Lets talk all things Star Wars
"Mostly"
Iskelderon
Sr Member
That's why I usually barely glance at those numbers, since there's so much shilling going on.
Joek3rr
Master Member
Just some rambling thoughts I've been having about the old EU.
So my history with the Expanded Universe has been mixed. When I first found out about it, when I was a kid. Probably some time in the early 2000's (must have been before ROTS had released). I hated it. But it very quickly grew on me.
I came to love it most of it. Particularly the video games I had. The Knights of the Old Republic series. Battlefront games. Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. Rogue Squadron III. And eventually The Force Unleashed games. I would spend hours going through Wookieepedia. Reading The New Essential Chronology (which I got from an inter library book loan, anyone remember those? Lol), The Ultimate Visual Guide, and any other books I could find at the library. I remember reading the Republic Commando and Darth Bane series.
By 2014 and the Canon reset, I was pretty heavily invested, though I hadn't read that many novels. So of course I felt kinda sad(Kyle Katarn!) that the EU was going away. I understand why it had too, but I still didn't like it. Eventually I made my way through The Clone Wars, and then onto Rebels, and came to prefer Canon over the now rebranded Legends.
But last week something clicked. It started with the official release of the KOTOR 2 soundtrack. I spent the day while working listening to the score on Spotify. And then I came across a post on Reddit.
And I got hit with a face full of nostalgia. I love THE Clone Wars.....but the Clone Wars multimedia project.....I remember. That was my golden age of Star Wars from about 2002, to about 2008. I remember pouring over Walmart catalogs with AOTC toys. In 2003 I got Rogue Squadron III and a Game Cube. And by 2006 I had an X-wing, B-wings, A-wing, Snowspeeder, TIE, AT-ST, and a Star destroyer in LEGO. I could continue my Rogue Squadron adventures in when my gaming time was up. I remember The Saga Collection, Saga Legends, and The 30th Anniversary Collection from Hasbro we're from 2006 to 2008. Still some of the best waves Hasbro has ever done.
A few days ago I started browsing the Legends pages of Wookieepedia. And I started to remember the Expanded Universe again. I felt almost like Théoden grasping his sword. I was young again..... Then sadness..... My son will probably never ever get to experience what I had. The shelves upon shelves of Star Wars toys. When kids cared for toys not tablets. And the new Canon? Sure there's some good points. THE Clone Wars is good. But it was like a slap in the face of the EU authors. Yes George was never beholden to the EU, but he completely changed everything. Even projects he was more involved with eventually got wiped, like the Bane trilogy, and The Force Unleashed. Karen Traviss and her Mandalorian history, was gone. Yes Obi-Wan's relationship with the Duchess was good. And the the story they've told about Mandalore has been good. But it came at such a high cost.
So here I sit. My Disney+(gosh I hate that George sold it to them) subscription is up in November. The first season of The Mandalorian was good. The Bad Batch was really fun. But it's slowly began to loose me. The Mandalorian season 2 was over stuffed. The Book of Boba Fett, wasn't horrible, but it wasn't good. And Obi-Wan Kenobi, has left much to be desired, not that it's bad. It's not. "Canon" is slowly slipping away from me. Sure I'd kinda like to see what happens to Din and company. And Ahsoka. But I don't NEED it. No I'm going to go and finally buy some of those old reference books I read as a kid. I'm finally going to get the Luceno/Stover Trilogy. I'm going get The Tales of the Jedi comics. I'm going get the Thrawn Trilogy. My son will grow up on the "classics" with the Expanded Universe. With some "Canon" sprinkled throughout. Kyle Katarn, Starkiller, and Shadows of the Empire...... I'm coming back.
So my history with the Expanded Universe has been mixed. When I first found out about it, when I was a kid. Probably some time in the early 2000's (must have been before ROTS had released). I hated it. But it very quickly grew on me.
I came to love it most of it. Particularly the video games I had. The Knights of the Old Republic series. Battlefront games. Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. Rogue Squadron III. And eventually The Force Unleashed games. I would spend hours going through Wookieepedia. Reading The New Essential Chronology (which I got from an inter library book loan, anyone remember those? Lol), The Ultimate Visual Guide, and any other books I could find at the library. I remember reading the Republic Commando and Darth Bane series.
By 2014 and the Canon reset, I was pretty heavily invested, though I hadn't read that many novels. So of course I felt kinda sad(Kyle Katarn!) that the EU was going away. I understand why it had too, but I still didn't like it. Eventually I made my way through The Clone Wars, and then onto Rebels, and came to prefer Canon over the now rebranded Legends.
But last week something clicked. It started with the official release of the KOTOR 2 soundtrack. I spent the day while working listening to the score on Spotify. And then I came across a post on Reddit.
And I got hit with a face full of nostalgia. I love THE Clone Wars.....but the Clone Wars multimedia project.....I remember. That was my golden age of Star Wars from about 2002, to about 2008. I remember pouring over Walmart catalogs with AOTC toys. In 2003 I got Rogue Squadron III and a Game Cube. And by 2006 I had an X-wing, B-wings, A-wing, Snowspeeder, TIE, AT-ST, and a Star destroyer in LEGO. I could continue my Rogue Squadron adventures in when my gaming time was up. I remember The Saga Collection, Saga Legends, and The 30th Anniversary Collection from Hasbro we're from 2006 to 2008. Still some of the best waves Hasbro has ever done.
A few days ago I started browsing the Legends pages of Wookieepedia. And I started to remember the Expanded Universe again. I felt almost like Théoden grasping his sword. I was young again..... Then sadness..... My son will probably never ever get to experience what I had. The shelves upon shelves of Star Wars toys. When kids cared for toys not tablets. And the new Canon? Sure there's some good points. THE Clone Wars is good. But it was like a slap in the face of the EU authors. Yes George was never beholden to the EU, but he completely changed everything. Even projects he was more involved with eventually got wiped, like the Bane trilogy, and The Force Unleashed. Karen Traviss and her Mandalorian history, was gone. Yes Obi-Wan's relationship with the Duchess was good. And the the story they've told about Mandalore has been good. But it came at such a high cost.
So here I sit. My Disney+(gosh I hate that George sold it to them) subscription is up in November. The first season of The Mandalorian was good. The Bad Batch was really fun. But it's slowly began to loose me. The Mandalorian season 2 was over stuffed. The Book of Boba Fett, wasn't horrible, but it wasn't good. And Obi-Wan Kenobi, has left much to be desired, not that it's bad. It's not. "Canon" is slowly slipping away from me. Sure I'd kinda like to see what happens to Din and company. And Ahsoka. But I don't NEED it. No I'm going to go and finally buy some of those old reference books I read as a kid. I'm finally going to get the Luceno/Stover Trilogy. I'm going get The Tales of the Jedi comics. I'm going get the Thrawn Trilogy. My son will grow up on the "classics" with the Expanded Universe. With some "Canon" sprinkled throughout. Kyle Katarn, Starkiller, and Shadows of the Empire...... I'm coming back.
Solo4114
Master Member
Dare I ask what people are all pissy about now? Or is it really not worth it?
Iskelderon
Sr Member
Lots of different factors, some are disappointed because it's not what they expected to be, others because the first episodes seem to shill some unimportant side character (one of the inquisitors) serving as the opponent that's pulling the strings.
Not bad by itself because shows like that need an opponent, but after Rebels and Fallen Order cutting inquisitors down by the dozen, they seem about as worthless and forgettable as a specific stormtrooper somewhere in the back of some mass rally scene.
Hell, even Finn in the new movies was only worth caring about because he broke away and chose his own path and then the movies then turned around and did him such a disservice with absolutely atrocious writing.
Solo4114
Master Member
I'll offer a somewhat counter narrative here. I was born in '77, and saw Return of the Jedi in theaters on first release when I was a very young child. I LOVED it. I also grew up in an era where there were tons of toys and comic books and lunchboxes and shoelaces and elastic belts with metal buckles that you'd never give a kid today because OF COURSE they're gonna smack their friends with the buckles.
I remember listening to the Brian Daley adaptations of the films on NPR's radio programs and loving them, while also wondering who this Perry King guy was and why he didn't sound like a proper Han Solo. I had A New Hope recorded on VHS off of Prism (an early cable movie channel) and because my family wasn't religious and didn't go to church on Sundays, I'd watch Star Wars every Sunday morning because the only other stuff that was on were televangelists.
When I was about 13 or 14, we had our first Star Wars renaissance. The franchise had lain dormant since the mid-80s or so, but it sparked up again around 1991 with the release of Heir to the Empire, and the dawning of LucasArts' PC gaming golden era with the original X-Wing and Dark Forces. Right around then, Dark Horse Comics also started re-releasing Al Williamson and Archie Goodwin's Star Wars comic strips, and I collected those as well (still have 'em!). I consumed TONS of Star Wars during this era, especially the novels. Zahn's trilogy was amazing and felt like proper sequels. Then came the Jedi Academy books which were....er....ok-ish. And then came a TON of garbage. There were some bright spots along the way -- Michael Stackpole's X-wing novels were pretty great. But by and large, most of the mid-to-late 90s era was at best "fair to middling" and at worst absolute dreck. The books could never move beyond the original characters, there were tons of ersatz-Death-Star superweapons, and just a lot of myopia and rigid focus on recreating the original films somehow, and mostly failing at it (Zahn being a notable exception).
Then came the prequels and I basically got divorced from Star Wars. What had been a thing I loved became something I couldn't stand and which wanted nothing to do with me or the aspects of it that I'd loved. George was also firmly in his "I can do no wrong" phase, too. I remember LucasFilm releasing the special editions on DVD and flat-out insisting that the flipping of rear channels was "on purpose." No, it ***ing wasn't, and we all know it because they FIXED it when they did their next release.
Every bit of media content that was produced, from comics to games to everything else, was all oriented around the Clone Wars era, or at least that's how it felt. So I basically walked away from the whole thing and mostly stayed gone until I discovered the Harmy edits of the original films. That and growing older and wiser basically softened me on my attitudes re: Star Wars. Hell, they were just movies after all. I could take what I wanted and enjoy that, and leave/ignore the rest. It also helped that I finally started watching the Clone Wars CGI cartoon and really enjoyed it. It gave me more appreciation for the era of the Clone Wars, even though I'll likely never really love the prequel films (ROTS is pretty cool, though).
Frankly, when Disney purged the EU...I didn't care. There was a ton of crap in it. It's not as good as you remember it, or to the extent you remember it well, it's probably because you avoided the real crap. What I appreciate is what they kept, which is a lot of the worldbuilding backstory stuff, much of which originated with West End Games' Star Wars RPG (the source books for which are terrific).
I think the fans who still complain about the loss of the EU are probably fans that would be bound for disappointment no matter what because what they really want is to recreate the past, and that's just...not possible.
I'm enjoying a lot of the new Star Wars material that's come out, but I've also not immersed myself in the novels and comics and such. I don't really immerse myself in fandom with the intensity of my youth at all anymore. I have too many interests and too much stuff going on otherwise to approach things with such a degree of focus. But I also find that this allows me to genuinely enjoy what I consume a lot more. Really, the only dark spot for me has been JJ's influence on Star Wars, which seems to have been shunted to the side in favor of Jon Favreau and Dave Filioni, whom I think really "get" Star Wars and what it can be.
Joek3rr
Master Member
Undoubtedly I have some rose tinted glasses. That and I think the Ultimate Visual Guide and New Essential Chronology probably trimmed a lot of the fat. So I probably missed some of those stinkers.
I think, looking back, one of the frustrating things about the total wiping of the EU, even if I understand why it had to be done. Was those big multimedia projects were gone. Shadows of the Empire, Clone Wars, The Force Unleashed. These where big events. Not just another book or game. These were supposed to be everything short of a movie. So you had a novel, a junior novel, comics, toys, even an official soundtrack release. Sure they weren't perfect. Dash Rendar was budget Han Solo. The Force Unleashed played really fast and loose with the Force. But I can forgive a game mechanic. (And we won't talk about Shaak Ti...) So it was a little disappointing that these were "gone." For the sake of continuity I wish someone would have reined in George while he was doing TCW. And Dave as well. I think he was still in that "I can do no wrong" mentality. Because it almost seems like he would draw on the EU and then change it, just for the heck of it.
Iskelderon
Sr Member
Yes, people often forget that Shadows of the Empire was a cross-media event to test if the merchandising licensees were ready for what the planned prequel trilogy would entail.
CT1138
Sr Member
People also review bombed Rotten Tomatoes after LucasFilm came out and told people to stop sending Moses Ingram racist messages. It went from like 70-something percent to under 40% in less than 24 hours.
Solo4114
Master Member
Ah, I should've guessed.
The very embodiment of that meme of two girls fighting and one girl sitting in the chair watching, and all 3 are labeled "Star Wars fans." Also, not pictured, me, the Star Wars fan at home enjoying the actual Star Wars content.
Master Boda
Sr Member
I guess for me “OG SW” was a really awesome band.The first 3 albums (ANH,ESB,ROTJ) were ground breaking for the time,and the merch(Toys) really got us youngsters into it.After a 16 year break the band upgraded its recording tech and released 3 more albums(TPM,AOTC,ROTS) which I dug as well.Not everyone like them but music taste changes.They brought in a new sound engineer (Dave F.) and made 2 EP’s (Clone Wars,Rebels).Sadly the band broke (SW sold)up but reformed.The new band still has the name SW but to my ear sounds like the music is tuned down or something but does not sound like the OG although it pretends to honor the past sounds.
Fun analogy for me I guess.
Fun analogy for me I guess.
Darth Lars
Master Member
Sure, a lot of the EU was dreck. But so were the prequels and the additions in the Special Editions, in just the same ways.
Even if people didn't like them, most people accepted the continuity of the prequels, and that it had many interesting people, locations and themes, even if the writing and dialogue was bad.
And it is the same parts of the EU that remain with me: the continuity: people, locations and themes, as a whole, not the writing and dialogue in individual books.
In other words: in both cases, the quality of the whole outweighed the bad spots.
Iskelderon
Sr Member
True, we got the bargain bin versions in Rogue One (a movie with many amazing elements), but I still prefer Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors.
Why are light sabers portrayed as impalement weapons?
When Maul stabs Qui-Gon, he "freezes" in shock as Maul pulls the blade out, and then Qui-Gon falls.
Same with Reva in OWK, when she impales the Grand Inquisitor.
Same with Vader on the rebel soldier in Rogue One (when he impales him through the door)
Realistically, the aggressor would not have "slid" the blade out of the victim along its path to remove it as you would with a sword or spear... they would have completed the slash through the side of the body to remove it (or just turned the blade off).
And the saber is not a pole that will support the victim's weight while they are standing there. As the victim, you would fall in some direction against the blade, which would slice through your side.
When Maul stabs Qui-Gon, he "freezes" in shock as Maul pulls the blade out, and then Qui-Gon falls.
Same with Reva in OWK, when she impales the Grand Inquisitor.
Same with Vader on the rebel soldier in Rogue One (when he impales him through the door)
Realistically, the aggressor would not have "slid" the blade out of the victim along its path to remove it as you would with a sword or spear... they would have completed the slash through the side of the body to remove it (or just turned the blade off).
And the saber is not a pole that will support the victim's weight while they are standing there. As the victim, you would fall in some direction against the blade, which would slice through your side.
I even bought the music SOTE CD 25 years ago! Had some nice themes.
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