They really did drop the ball with ST tie-in material didn't they? The Prequels had a more substantive tie-in presence during 1999-2005.
As with most of what's wrong with the ST, I suspect the lack of a coherent plan for the trilogy as a whole is mostly to blame. With no clue where the next movie was going until at least late pre-production there was no ability to pre-plan and plot the tie-in points, backstories, and parallel stories. That's not to say that there wasn't some good material there, but it was very scattershot. The majority of the rest of it was inoffensive enough, but largely forgettable fluff.
The prequels had some of the best tie in material as well as merchandising. Nothing could beat the hype around TPM, even if the film underwhelmed.
Indeed. The marketing blitz for Phantom Menace alone made spring 1999 an awesome time to be a Star Wars fan.
My favorite example is how the prequel novel to TRoS had Poe and company steal a new Blockade Runner for the Resistance, while the Visual Dictionary said the one in the movie was, in fact, Leia's ship from ANH, rescued from a salvage yard and rebuilt for her as a gift. I've joked that I hope it's eventually revealed that the extra Corvette that was stolen in Resistance Reborn is the Sundered Heart. Spoiler: Explaining the joke When Revenge of the Sith first came out, Bail's ship was said to be the same Tantive IV we saw in ANH, prior to a massive rebuild sometime in the intervening two decades. Then in The Clone Wars, there was an episode that used the Tantive IV as it appeared in ANH, so the RotS ship was retconned to be the Sundered Heart. Finally, in the new canon, the RotS ship was conclusively said to be the Tantive III (which, apparently, rules out the EU explanation that the Tantive IV was named for a planet, and wasn't the fourth ship in a series or something).
Anyone read High Republic yet? It’s next on my list. Probably my first Disney SW book I’m excited in since it’s set in a new era. It won’t be restricted like the other books. I even bought the Marvel comic. I gave up on Star Wars after DH lost the rights there so this will be interesting.
I'm halfway through Light of the Jedi; deadlines got in the way of me finishing earlier this week. It's fine. A little overwritten, I think. It's a bit pilot-y -- it has to introduce a lot of characters and a lot of settings -- and it does it well enough. I picked up the comic this week, too, and I'll read that over the weekend.
A few years late but I finally read The Princess Diarist (I know it’s not a novel but it is Star Wars adjacent) and enjoyed it immensely, even more so because Carrie did the narration. Though it was weird that Billie read the diary parts.
I finished up the collected edition of The Streaming Citadel, the subtitless Star Wars/Doctor Aphra crossover, last night and I really enjoyed it. Doctor Aphra is one of my favorite new characters, and it's always fun to see her team up with the regular heroes. The Queen of Katath'atn and the symbiotes were cool bad guys, and the whole mind thing gave us nice twists and turns as different characters were taken over. The book also had lots of BT-1 and 0-0-0 and that's always a good thing. The only that was a little weird, and I've run into this with other crossovers, was the jumping back and forth between the two series drastically different art styles. I liked both art styles a lot, but it was still weird going back and forth between the subtitless series very realistic art, to Dr. Aphra's more cartoony art from issue to issue.
I love the Jedi Path book. Lots of fun little tidbits and lore. Each book has little annotations from different characters as well.
About half way through 'Light of the Jedi'. Enjoying it so far, though there's so many new Jedi characters that I keep having to refer back to the official blog posts with all the character art to remind myself who's who. Path of the Jedi: yes. Book of the Sith: not yet! Path of the Jedi is a fun book. Note though that it's one of those "in-universe" publications, with the pretence being that it's a physical book that's been past down through the generations Master to Padawan, from Yoda, all the way down to Luke, so aside from the "Jedi manual" type content, it's also full of little notes in the margins from various Jedi like Yoda, Dooku, Qui-gon, Obi-wan, Anakin, Ahsoka etc. etc. There's also little bits of ephemera and novelties like the pages on the Chosen One prophecy being conspicuously torn out. I know it's a weird detail to focus on, but what stuck out to me is that this book finally made how Knights became Masters make sense. In Legends it always seemed so arbitrary, but the idea that the final "Trial of Mastery" is basically "pass on what you have learned" made SO much more sense. Aside from the logistics, it also makes Anakin's outburst about being on the council but denied the rank of Master in RotS make WAY more sense, especially given what happened with Ahsoka. When the council asked her back, it's implied they'd Knight her in the process, so Anakin did his part, so they're only excluding him on the technicality that she turned it down.
Cool. Definitely interested in reading both of them at some point, also Light Of The Jedi. I’m currently reading Darth Plagueis. Palpatine is now a sith so things are really picking up.
They are going to be releasing a new biography of the Skywalker family, starting with Shim and going up to Rey and Ben. It's being written by StarWars.com associate editor Kristin Baver, and is supposed to include stuff from all of the canon sources.
Finished Light of the Jedi today. It's fantastic. There's one storyline that kind of slogs compared to the rest. Then they do this reveal at the end that makes you go "Ohhhhh, I get it." That part is nice. The comic issue is good, too.
I finished Darth Plageis. It was a really interesting read. Not only did we get Palpatine’s origin but also Maul’s which I was pleasantly surprised. Really enjoyed the overlap with The Phantom Menace too. I listened to the audiobook and it was narrated by Daniel Davis (Niles from The Nanny) which was so .