall to stop this war... that Lumiya is igniting. Sure, in other falls there have been other "sacrifices", in terms of supposedly being past the point of no return, where there's no choice but to keep falling. Or at least as a sign of commitment, to show they've chosen the dark path and can't be reached, supposedly. Of course, Luke redeemed Vader, and while the Bantam books weren't the greatest written, at least a few times there Luke did try to show some mercy to darksiders, such as Brakiss. It wasn't consistent, but at least it popped up more than with Jacen.

If Jacen had been written as too far gone from the beginning, I still would've hated it, but instead his Darth title almost came about accidentally, as he was defending himself against Mara. In a way, Jacen's indecision about who to sacrifice to prove he's a big bad Sith now is a perfect indicator of LotF's lack of structure and planning. Killing Allana would have been really dark, but Tenel Ka maybe they could have gotten away with, although it would mean using the cliche of killing the hero (well, protagonist in Jacen's case) girlfriend for shock, drama, angst, blah, blah, a few more cliches, that kind of thing. Though its kind of funny that even when Jacen suggest other possibilities in terms of "those he has a bond with" he brings up his parents, and even Lumiya rejects that idea since Jacen could care less about them by that point.

Sacrifice was just in almost every aspect an awful book (unless you just really, really love Boba Fett, and his sub-plot had little to nothing to do with the rest of the book). Invincible really put the nail in the coffin of post-NJO potential, but Sacrifice was probably when it was clear that the series was too far gone.

Going back to Luke, TUF and the NJO in general had just built up someone who was supposed to be the Jedi Grandmaster, though NJO still does seem a bit too stretched out for me (and Luke didn't start using the Grandmaster title until the horrible DNT, though that was effectively his position already) then just for manufactured crisis they had to get rid of him without actually killing him (as can't possible touch the Big Three too much, everybody else is fair game) which led to LotF (and FotJ too) scrambling around to find some way to sideline him, without a galactic army around to keep him busy... so instead they just come up with new wars and new armies to try and keep him busy but without proper setup (and though NJO was really long, at least there was a gradual escalation of danger) the plot just feels... stupid. I do wish there had been some final fantastic book to redeem everything that had come before (or to at least end things on a high note), but oh well, its over now. Now just have to hope Luke's life never reaches such a dire state again.

[RogueIce]

Also if what I read in that thread about Denning's attitude WRT non-Jedi (and Jedi spouses as a way to give Han Solo immunity I guess, being a main character from the movies and all) is that they don't matter - "If they're not in the Jedi Temple they're not there" or something like that - than seriously...fuck that guy with a rusty wooden spork.

[Crazedwraith]

Is anyone else really sad that they roped Allston into doing the big main plot books with the collabrative story arc. (who comes up with the overall arc anyway, the editors or something?)

If they'd just sat him down and given him free range to do say... six x-wing books or something. How awesome would that have been by comparison?

[RogueIce]

Is anyone else really sad that they roped Allston into doing the big main plot books with the collabrative story arc. (who comes up with the overall arc anyway, the editors or something?)

If they'd just sat him down and given him free range to do say... six x-wing books or something. How awesome would that have been by comparison?

Given that Mercy Kill was an excellent book, I can only conclude that it would indeed have been fucking awesome and almost certainly better than a lame rehash of the PT starring Jacen Solo.

[Stofsk]

I can't say I'm at all surprised that Denning's EU work turned to such utter shit. I found Star By Star overrated and didn't particularly care for Tatooine Ghose either.

[Ralin]

I can't say I'm at all surprised that Denning's EU work turned to such utter shit. I found Star By Star overrated and didn't particularly care for Tatooine Ghose either.

I liked Star By Star. Tatooine Ghost I found utterly forgettable and I'm reasonably sure it only exists because there had to be a "Luke and Leia find out about Padme and shit" book at some point.

[Stofsk]

By overrated I mean I didn't find superduperfabulousome, which is what it's often hyped up to be.

It's serviceable, and has a decentish story, but I suspect people like it because it has biggatons rather than actual awesome writing.

[Ralin]

By overrated I mean I didn't find superduperfabulousome, which is what it's often hyped up to be.

It's serviceable, and has a decentish story, but I suspect people like it because it has biggatons rather than actual awesome writing.

It's been awhile since I read it and I'm probably blanking on a lot, but I always thought it had more to do with Anakin Solo literally going Super Saiyin at the end.

[Crazedwraith]

I figured for some it was the big scale of the action (a thousand ships! so cool), the fact that Luke upped and realised the jedi could actually fight and shit with out falling to the dark side and the solo kids going on that mission with all the cool equipment. (jedi using blasters! so cool. Teenagers on stupid Suicide missions. So cool!)

[RogueIce]

Eh, I never cared about the scale of it all (in fact it kind of bugged me that Wedge and/or Garm, forgot who but it was one of them, came off kind of wimpy in the Coruscant battle) but I enjoyed SbS overall. Not a great book, and the lack of a real resolution annoyed me, but it wasn't bad. I only vaguely recall TG by now, but I thought it was ok. It sort of bugged me how everyone seemed to know Darth Vader = Anakin Skywalker for some reason, but then the EU kind of went back and forth on that sometimes, IIRC.

[Darksi4190]

I don't know why you think Garm and Wedge were "wimpy," Given that the former seized command of the rout at Coruscant and turned it into a fighting retreat and the latter hopped in an X-wing and shot down two squadrons of coralskippers.

[RogueIce]

Did that happen? Huh. Maybe I'm misremembering. How did Kre'frey do? I remember he was there as well.