Lucasfilm announces a new direction for the Star Wars EU

I stand corrected. Though I could have sworn he had some kind of involvement due to the use of the holocron, the mention of Baas, plus his descendent being the gatekeeper as well as the link between Vima and Nomi Sunrider.

There seems to have been some kind of interplay going on there at Dark Horse.


Regardless, in hindsight 'Dark Empire' is a bit of an oddity. Tone and art style aside, it sticks out like a sore thumb wedged between the Thrawn & Academy trilogies. Plus, aside from the odd line here and there nothing in that story seemed to matter. If nothing else, Luke's fall to the darkside was trivialised somewhat by his near instant redemption thanks to Leia and her glowing foetus magic...

 

Doesn't that look more like Anderson referring back to Dark Empire when writing the JAT?

 

Oh for God's sake!

There's a WHOLE novel about LUKE friggin Skywalker set between ANH and TESB!

How much more bloody SW can you get?!?

Now you're just being obtuse.

As for Jenna, Jacen, Jojen and J. Jonah Jameson Skywalker and all those other made up names you mentioned, sorry but Luke, Han and Leia ARE SW. Those other stupid names mean NOTHING to me!


Oh and CHEWIE LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Good for you. To me, Luke, Han, and Leia, while important and interesting characters, are only a very small part of why I like Star Wars. The EU characters may mean nothing to you, but they do to me. I'd gladly have the "big three" killed off if it meant I could continue reading books with the EU characters I like.

 

I posted the Episode VII casting information on my Facebook page last week. I added that I was extremely excited to see Chewie living. Someone commented saying that Chewbacca wasn't very important because his only line was "Chewbacca growled" and that he was completely worthless because he always was somewhat resoonsible for dropping the ball on babysitting the Solo kids whenever they for kidnapped.

And this is one reason why I don't like the EU. Turns the most endearing and lovable walking carpet sidekick into a horrible babysitter.

Who got killed by a moon.

 

Chewie is a visual gag who doesn't talk, so he doesn't work as well on the page as on the screen.

 

Dark Empire would have fitted far better if it was set say a year after ROTJ, which was the original intention. However, Zahn refused to cooperate and reference it, so they moved it back in the timeline, so it wasn't entirely the fault of those behind the comic.

To be fair to Dark Empire, at only 6 episodes long he did fall in the 1st and was redeemed in the final, so they went as long as they could.

If you include the sequels, the most important thing the Dark Empire series did was introduce Anakin Solo, which was a pretty significant addition to the EU.

 

I loved Dark Empire. Unlike most of the 90s EU it felt "Star Wars-y" and epic because it was about a Sith villain and a major character falling to the dark side. Also, the art was AMAZING!

 

Honestly I'm not sure what the order of things were. Maybe I've been left with a false impression since I read the TotJ books before 'Dark Empire' and it seemed to take forever for both 'Empire's End' and 'The Sith War' to become available.

Keep in mind this was the pre-internet days and the only info available was what one could read in sci-fi mags...which being three to five quid a go was way outside my budget range as a child. Also I was subject to whatever the local comic book shop was stocking...also usually way overpriced so I'd usually wait for the trades. All of which I still have!

That timeframe would have made a bit more sense, but whichever way you slice it, Luke falling and then being redeemed that way still doesn't sit right with me. It's not the amount of time he spend begin "evil" so much as how easily he fell after all he went through in RotJ and then his redemption just felt utterly contrived.

I'll tell you what it reminded me of; one of those superhero comic book stories in which let's say for the sake of argument Superman turns evil. In the first two issues or so he goes around destroying everything, beats up some other heros who try to take him down and by the third or forth they discover that he's really just being mind controlled and after they zap him with the dehypno-beam (or whatever) he's all back to normal and everything proceeds without consequence.

In short, it was a gimmick. They wanted a cover that had Luke dressed as Vader because they knew it'd sell...and it worked.

 

To be fair any character that babysat the Solo kids had them kidnapped out from under them as well. It wasn't just Chewie.

 

Dark Empire had been over for a while by the time Jedi Search came out.

 

This statement makes so little sense to me, it may as well be written in hieroglyphics.

 

Keep in mind that it wasn't a true fall. Luke was going Donnie Brasco in Dark Empire. His true goal was to use Palpatine's trust to gain access to Imperial military secrets and turn them against the Empire which he did. His undercover work allowed the Rebels to take down the World Devastators.

Unfortunately Luke was beginning to become corrupted by the dark side. His desire to find out what it was Anakin found in the dark side, why it was worth leaving his everything behind for was what led Luke to a precarious place.

He wasn't turned but he came very, very close. Had Leia not come to save him as he saved their father...

Well the series didn't go there so we'll never know.

 

Heir to the Empire: May 1st, 1991
Dark Empire: December 1991
Jedi Search: February 1, 1994

 

I guess it's possible things didn't come out over here until several years after they were published in the states. I'm about 99% sure I didn't see an ad for Dark Empire until at least autumn/winter '93. Or at the very least that's when the trade came out. Where I grew up there was a grand total of one *tiny* comic book shop locally and even that was 10 miles from where I lived, so I wasn't as aware of individual releases. Trades on the other hand were easier to find in the book shops.

It's been a while since I've read it, so I may be forgetting a lot of the nuance but I do remember having a hard time buying that concept. Maybe I was just hung up on Yoda's "once you start down the dark path..." speech from TESB. Also, the idea that Palpatine could be fooled in this regard just doesn't line up. He should have been able to sense if Luke was trying to pull a fast one and I can't imagine him not making sure he was good and corrupt before putting him in command of his fleets.

I know it's nit picking at this stage and I did enjoy the comics for what they were, but the more I thought about it, the less I could buy into the basic premise, which is always going to be a problem.

 

Palps wasn't fooled. He knew Luke was was pulling a fast one. Expected it. He twisted that to his advantage. It was all a part of the plan. Still if it didn't work for you that's cool. Nothing's for everybody.