Due to Frink's hatred for all thinks EU, I've decided to go ahead and create a thread devoted to any comments on the Star Wars Expanded Universe that don't comfortably fit in the "What do you LIKE about the EU?" or "What do you HATE about the EU?" threads.
With that said, let the random EU thoughts begin!
Most of the EU ignores what's implied in the movies, screenplays, and novelizations, but WEG is largely true to them. For example, in some drafts of the ESB screenplay, the Empire has a Grand Vizier. WEG talks about the Grand Vizier, but the Thrawn books are like, "nope, the Empire has "Grand Admirals" and "Emperor's Hands"".
Tobar said:
That's good news.
Another random thought: if you post anything bad about legends or good about the new canon on the Star Wars Books facebook page, they'll create memes with your profile picture to make fun of you.
Is that a random thought or observation? If they actually do that, that's terrible!
Tobar said:
But I already defeated him, because I gave the dagger to Cassima!
“That Darth Vader, man. Sure does love eating Jedi.”
DuracellEnergizer said:
Due to Frink's hatred for all thinks EU
I gotta thinks what I gotta thinks.
Were it not for the white ears, this costume
would be nearly perfect.
What the hell is a WEG?
West End Games. =P
I love Shadows of the Empire and Heir to the Empire. I never really connected with any of the other stuff, even the Thrawn sequels. It all feels very tedious. And all of it completely misses the point of who Luke Skywalker is. After Jedi, I see him either coming out of "retirement" very tenuously or not at all. He's the kind of guy who would hang up the lightsaber and cloak and help war refugees after Jedi, not the guy who appears in all the post-Jedi stuff. Pass.
Frankly, I don't understood the appeal for Shadows of the Empire. I loved the book when I first read it as a teenager, but after re-reading it a few years ago, I found it pretty meh; some of the stuff with Vader was still interesting, but the rest did absolutely nothing for me.
I had read the "Dark Empire" comic because it was a big deal when it came out, it was neat to see some new Starwars stuff in the format. I used to buy comics all the time, mainly for the art as that is what I do. I had previously read the old Marvel comics Starwars books and enjoyed them for what they were.
Eventually Dark Horse began pumping out multiple Starwars titles, some even based on the novels. They always had decent looking covers so I picked a few on a random trip at some comic shop. Upon going through them I noticed a few things, the art was generally boring and the writing was terrible. One book had the emperor hobbling about and acting like he was a villain from some 80's cartoon show. After that, the only comic I ever bought was the first part of "Heir to the Empire" which was decent enough. Aside from a few stories the EU in comic form were either pretty "meh" or just corny and badly put together.
This was all years ago and some of it could have gotten better but I am pretty sure the back story and canon has gotten so silly and convoluted at this point that it was probably a good idea to wipe it clean. Saying that, Disney will start pumping out a whole new mess of problems as a new EU starts selling like mad and quality control goes out the window. Eventually the whole thing will suffer the same fate.
Shadows of the Empire was in the bottom 3 EU books I read. None of it sat right with me. That may have been the moment when I finally was like "If this had just happened, they'd have still been talking about it in the next movie!"
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IamLam said:
One book had the emperor hobbling about and acting like he was a villain from some 80's cartoon show.
That comic wouldn't happen to be Empire's End, would it?
This was all years ago and some of it could have gotten better but I am pretty sure the back story and canon has gotten so silly and convoluted at this point that it was probably a good idea to wipe it clean.
I'm admittedly biased against the modern EU, so you don't have to take my word for it, but yes, it had become that silly and convoluted. Case in point: Boba Fett falling into and having to escape from the sarlacc twice.
I'm not so sure how to feel about the "power creep" when it came to Star Wars Jedi in the EU. Like Jedi are capable of planetary destruction with the Force and in the EU certain blasters can emit just light like the Remote droid that Luke used to train in A new Hope, meaning Jedi can think and have reflexes that are faster than Light. On one hand I think it's cool, on the other hand I also like them being just superhuman levels.
DuracellEnergizer said:
I'm admittedly biased against the modern EU, so you don't have to take my word for it, but yes, it had become that silly and convoluted. Case in point: Boba Fett falling into and having to escape from the sarlacc twice.
That misconception really bugs me as I've seen it pop up a few times now. The escape from the Sarlaac has been depicted twice and one of them was never considered canon.
The first time was in an issue of Marvel's Star Wars. Where Boba escapes but ends up back in the pit by the end of the story because Lucas caught wind of it and was adamant at the time that Boba was done.
Years later, for the Bounty Hunter novel trilogy they decided to finally depict his escape canonically.
But the Marvel story was never considered canon.
^That may have been the case in the beginning, but in later years Leland Chee & co. became obsessed with working each and every aspect of the Marvel comics into the modern EU continuity, even when it didn't fit.
Wookieepedia's article on the Legends Boba Fett even lists both of his escapes from the sarlacc occurring in the same continuity.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Boba_Fett#Survival
Of course, I realize this could just be the case of the Wookieepedians being stupid with their inclusivism, not Chee & co.
The Merchant said:
I'm not so sure how to feel about the "power creep" when it came to Star Wars Jedi in the EU. Like Jedi are capable of planetary destruction with the Force and in the EU certain blasters can emit just light like the Remote droid that Luke used to train in A new Hope, meaning Jedi can think and have reflexes that are faster than Light. On one hand I think it's cool, on the other hand I also like them being just superhuman levels.
Generally, I like to go with the idea that the Jedi were almost superhumanly powerful prior to the Great Sith War, but became progressively weaker over the centuries and millennia that followed.
Hmm, that's fishy business. I would lean toward that being Wookieepedia foolery given the last word on the subject I'd heard was that the Marvel comics were still considered a scrapyard for concepts and bits and pieces. Like the whole of Legends today.
I was browsing through Wookieepedia -- as I am wont to do ;-) -- and I came upon this image:
This is from the Handbook 3: Dark Empire. While I don't own a physical copy of this book, I do have a scanned copy sitting on my hard drive, and in it the image above looks like this:
So, obviously there are major differences between the two colour-wise; the top image is blue-tinted with the lightsaber being red, while the bottom is more green-tinted with the lightsaber being orange-yellow.
As anyone can probably guess, I lean towards the greener version being the "original version", with the blue version being an altered version, made by some Wookieepedian to conform to the "bad guys only wield red lightsabers" rule established after AOTC was released. Of course, I don't know that this is the case.
Basically, I'm asking anyone who happens to own this book to tell me which version of the picture above is book-accurate.
Can you really trust that the scanned version colors are accurate?
Where were you in '77?
Not completely, no. That's why I'm asking. =P
DuracellEnergizer said:
The Merchant said:
I'm not so sure how to feel about the "power creep" when it came to Star Wars Jedi in the EU. Like Jedi are capable of planetary destruction with the Force and in the EU certain blasters can emit just light like the Remote droid that Luke used to train in A new Hope, meaning Jedi can think and have reflexes that are faster than Light. On one hand I think it's cool, on the other hand I also like them being just superhuman levels.
Generally, I like to go with the idea that the Jedi were almost superhumanly powerful prior to the Great Sith War, but became progressively weaker over the centuries and millennia that followed.
The very title of the forthcoming Episode 7 seems to be hinting at that, and at some kind of resurgence (or "awakening").
I like the idea, myself. I hope it's handled well.
"These deadly rays will be your death..."
I have no idea if the color in DuracellEnergizer's second posted image is accurate (my copy of Dark Empire is an older TPB that doesn't include that poster).
However, while trawling the Internet, I did find the cover art for Issue #5 of the series:
Palpatine's clone is wielding a white lightsaber here. Very Ralph McQuarrie. I approve.
It's quite possible therefore that Duracell is right, and the poster in question originally featured an orange saber blade.
“That Darth Vader, man. Sure does love eating Jedi.”