Star Wars Books Thread

[JD]

I was not attacking you, I just thought that there really was a possibility we might have been talking about two different things without realizing it. I wanted to make sure that this discussion wasn't based around a one in a million mistake. It was meant with all honesty and no malice.

 

[WebLurker]

Putting a character in a kids cartoon book/tv show doesn't automatically make them a lame, basic character for young kids. Darth Vader isn't a terrible two dimensional cartoon character, and neither is the Emperor or Tarkin or Ahsoka or Thrawn. People can take good characters and do them badly, but it doesn't make the original character bad. The Rebels cast were terrible cardboard cut outs from their very inception, nothing can fix that.
Why would anything with the cartoon characters is anything other then a kids book? The character's are too two dimensional to be in anything else, and you don't make a normal novel with cartoon characters on the cover when the characters are from a cartoon for 5 year olds. Its like writing a book about Barney being a psychotic killer, its ridiculous. When a character is specifically designed for a young demographic, you don't start putting them in books for older people. Not that any writer on Earth could make Hera or Kanan (or any of the other Rebels cast) into actual good characters, but its not something that makes any sense to attempt in the first place.

Now, maybe they tried to stick those bland, generic saturday morning cartoon characters into a book with a story too mature for the normal 5 year old demographic, but if they did that makes New Dawn possibly the biggest screw up in Star Wars book history. At that point it might be worth checking out just to see the car wreck of a "novel" that tries to make two kids tv cliches fit into a normal SW story. Not that I will (I'm not a masochist) but that would give it a reason to be read, I guess.


In your opinion its not, which is fine. My opinion differs, obviously.


I know why a consumer would buy them, I was talking about why the collection was made in the first place. I bought it because, used, it was only about $1-2 more then the Tarkin paperback, and I was willing to spend that difference to get the short stories. The cartoon "novel" is useless filler (although it might have a use if I ever run out of toilet paper )

Because being a professional book company makes them infallible? As much as I love the books of the old EU, its not like it didn't have some huge mistakes when it came to real world stuff (like basically forcing the best SW writer, Karen Traviss, away from SW books forever). The SW books are, in the end, run by people. People aren't infallbile, and its not like they have top quality people running the new canon. I have faith in individual writers, but not the people running the new canon (especially since Dave Filoni is pretty much part of that group).

Whatever, man.

 

[kirk55555]

I was not attacking you, I just thought that there really was a possibility we might have been talking about two different things without realizing it. I wanted to make sure that this discussion wasn't based around a one in a million mistake. It was meant with all honesty and no malice.

Ok, then. I just don't see any situation where I could have come across a Star Wars show called "Rebels" that wasn't the legitimate thing, so I figured it was more an insult then a question The show I watched is the same one you watched/are watching, we just have two vastly different opinions on it.

 

[JD]

OK, just wanted to make 100% sure.

 

[Skywalker]

Anyway, Dark Disciple is pretty good so far. I'm a little over halfway into it. Without going into spoilers I thought a certain character bit developed a little quickly, but that might be related to this novel being adapted from screenplays for The Clone Wars. I wasn't very impressed by Christie Golden's work in the Fate of the Jedi series but so far I'm enjoying this one.

 

[WebLurker]

Anyway, Dark Disciple is pretty good so far. I'm a little over halfway into it. Without going into spoilers I thought a certain character bit developed a little quickly, but that might be related to this novel being adapted from screenplays for The Clone Wars. I wasn't very impressed by Christie Golden's work in the Fate of the Jedi series but so far I'm enjoying this one.

Funny fact about that novel. There's a gap in it where the Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir comic takes place in.

 

[Tuskin38]

Blocking someone on this forum gets wierd, because it removes their posts and quotes of their posts in other peoples posts completely so it looks like you guys are talking to no one lol

 

[Skywalker]

Funny fact about that novel. There's a gap in it where the Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir comic takes place in.

Interesting. I've read Son of Dathomir, so now I'm curious to know when that gap occurs. There haven't been any noticeable time jumps in Dark Disciple so far...

 

[Reverend]

Blocking someone on this forum gets wierd, because it removes their posts and quotes of their posts in other peoples posts completely so it looks like you guys are talking to no one lol

And yet I find I can guess from the content of the posts exactly who it is they're speaking to with increasing frustration.

Interesting. I've read Son of Dathomir, so now I'm curious to know when that gap occurs. There haven't been any noticeable time jumps in Dark Disciple so far...

If you're at the half-way mark you should be coming up on it pretty soon. IIRC the scripts the novel is based on cover two four episode arcs and the time jump reflects were the intermediate episodes would have gone. Not sure if the 'Son of Dathomir' episodes were the only ones intended to fill that gap. If so that's a fairly long stretch of the season focusing on the show's anti-villains. About half, in point of fact.

 

[Ithekro]

Probably because they wanted to get everyone to the end of the Clone Wars and there were a lot of character to cover before Order 66 goes down. I image the last season would have been a lot about Ventress, Maul, and Ahsoka (separately) before returning us to Anakin and Obi-wan just before they are recalled to save Palpatine from the Separatists at the start of Revenge of the Sith. Then it would finish with Ahsoka, Rex (and Maul) on Mandalore and the final fallout of Order 66 and the end of the Clone Wars.

 

[Reverend]

Probably because they wanted to get everyone to the end of the Clone Wars and there were a lot of character to cover before Order 66 goes down. I image the last season would have been a lot about Ventress, Maul, and Ahsoka (separately) before returning us to Anakin and Obi-wan just before they are recalled to save Palpatine from the Separatists at the start of Revenge of the Sith. Then it would finish with Ahsoka, Rex (and Maul) on Mandalore and the final fallout of Order 66 and the end of the Clone Wars.

From what I gathered from the celebration panel, Anakin & Obi-Wan would have barely been in the Siege of Mandalore arc. Only showing up to hear Ahsoka's briefing before being called away. So they'd still basically be supporting characters.

I wonder if part of this was that they didn't really know what to do with Anakin anymore after Ahsoka left. If you think about it I don't think he ever had an episode without either her, Obi-Wan or Padme in the mix.
What would have been interesting is if they could have done an episode entirely from his POV. The actual plot wouldn't even matter, it'd just be a neat way to show his increased isolation and detachment from the day-to-day of the war and just how much turmoil was really bubbling just under the surface.

 

[WebLurker]

Interesting. I've read Son of Dathomir, so now I'm curious to know when that gap occurs. There haven't been any noticeable time jumps in Dark Disciple so far...

To explain without spoilers, there's a point in the novel where the main characters' mission winds up having the duo split up. After the chapter were that happens is the gap where the comic book takes place.

 

[kirk55555]

Ok, so against my better judgment (and because I have a hard time not reading something I spent money on) I did start reading A New Dawn. Count Vidian is a really hardcore bad guy. I think he's being portrayed as harsher then most imperials in the Old EU, at least because he's doing really messed up stuff personally. Its one thing to, say, order a planet devastated in an attack, its another to beat people to death with their bare hands (well, cyborg hands) and dunk people into acid. The first thing is obviously worse, but the second things are more of a personal evil. It definitely makes the idea of the supposedly more "noble" old EU imperials (like Pellaeon, Baron Fel, etc) unworkable in the new canon. Everyone in the Empire are monsters, which works because they're the empire. Anyone who isn't a monster probably leaves/gets kicked out of the imperial military very quickly. That's mostly how it worked in the old EU, too, but its pretty intense in this book. Considering whole groups of people beneath them and worthless to the point that random/mass killings don't matter really shows how the Empire works. I also like how we see a bit more bureaucratic evil (like removing safety regulations and destroying hospitals so people have to get medical help closer to where they work so that they can go back to work sooner).

As for the characters...eh. Sloane works well for the little page space she gets. Vidian is an interesting villain, and I like that his style of evil is different then what I'm used to. Kanan and Hera are, to my complete lack of surprise, barely characters. Kanan is the rogue who is mostly a hero but likes to pretend he's not, while also acting like a ladies man in the most standard way possible. Hera is a Rebel, and that's really about it for her. At least Kanan gets to act sleazier then he does on the show (even if its mostly an act). Hera just has nothing. She's a loyal, very competent rebel before the rebellion got big. Its not done badly, but its nothing that hasn't been done countless times before in a lot of different books/franchises/contexts. I'd put book Hera/Kanan over the cartoon versions just because the writer of this book is much better then the Rebels writers and seems to be trying to make the characters work, but it doesn't make them suddenly good characters, it just means they work slightly better then the cartoon versions. The side characters (Skelly, the surveillance woman, etc) are all ok.

The book so far is much better then the Rebels TV show in that the overall story is actually interesting, the villain is good, and the writing is definitely trying its best to do something with main characters that don't have a lot to them. I think if they took out Kanan and hera and adapted the story to an OT setting (you could easily do basically the exact same story with Luke, Han and Leia instead of Kanan and Hera, you'd just have to move Vidian a bit forward in time instead of being around before the first Death Star), this would be a really good book. As it is, its a shockingly solid story that I'm glad I'm giving a chance, but it succeeds despite a connection to Rebels, with the connection really being the weak point of the story.

 

[The Wormhole]

Anyone who isn't a monster probably leaves/gets kicked out of the imperial military very quickly. That's mostly how it worked in the old EU, too, but its pretty intense in this book.

While I get that the Empire are the bad guys, therefore it make sense to depict its characters as Evil, it often bothered me that Legends took characters like Admiral Piett and made them evil despite the movies have no solid indication they were. Piett in particular, because he really never comes across as a villain in the movies, just a guy doing his job, and really sells the idea that for billions of citizens on hundreds of planets, the Empire is the government and the people who serve in its military are no more evil than the rebel heroes we're cheering for, they just have the unfortunate circumstance of serving a government run by the ultimate example of evil. And then Legends went ahead and depicted him as a villainous douche.

Indeed, none of Imperial officers in ESB really come off as villains, Captain Needa is almost noble willingly taking responsibility for failing even though it means being executed. General Veers also has the honest man making a living vibe to him the Piett has, and even Admiral Ozzel doesn't come off as a particularly bad guy. I really wish more of the tie-ins written over the years would remember that the Imperial military has some decent people serving what they believe to be the legitimate government and are not villains themselves. Granted, Tarkin and the officers in the Death Star briefing room scene are villains, but then they are at the top echelons of the Imperial military. One doesn't get to a position where they are able to address Vader as an equal by being a nice guy.

I'm not really sure what direction Disney is going with their Imperial officers. Krennic from the information released in EW in the spring seems to be 100% villainous, but then he is very high-ranking, possibly even the head of the Imperial military, so he'd be similar to Tarkin and the other officers from ANH. Sloane certainly isn't villainous, so it's possible we're seeing some hints of honest people just doing a job in Disney's take on the Empire.

 

[Skywalker]

Finished Dark Disciple earlier today. I mostly enjoyed it, though I do feel like the development of the relationship between Ventress and Vos moved a little too quickly. I also thought the "Is he or isn't he?" thing in the latter part of the novel kind of dragged on longer than it needed to. But overall I thought this was a nice continuation of where Asajj Ventress was at, from an emotional perspective, when she last appeared in The Clone Wars. I wasn't a big fan of Christie Golden's previous SW work but I liked what she did with Vos, and I enjoyed her take on Obi-Wan, as well. I would have liked to have seen a little more time spent on Ventress and Vos' relationship instead of jumping forward as much as the book did, but Golden was working off of scripts for TCW, so that might have been an issue there, too.

Started making my way through Ahsoka. It's a lot shorter than I was expecting, I'm already about 25% through it.

 

[kirk55555]

While I get that the Empire are the bad guys, therefore it make sense to depict its characters as Evil, it often bothered me that Legends took characters like Admiral Piett and made them evil despite the movies have no solid indication they were. Piett in particular, because he really never comes across as a villain in the movies, just a guy doing his job, and really sells the idea that for billions of citizens on hundreds of planets, the Empire is the government and the people who serve in its military are no more evil than the rebel heroes we're cheering for, they just have the unfortunate circumstance of serving a government run by the ultimate example of evil. And then Legends went ahead and depicted him as a villainous douche.

Indeed, none of Imperial officers in ESB really come off as villains, Captain Needa is almost noble willingly taking responsibility for failing even though it means being executed. General Veers also has the honest man making a living vibe to him the Piett has, and even Admiral Ozzel doesn't come off as a particularly bad guy. I really wish more of the tie-ins written over the years would remember that the Imperial military has some decent people serving what they believe to be the legitimate government and are not villains themselves. Granted, Tarkin and the officers in the Death Star briefing room scene are villains, but then they are at the top echelons of the Imperial military. One doesn't get to a position where they are able to address Vader as an equal by being a nice guy.

I'm not really sure what direction Disney is going with their Imperial officers. Krennic from the information released in EW in the spring seems to be 100% villainous, but then he is very high-ranking, possibly even the head of the Imperial military, so he'd be similar to Tarkin and the other officers from ANH. Sloane certainly isn't villainous, so it's possible we're seeing some hints of honest people just doing a job in Disney's take on the Empire.

Sloane, based on her own inner dialog, has no problem with killing the average worker during Vidian's tour of the various mining operations. She doesn't even really care about

Spoiler: A New Dawn

blowing up the moon and hurting the planet, she

she just seems to care what the Emperor thinks of doing that. Now, would she, for example, blow up Alderaan? I don't know. But she definitely considers the average person, especially on a more downtrodden/poorer world like the one in A New Dawn, to be completely worthless and their lives and deaths don't mean anything, outside of how it could effect the Empire. She's very definitely evil, she just might be on a different level then, say, Tarkin. She probably would argue against killing what she counted as "important" citizens, people living on the higher levels of Coruscant, for example. But she doesn't care about the lives of people in general, and that does make her evil. She probably wouldn't start a plan that lead to mass killings for no reason, but she certainly doesn't have anything against stuff like that if it lines up with what she thinks (or can be convinced) needs to be done.

When it comes to the Empire, I get how people could be duped into joining. But, if the stay in long enough and advance, they become just as bad as the worst imperial officers. The Empire does nothing to hide its evil, and the vast majority of its military is involved, either directly or by just not giving a crap. Its the same in the new canon as it was in the EU, and that's fine. Not every bad guy group needs to be a complex group, sometimes good vs evil is fine. Not every conflict needs shades of grey, and especially on an overall level like The Empire vs The Rebels.

 

[JD]

Do we know how much of Dark Disciple is Christie Golden and how much was the episodes' writers? Did she just turn the scripts straight into a novel, or did she put in her own stuff along with the stuff from the scripts?

 

[WebLurker]

Ok, so against my better judgment (and because I have a hard time not reading something I spent money on) I did start reading A New Dawn. Count Vidian is a really hardcore bad guy. I think he's being portrayed as harsher then most imperials in the Old EU, at least because he's doing really messed up stuff personally. Its one thing to, say, order a planet devastated in an attack, its another to beat people to death with their bare hands (well, cyborg hands) and dunk people into acid. The first thing is obviously worse, but the second things are more of a personal evil. It definitely makes the idea of the supposedly more "noble" old EU imperials (like Pellaeon, Baron Fel, etc) unworkable in the new canon. Everyone in the Empire are monsters, which works because they're the empire. Anyone who isn't a monster probably leaves/gets kicked out of the imperial military very quickly. That's mostly how it worked in the old EU, too, but its pretty intense in this book. Considering whole groups of people beneath them and worthless to the point that random/mass killings don't matter really shows how the Empire works. I also like how we see a bit more bureaucratic evil (like removing safety regulations and destroying hospitals so people have to get medical help closer to where they work so that they can go back to work sooner).

I liked Vidian as a villain for the book, too. As far as the "all Imperials are evil" thing, I actually thought that was a bigger thing in the '90s books than as of late. In fact, canon stuff has added lots of shades of gray to the Empire. I forgot if you had said you read it or not, but if you like more complex Imperials, Lost Stars might be of interest to you. One of the things it asks is why decent people would serve the Empire, and we get a few different answers.

As for the characters...eh. Sloane works well for the little page space she gets. Vidian is an interesting villain, and I like that his style of evil is different then what I'm used to. Kanan and Hera are, to my complete lack of surprise, barely characters. Kanan is the rogue who is mostly a hero but likes to pretend he's not, while also acting like a ladies man in the most standard way possible. Hera is a Rebel, and that's really about it for her. At least Kanan gets to act sleazier then he does on the show (even if its mostly an act).

I think the TV show might've have slipped something past the censors; After reading the novel, it's pretty obvious that the moment in the episode "Empire Day" where Kanan overdoes his fake patriotism is pretty obviously as him pretending to be drunk.

Hera just has nothing. She's a loyal, very competent rebel before the rebellion got big. Its not done badly, but its nothing that hasn't been done countless times before in a lot of different books/franchises/contexts.

I do agree that Hera is not developed much in the book. I think they were saving that for the TV show, since a couple episodes have dealt with her past.

I'd put book Hera/Kanan over the cartoon versions just because the writer of this book is much better then the Rebels writers and seems to be trying to make the characters work, but it doesn't make them suddenly good characters, it just means they work slightly better then the cartoon versions.

The funny thing is that Dave Filoni and the producers of Rebels were involved in helping John Jackson Miller hash out the novel and the book was written before the TV show even had complete episodes to view. (I like both the show and the book and personally thought the characterizations were consistent between the two -- amazing considering that Miller had to write it before being able to see any episodes -- but your mileage may vary.

The side characters (Skelly, the surveillance woman, etc) are all ok.

I did like how Skelly grated on everyone's nerves (a lot of the stuff with him and Kanan was funny, IMHO).

The book so far is much better then the Rebels TV show in that the overall story is actually interesting, the villain is good, and the writing is definitely trying its best to do something with main characters that don't have a lot to them. I think if they took out Kanan and hera and adapted the story to an OT setting (you could easily do basically the exact same story with Luke, Han and Leia instead of Kanan and Hera, you'd just have to move Vidian a bit forward in time instead of being around before the first Death Star), this would be a really good book. As it is, its a shockingly solid story that I'm glad I'm giving a chance, but it succeeds despite a connection to Rebels, with the connection really being the weak point of the story.

Glad to hear that you're enjoying more that you thought you would. I'd be curious to hear what you think when you get to the end.

Do we know how much of Dark Disciple is Christie Golden and how much was the episodes' writers? Did she just turn the scripts straight into a novel, or did she put in her own stuff along with the stuff from the scripts?

I understand that she embellished the scripts she was given to adapt. Apparently the novel was darker than the TV show version could have been.

 

[kirk55555]

I liked Vidian as a villain for the book, too. As far as the "all Imperials are evil" thing, I actually thought that was a bigger thing in the '90s books than as of late. In fact, canon stuff has added lots of shades of gray to the Empire. I forgot if you had said you read it or not, but if you like more complex Imperials, Lost Stars might be of interest to you. One of the things it asks is why decent people would serve the Empire, and we get a few different answers.

Well, I did clarify that I understand how people could be duped into joining the imperial military. But if they spend enough time in the service then its evil really has to be obvious. So, if they don't leave fairly quickly once they're in normal service they're either the most naive person in the galaxy or evil. Its hard to see willingly serving in a service they know doesn't mind murdering large amounts of innocent people as something a good person would do.

As for Lost Stars, my opinion on that book has started enough arguments Suffice it to say I don't read YA books, and so I will never read Lost Stars. I also said that about A new dawn, but it ended up coming in the big book set of two novels I got, so it was right there to read. I definitely won't be buying Lost Stars, and I doubt it will be bundled with a normal SW book like A New Dawn was.

I think the TV show might've have slipped something past the censors; After reading the novel, it's pretty obvious that the moment in the episode "Empire Day" where Kanan overdoes his fake patriotism is pretty obviously as him pretending to be drunk.

I don't remember that, but you could be right.

I do agree that Hera is not developed much in the book. I think they were saving that for the TV show, since a couple episodes have dealt with her past.

That must have happened after I stopped watching, although my opinion on Rebels ability to do character stuff is well known at this point.

The funny thing is that Dave Filoni and the producers of Rebels were involved in helping John Jackson Miller hash out the novel and the book was written before the TV show even had complete episodes to view. (I like both the show and the book and personally thought the characterizations were consistent between the two -- amazing considering that Miller had to write it before being able to see any episodes -- but your mileage may vary.

But in the end, the writer is the writer. It wasn't that much of a book by committee, the writer was the one ultimately responsible for the quality, not Filoni or the story group.

 

[Skywalker]

Do we know how much of Dark Disciple is Christie Golden and how much was the episodes' writers? Did she just turn the scripts straight into a novel, or did she put in her own stuff along with the stuff from the scripts?

I have no idea. One thing novels have over TV shows is there's more room to really stretch the visual scope since they don't have to worry about production schedules or budgets, and generally there isn't as much descriptive language in scripts as there can be in novels, so she probably had to expand on some stuff here and there. I can also see her compressing some episodes into shorter chunks of events in her novel.