No, Palpatine would want people to fear the Jedi, not feel sad like they're some misbehaving celebrities. Subtly turning their public image towards faceless, warmongering religious fanatics much better suits the "they attempted a coup and melted my face off" narrative. When Order 66 goes off, he wants people to be terrified to open their doors to any Jedi stragglers. He wants them eager, desperate even to inform on them. He certainly doesn't want anyone questioning the official narrative with "but they looked so heroic in the holo-reels!"
I think he had wanted it so that when he got Anakin to his side, he could used that to his advantage. He hadn't wanted his new Darth Vader to get totally disfigured and need an encounter suit with full on scary mask (though he probably thought that was funny). He had intended his new student to be very powerful and perhaps the face of his new Empire. Imagine that upward trend the Empire would get with the Hero: Anakin Skywalker, Hero of the Republic, and the only Jedi to not betray the Republic, at Palpatine's side. Even Anakin's partner, Obi-wan "the Negotiator" Kenobi, betrays the Republic....how strong of a message is that? The rest of the prologue suggests that people are starting to fear the Jedi because so many have turned to evil and betrayed the Republic (in the old EU there were a few students or followers of Dooku that turned, and all the students that had been under Mace Windu had turned due to having used his dangerous lightsaber style). The Galaxy was afraid. The only shining light of hope was Skywalker and Kenobi.
I finished up Most Wanted last night, and I enjoyed it. The story wasn't anything mind blowing, but it was pretty enjoyable. What really made the book stand out for me was the character work for Han and Qi'ra and the worldbuilding for Corellia. All but a couple chapters of it take place on Corellia, so we get to see a lot more of it than we did in Solo.
Recently finished Master and Apprentice. The story itself is kind of meh, though there is a pretty good plot twist I didn't see coming. The novel really shines with the character work, providing some really interesting insight into the relationship between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan with a really compelling look at Qui-Gon as a person including flashbacks to his teenage years training under Dooku. The new characters introduced in this novel are some interesting and memorable characters as well.
Star War #108, the new issue of Marvel's first Star Wars series that originally ran from 1977-1986 came out today. As part of their 80th Anniversay Marvel has been releasing new issues of a whole bunch of their old discontinued series, and this is the latest one.
Heard about that; the "Give Us Legends" people were pretty excited over it, seeming to think that it was the first step in a full-on Legends revival. IMHO, they completely missed the point of the comic's existence, but I could be wrong about that.
I enjoyed Star Wars 108. It felt more like a final issue than "All Together Now!" in issue 107 did. "All Together Now!" was a sadly rushed wrap up to all of Mary Jo Duffy's on-going storylines. "Forever Crimson", sequel to the late Archie Goodwin's "The Crimson Forever" in issue 50, was a look back rather than a wrap up, particularly to the Goodwin era. Goodwin was the writer from issue 11-45, as well as 47, 50, 97 and the RotJ adaptation. He also had a respectable run on the Star Wars newspaper strip. Set right after the defeat of the Tof Invaders in 107, the story begins with a recap of the life of Valance the Hunter (issues 16, 27, 29) told by a junk scavenger salvaging the acid lake where Valance and Darth Vader had their fateful encounter. The scavengers just by happenstance scavenge the remains of Valance's cyborg shell. Through various means of technobabble the still preserved human brain, which is the only human part of him left now, is activated. Valance hears the story of the twin crimson gems that are the MacGuffin of both this issue and issue 50 and seeks them out hoping that they can restore his humanity. Of course, Domina Tagge of the House of Tagge (issues 35-37 and 50, although her three brothers made several appearances before that, going all the way back to the first movie and the "I find your lack of faith disturbing" scene) is up to her old tricks and is after the gems once again herself. Meanwhile, Han and Chewie, while trying to make a little money on the side, inadvertently get involved with the various parties seeking out either Dominia or the gems, including Jaxxon the seven foot green rabbit and Amaiza Foxtrain (issues 7-10, 16). We pick up with Leia and Luke interacting with some of the book's various supporting characters from the later issues such as Leia's Zeltron retinue and Plif the Hoojib, when Han arrives in the Falcon with Jax and Amaiza and they all go off to retrieve the gems before Dominia can find them. As happens with these things, all interested parties arrived at roughly the same time and hilarity ensued, with Valance arriving and simultaneously regaining his humanity and saving the galaxy from the Crimson Plague. The only distressing thing was they left the fate of my girlfriend Dani the Zeltron up in the air. I hope she's all right. Of course, they couldn't play tribute to all of the books old stories, with the biggest omission probably being any mention of Shira Brie, aka the Sith Lady Lumiya. Of course, Lumiya was dealt with rather severely in the previous issue and would make her return later in the novels, so I'm not that worried about it. However, it would be fun to see characters like Kiro, "Captain" Drebble, Admiral Giel or Flint and Barney again. It was a fun little look back at the original extended universe, and I would happily fork over another $4.99 for an issue 109.
When I first saw that this was happening, that was my thought, but then I found out about Marvel releasing all of the other new issues of old series, and realized that was all this was.
Yeah, that was my thinking. Now, maybe a Legends continuation could happen down the road, but you'd need to get all the companies making content onboard, since this one was a Marvel-exclusive project. Hey, if the Legends crowd loved it, all power to them, but I do think this idea many of them have that it is or could be the first step in a Legends revival are getting ahead of the game.
Those who love Legends material and want it to return should vote with their wallets. I am not one of them, although I thought #108 was a decent tribute to the old Marvel run.
Plenty of them do. Personally, I think the question is less whether there would be money in a Legends relaunch, but if it would be worth it to the Powers That Be to divert the resources to making them that way instead of using them for projects tied into the current movies and TV shows.
There's Legends material in Galaxy of Heroes. They starting introducing KOTOR characters late last year.
Games will do that; the current RPG line is a mix of canon and Legends (albeit leaning to the former more now).
Keeping an eye out for the TIE Fighter Manual. It's a little odd to me that I haven't yet seen it on B &N, which usually gets such books pretty quickly.
Any news on Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker official novelization? I'm hoping for Matthew Stover or Alan Dean Foster or even George Lucas himself to pen it. Something tells me that Episode 9 will need a novelization for depth of story and to answer all the questions. Matthew Stover was incredible with Revenge of the Sith seriously. Many thanks, -Koric
Got mine from Amazon. Trust me, it's worth the wait. Lots of interesting details in this one. I hope they keep up this series of books. My wish-list for future Haynes SW books: X-Wing fighter, Y-Wing fighter, astromech droids, imperial star destroyers.
They're releasing a rebel starfighter book in October. It's just called 'Rebel Starfighter Manual', so it sounds like it will focus on multiple ships, not just one.