What do we think of Star Wars' long history of EU/Canon novels?
Is there something noteworthy here or is it just film DLC?
What do we think of Star Wars' long history of EU/Canon novels?
Charles Ward
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Hudson Martin
KOTOR 2 is kino
Mason Gomez
These were bland reads that only work on nostalgia basically. Would have been better than current star wars though, but not by much.
I think people forget the 'magic' of Star Wars is its adherence to the heroes journey and profound themes of love and forgiveness. If you take that away you end up with just nostalgia wank.
John Flores
I read through this trilogy for the first time just recently, and while its miles ahead of what we got from Disney (practically anything would be), it also has problems of its own and set the tone for a lot of the issues that the EU would have going forward. The central premise revolving around clones was interesting when all we knew about them in the SW universe was just that throwaway line from Luke about the clone wars, but writers would go on to use clones as a storytelling crutch over and over in ways that just felt gratuitous. Having Luke and Mara face off against an evil clone of himself was pretty anticlimactic after building up to a big 2.vs 1 with C'Baoth, and the later storyline involving a clone of the emperor rallying the empire was just stupid in the extreme.
That Lucas himself based 2 of the prequel movies on the clone wars just leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth seeing it in the old EU material. I understand how these books must have felt like manna from heaven for Star Wars fans back in the 90's, and I do genuinely appreciate how Zahn developed the characters further, but it also played things very safe overall, and winds up feeling like an unnecessary graft onto the perfect resolution of RotJ.
Carter Diaz
I actually tried reading these, but by the time I got to the third novel, I lost interest. It's not even because of the contents. I just stopped caring. I skimmed through so much I realized I couldn't even follow what the fuck was going on, I think it was because I've always been terrible with names and I need faces to go with those names to memorize them so prose just doesn't work for me if you have too many fucking characters to keep track of.
I'll probably just read the comic book adaptation instead.
Christian Hall
The EU was great for telling interesting well written 'what-if' stories that were really enjoyable, yet didn't always work out if you read a handful of them back to back. They were great novels in their own right, but often had so much going on they would feel too separate not only from the films, but also each other.
The canon has the opposite problem. The stories it tells does imo a great job enriching the Star Wars movie universe through perspectives and stories you have never seen before in an attempt to create a tight cohesive continuity. It works well for the most part. However all of the stories feel much more sterile because of this and are forced to play things much much safer. Often to the point where many of them feel boring or even unnecessary when you know they likely aren't going to introduce anything drastically new to the universe.
Personally I go both ways. At the very least it's more star wars content which is always appreciated. Especially when the franchise has it's long film hiatuses. I don't really think I could chose which I prefer, they are just too different from one another.
Parker Foster
Vong, Thrawn and legacy are all worth reading even if the latter's main character is insufferably edgy.
I'm considering reading past the Vong because I love Pallaeon so much. Some of the prequel era books are good, I remember enjoying one where Maul assassinates some jedi in the Coruscant underground. The Daala era is pretty bad because of massive asspulls. Dark Empire is both some of the best EU and some of the worst.
Carter Diaz
I can agree with this
Christian Green
Thrawn Trilogy is pretty good and Republic and Legacy comic series are great too.
John Allen
>These were bland reads that only work on nostalgia basically
No they weren't. I doubt you even read them.
Levi Johnson
>At the very least it's more star wars content which is always appreciated
this is why star wars sucks now.
Much of the fanbase literally has no standard at all and will consume anything with the Star Wars label on it and some characters nominally related to the movies.
Leo Thompson
seething
Jaxon Perry
You're simply wrong and too dumb to defend your lazy assertions.
Chase Rodriguez
Luke x Mara was cute
Xavier Campbell
I read the Zahn novels and Splinter of the Mind's Eye in the early 90s, and I never considered them true sequels. They were just a little better than fan fiction. Some fans were upset when Lucas destroyed the EU canon when TPM was released.
Caleb Thomas
>Some fans were upset when Lucas destroyed the EU canon when TPM was released.
Some, yeah. But most were just disappointed that the movie wasn't better.
Jackson Torres
>film DLC
That's Disney's approach. The EU was film add-ons and expansion packs, as the OT can be enjoyed and understood by itself alone. Good luck making heads or tails of the ST without any third party materials like the "Road To TFA/TLJ/TROS" novels.
Jose Butler
None of what we are getting is anywhere near as bad as anyone says
Blake Nelson
Nah it is.
Sebastian Powell
It's not but keep being a bandwagonning sheep
Jaxson White
Bitch I just told you it is. Never reply to my posts again if you are gonna spout that retarded nonsense. Fuck you.
William Wright
To add to this, Zahn's hard-on for the empire was a bit much as the stories went on. He would spend so much time describing how elite Strom Troopers were only to have them out witted by a simple misdirection.
I read these in the mid 00's so I was hopping for more Thrawn as the series moved on but alas here we are.
Landon Powell
I wish they had actually done “Star Wars: Anthology” instead of useless backstory movies
Lucas Perry
Mad
Joshua Williams
You mean like fart jokes at Snap Wexley's wedding?
Although I admit I haven't read any of this shit because I can tell that the likes of Claudia Grey and Chuck Wendig are completely incapable of telling a story that isn't stomach-churningly awful.
Nathan Wilson
Tales of the Bounty Hunter and the bounty hunter wars books were some my favorite in the late 90's
Anthony Hill
Anthony Davis
>Literal children's books are bad
Two can play at that game
Michael Allen
Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath wasn’t meant to be a childrens book and it was still the worst Star Wars book
Jace Phillips
The fart wedding wasn't from aftermath.
It's definitely the worst star wars novel, I'll give you that. But to say it's on the same level as the children's content in either canon or EU is fucking retarded.
Joshua Ross
I’m not saying that, I wasn’t the guy you responded to.
Lincoln Ross
>clones as a crutch
It's really not fair to blame Zahn for this. If other writers couldn't resist using lazy gimmicks it's not his fault.
> Having Luke and Mara face off against an evil clone of himself was pretty anticlimactic after building up to a big 2.vs 1 with C'Baoth
They still combat C'Baoth, though, who is more of an arch-wizard than a samurai, defeating him with cleverness and exploiting his insanity. And more importantly the ending works well for the characters. Mara killing clone Luke is the final symbolic conclusion of her trilogy-long character arc, which is also a key victory for Luke whose arc is to become an effective teacher not just to max out his power level so he can defeat bigger bad guys.
>perfect resolution of RotJ
Oh please. It's a good story from an archetypal sense but there's plenty of shit left unresolved without even getting into the Emperor's tax policy.
Gavin Roberts
>starwars.fandom.com
EU: Has silly names that trigger uptight, uptalking fags.
NU: Has pages discussing flatulence of main characters.
Nolan Foster
He didn't destroy it though and had no plans to. That era and Anakin's backstory had been off-limits for the EU all that time. The only thing that did get shit on was Boba Fett and even then there was creative juggling that resolved both origins.
Disney cancelling the EU and calling it 'Legends' was reviled because it cheapened the entire property that had been enriched by these long inter-trilogy lulls where the EU flourished and kept making money for Lucas. Who's to say Disney won't retroactively wipe everything they've done in 20-30 years? Or whoever they sell SW to someday?
Brayden Perry
>Who's to say Disney won't retroactively wipe everything they've done in 20-30 years?
Oh they will. Besides the movies ignore their own story anyway. TLJ ignored what happened in TFA, and in IX Rey has her lightsaber again despite exploding in TLJ. These movies are made for braindead morons.
Camden Bell
The Star Wars movies (4-6) were always a feature complete story that needed no sequels nor prequels, but if you wanted more stories set in that universe, the books were more than sufficient to scratch your itch.
Josiah Foster
>Vong, Thrawn
if I was in charge of New trilogi I would do Vong invasion. It would start with Rebeles taking over Coruscant twenty five years after the destruction of Death star 2.0. The death of Emperor didnt deal the deathblow as expected. Instead the whole Imperium fall in endlles civil war and separatist faction. Every Imperial general proclaimed himself a new Emperor. Most of the Rebels want to leave war and returned to their liberated planet. When another big war between New Republic and reminiscence of old Empire is about to erupt in a devastating conflifct a new character from border planets apearss. He brings a warning. A new threat came from a different galaxy and they call themself Yuuzhan Vong. Now old enemies must enter in afragile aliance to survive. The reluctant antivillain Thrawn. The old beloved characters. And a new one to take the mantle.