Greatest Hits and Misses of the Star Wars Expanded Universe

[Jono]

- Legacy of the Force, let down by one of the authors obsession with Fett and a terrible conclusion that ruined some quite good stuff.

The last time I read Legacy of the Force, I skipped most of the Mandalorian scenes (pretty much everything except Jaina's training). The series flowed so much better that way.

The ending would still be quite abrupt. The handling of the GFFA civil war towards the end was pretty poor. It was pretty much, "Just popped in to tell you the war is over. Oh, and by the way we're elected Daala as the new head of state. Bye! THE END"

<< - Endless "what's canon" arguments.
- Boba Fett, sort of cool in films, but got really overused/used poorly. Probably only read one decent piece featuring him and it was a short in one of the "Tales of..." anthologies.>>

That's not canon after AOTC

Really? After looking at Wookieepedia I'm pretty sure it was "No Disintegrations, please" from "Tales of the New Republic". Might have to dig it out and see if it and AOTC clash much...and to see if I do still enjoy it.

 

[Mr Light]

It was from "Tales of the Bounty Hunters"

 

[The Doctor]

Hits:

The Zahn trilogy

Misses:

Every other piece of EU fiction.

There, that was easy.

You had me...

I'll go one further: Zahn's trilogy is better than the films. Even Empire.

...then you seriously lost me.

Me, I was into the EU for a while, but lost interest by the late nineties when the chaff-to-wheat ratio became too high.

I go back-and-forth on Empire. But the other two? No contest.

 

[BigJake]

The Thrawn Trilogy is certainly the only EU thing I've ever read or been even remotely tempted by outside of the video games. I don't know about better-than-the-films because I think there was actually a bit of a genre difference -- I seem to remember that Zahn made it more science-fictiony than science-fantasy, to whatever degree I'm remembering right, it's been a long time -- but they were good books and would, I think, make good movies.

 

[Set Harth]

Except for the part where The Last Command hypes up a major space battle that doesn't happen and instead the book reaches page 400 and just stops.

 

[Turtletrekker]

^^
^
Yeah, the lack of more fantasy elements and the big build-up to an anti-climax take serious points away from the Thrawn trilogy in my opinion. Don't get me wrong-- it's fun, but it's not the be-all-end-all of Star Wars that that some fans like to pretend it is.

Hell, I don't even consider it the best of the books, let alone better than Empire.

I mean, really? Better than Empire? My days of not taking your opinion seriously have definitely come to a middle.

 

[Campe]

Hits:
Thrawn trilogy
Tales of the Jedi
X-Wing books and comics

Misses:
Pretty much everything else

Mind you for this list, I'm only considering stuff starting with Heir to the Empire and stopping at NJO. Granted I stopped reading midway through NJO. Literally. I stopped about halfway through Star by Star.

 

[Jono]

^ Star by Star was pretty good. One of the best of the NJO novels, though depending on your view that might not mean much.

I remember back when that came out. I used to hang out at the theforce.net EU forum. The choice of Anakin Solo's to die over Jacen was very controversial and there was more than a bit of fan rage going around.

Those were the days. Talking about what was happening. Especially enjoyed talking about all the new ships. A discussion that had about a 6 month cycle where it would return to an argument about how long the Super Star Destroyer was...sorry I mean Executor-class Star Dreadnought. Good, wasteful days.

 

[Shazam!]

I can't believe they will disavow some the more recent and well received stuff in the Prequel Era like Darth Plagueis, Kenobi, and the recent Maul book and short stories.

I think the approach will be it's canon until it isn't.

 

[Mr Light]

Given that the new movies and books are either 30 years after ROTJ or immediately around ANH, I doubt that the Prequel materials are going to end up invalidated. They may not be referenced or followed up, but they won't be contradicted either so we can pretend they still happened...

 

[Campe]

^ Star by Star was pretty good. One of the best of the NJO novels, though depending on your view that might not mean much.

I remember back when that came out. I used to hang out at the theforce.net EU forum. The choice of Anakin Solo's to die over Jacen was very controversial and there was more than a bit of fan rage going around.

Honestly I got pretty pissed off when they killed Chewie. I kept reading because it was frikkin Star Wars! But my heart wasn't in it and really hadn't been for a long time prior to even Vector Prime. I got Star by Star for Christmas and I can't remember what the last straw was (it wasn't Anakin's death because I didn't get that far) but I realized I just didn't care and figured I'd just save my money and stop buying the books.

Needless to say, I welcome Episode VII and the change in continuity.

 

[Tulin]

Shadows of the Empire will always have a special place in my heart due to the game and the book. I'd also argue that we can still consider it canon since the Outrider is visible over Mos Eisley in A New Hope.

I had the CD soundtrack!!!

 

[Set Harth]

Had?

 

[Agenda]

I didn't read much Star Wars.

But the Bounty Hunter Wars were the best thing I remember reading.

The worst thing I remember was The Jedi Academy Trilogy.

As for Zahn, I wasn't a big fan of his pet characters.

 

[Mr Light]

I haven't read it in ten years but I liked the Jedi Academy Trilogy. I thought it was closer in spirit to the movies than anything else in the Bantam Era; it had a sense of humor and it had a Sith villain. As great as the Thrawn Trilogy was, it wasn't really Star Wars, it was military sci-fi.

 

[Reverend]

I haven't read it in ten years but I liked the Jedi Academy Trilogy. I thought it was closer in spirit to the movies than anything else in the Bantam Era; it had a sense of humor and it had a Sith villain. As great as the Thrawn Trilogy was, it wasn't really Star Wars, it was military sci-fi.

^That's kind of what I liked about it. That the main antagonist wasn't some foaming at the mouth, power mad evil sorcerer with the cackling and the blowing up of planets, but a very pragmatic, practical and intelligent military strategist.

Still, doesn't quite forgive the anti-climax, nor the repetition of Leia escaping one assassination attempt after another.

Still, it's easy to see why many fans hold it in high regard. It set the standard for world building within the Star Wars universe. It showed that you *could* do something other than a swashbuckling sci-fi fantasy and still remain true to the spirit of the movies. Without it, we wouldn't have gotten the X-Wing novels which were also very much in the "military sci-fi" genre.

Where things started to go wrong for me was when KJA got involved. As much as I like 'Tales of the Jedi', his 'Jedi Academy' trilogy and later 'Darksaber' started a pattern of (figuratively speaking) treading water regarding the bit three.

That is to say nothing with them really changed. Leia was perpetually too busy with politics to be a Jedi. The twins were forever getting kidnapped or wandering off and getting into increasingly improbable adventures. Luke and Mara carried on at arms length as if nothing in the Thrawn trilogy mattered (the less said about that whole Callista thing the better.) Han and Chewie seemed to loose all purpose and relevance.
The New Republic went from one meaningless political crisis to the next, all the while the Empire just kept going on and on despite fracture into feuding warlords more times that I care to count. Oh and let's not forget all the crazy super-weapons, because hey, it ain't Star Wars with a super-weapon, no? Blech!

It's ironic that it was only shortly after I gave up that they actually got their arses in gear. Still, for me it was too little, too late.

 

[Set Harth]

It's ironic that it was only shortly after I gave up that they actually got their arses in gear.

That's how I felt about the comics.

 

[Tulin]

Had?

I sold it at a swap mart for maybe $2.00 ten years ago.

 

[Mr Light]

Yes, the Bantam Era was unfortunately extremely repetitive. I forgot about KJA's love for using super-weapons. But that's part and parcel of the Pre-Prequel Malaise of focusing on military villains and super weapons, when the power to destroy entire planets is insignificant next to the power of the Force