Force Awakens or EU: which do you choose? — Page 2

The “canon” Star Wars universe, in my opinion, didn’t really expand itself much through 30 years of existence, while the EU can always and will be expanded, so if you count the EU of Star Wars, SW is doubtless the biggest sci-fi universe ever created. Having a few “canon” movies every now and then won’t expand it much, especially because it’s happening mostly around the time of Battle of Yavin(IV). That’s why I think Disney’s ignoring of EU is a bad mistake and utterly disrespectful.

Yeah, by the time Lucas sold his company to Disney, the EU had been a haphazard collection of bad continuity, atrocious retconning, bad character development, and shoddy storytelling for years. Frankly, it deserved to be tossed out.

Of course, I’m nowhere near convinced that what they’ve replaced it with is any better. And their leaving the PT as canon is an utter farce.

TulakHord said:

The “canon” Star Wars universe, in my opinion, didn’t really expand itself much through 30 years of existence

The “canon universe” has only existed for a year and a half.

The EU is so diverse that you’re asking people to make a huge array of choices. I kind of hate most of the EU ideas, like Giant Evil Insects and absolutely everything about and related to Starkiller, but then I like Mara Jade, and would love to see Shannon McRandle in a cameo in one of the next films.

If forced to make a choice, I’d say ST, but really the whole mass of threads comprising the EU are too numerous and disparate to treat as an entire half of a binary question, especially when canon has fluctuated a lot over the last decade.

Like one of the previous posters, I’m a fan of the Al Williamson daily comic strips from the early 1980s, which were republished in comic book format by Dark Horse. Ditto some of the original Marvel Comics, although it rapidly declined in quality towards the end of the run. Russ Manning’s early adventures are less interesting but have a certain charm.

I liked ‘Splinter of the Mind’s Eye’ and have recently discovered the Radio Dramas, which I almost prefer over the OT now (at least until the original versions are restored). The Star Wars radio drama is the best of the three. Empire is also good, though they didn’t really pull off Han and Leia’s romance. Han came over as a bit creepy. Jedi suffers from the lack of Mark Hamill & Billy Dee Williams.

I have read Brian Daley’s books but did read the comic version of ‘Han Solo at Stars’ End’. I was surprised they got away with calling a droid Bollux but I guess the American editors didn’t pick up on British slang…

I read the Timothy Zahn trilogy, which was entertaining but underwhelming. The clone Luke (Luuke?) and mad (cloned?) Jedi just seemed lazy. Thrawn had potential – using asteroids to bombard planets seemed an ingenious way to make up for the loss of a super weapon. But the idea of using the psychology of a species’ art to defeat them in battle seemed rather convoluted.

The Dark Empire series seemed to mark the downward spiral into ever more powerful super weapons. But it had some interesting concepts, new planets and ship designs, and generally I liked the art (bar Empire’s End). But it could have been better without a resurrected Palpatine and Boba Fett.