Star Wars Books Thread

[fireproof78]

That point is the easy point. You can't fix the story background problem with CGI. That can only be solved with story, and NJO is not a good starting point with the huge backlog of characters, places, and situations that the audience is already expected to know going into the series.

Which would basically mean, recast everyone and start over only a few years after Return of the Jedi. And while that might be fun, people wanted to see the original actors in their roles again.

If you're going to recast everyone, you lose part of the draw. It's why Cade Skywalker's story never interested me, and took me a while to get in to KOTOR era.

TFA, for all its problems, basically reset the stage and allowed audiences, both new and old, to get in to it, while not worrying about contradicting or missing vital material from a book. It made it more accessible, which, honestly, I'm not convinced a Legends adaptation would be able to do.

 

[Reverend]

There is a lot of cinematic EU material-the Thrawn trilogy, the NJO, LOTF, KOTOR, Legacy, Hand of Thrawn Duology, Dark Empire

Darth Bane novels.

Nope.

A smattering of cinematically interesting scenes scattered across several dozen books does not a coherent movie make my naive and possibly deluded young padawan.

I love Legends and I consider it my Star Wars.

Good for you. Enjoy them all you want, that's perfectly fine.
However it doesn't magically make them a viable basis for a movie.

I don't know if I'm explaining my thoughts on the matter well enough because I don't think its an exact 1-to-1 case of borrowing from Legends, so I misspoke in my original comment. The elements in TFA would certainly be logical progressions of the story in many ways that Legends already did. I guess my larger questions is why is there resistance (no pun intended) to TFA's plot elements, while there is acceptance of Legends' plot points?

I wasn't directing that at you specifically as I've seen variations on the same basic argument from all quarters since TFA came out.

To answer your question: it's pretty much a double standard some irrational fans seem to have adopted. Typically those overly attached to the EU and mistakenly believe it has been stolen from them. *double checks bookshelf* Nope, still there!

If you're going to recast everyone, you lose part of the draw. It's why Cade Skywalker's story never interested me, and took me a while to get in to KOTOR era.

To this day I've never been able to take much of an interest in the Legacy comic series. There's something about Luke Skywalker's grungy emo drug addict bounty hunter that I just don't find appealing, Go figure! It also didn't help that the basic premise and design aesthetic of the world left me cold. It felt too derivative. Shallow. Less like an original take and more like a lazy imitation of what came before. The narrative and stylistic equivalent of an essay that's been bought online and just had all the adjectives replaced with synonyms.

Oddly enough I never had trouble getting into that ToTJ comics that were the precursor to KoTOR and they had zero connection to the OT, beyond the obvious. No attempt to recreate the set-up or dynamic, no stand-ins for familiar characters or stories, just original tales of ancient Jedi.
For me a big part of the appeal was the way they presented it as high fantasy rather that sci-fi space opera, which ironically felt closer to the spirit of the movies than most of the material more directly associated with the OT. As a result though, it did make me somewhat resistant to getting into KoTOR since it swung the aesthetic away from the really crude, archaic style of the comics and towards something closer to look of the movies. Logically that should make it feel more authentic, but for some reason it took me a while to shake the feeling that it was an off-brand knock-off. As if Star Wars was plagiarising itself, if that makes any sense.

 

[WebLurker]

The more

The more Canon stuff comes out the less attached I am to the franchise. Honestly I grew up on a different Star Wars, I read EU novels, spent hours on Wookieepedia, spent so much money at Barnes and Nobles, I got invested in the characters and worlds.

Perhaps you can understand why I was upset with the April 2014 decision?

Do I understand it? Sure, I can comprehend it; It's the "Spider-Man: One More Day" of the Star Wars world for many of the older fans.

However, me personally, I'd found that the tie-ins were going down the tubes around from about NJO onwards. I hate the Fate of the Jedi series, to be totally candid, both for content and just for the sloppy plot structure. So, maybe you can understand why for some of us the reboot is a decision we're generally happy with. For me, it allowed me to like new Star Wars stuff again.

(Also, my biggest touchstone to the franchise is the movies; the only reason I read any of the books is because of the movies, so that may have a lot to do with why I can let them go a lot easier?)

Speaking of books, the first installment of a new series has come out, Join the Resistance. Haven't had a chance to get my copy yet, so I can only speculate about the content, but it looks like it follows an underdog group of fighter pilots around the time of TFA.

 

[JD]

I've enjoyed a lot of the Legends stuff I've read, but there was no way it was going to be used as the basis for the new movies. By the time it was pushed away, it was just so complex and convoluted that it seemed to be hard for people who had followed the it whole time to keep track of everything.
If you wanted to go the direct adaptation route then there was the question of where do you start? Do you start at the chronological beginning with Truce at Bakura, the popular early books with the Thrawn trilogy, or stick to the real world timeline and go with NJO? All of those options have massive problems, if you go with the early ones you rule out using the original cast members, but NJO is just to complex and different from the original movies to use. You can get away with CGI recreations or deaging for a few scenes here and there, but there is no way they would do it for multiple characters for the entire movie.
As good as the Thrawn books are, and they are great, I don't know if they'd really capture the feel of the OT the way they wanted to here.
I knew pretty much the second a new movie was announced that they were probably going to just throw out the EU, and anyone who thought differently was fooling themselves.

Marvel has announced they are going to do another Darth Vader comic series, this one set immediately after ROTS. It'll be written by Charles Soule and drawn by Giuseppe Camuncoli. The first arc will deal with the origins of Vader's red lightsaber.

 

[fireproof78]

Nope.

A smattering of cinematically interesting scenes scattered across several dozen books does not a coherent movie make my naive and possibly deluded young padawan.



Good for you. Enjoy them all you want, that's perfectly fine.
However it doesn't magically make them a viable basis for a movie.



I wasn't directing that at you specifically as I've seen variations on the same basic argument from all quarters since TFA came out.

To answer your question: it's pretty much a double standard some irrational fans seem to have adopted. Typically those overly attached to the EU and mistakenly believe it has been stolen from them. *double checks bookshelf* Nope, still there!



To this day I've never been able to take much of an interest in the Legacy comic series. There's something about Luke Skywalker's grungy emo drug addict bounty hunter that I just don't find appealing, Go figure! It also didn't help that the basic premise and design aesthetic of the world left me cold. It felt too derivative. Shallow. Less like an original take and more like a lazy imitation of what came before. The narrative and stylistic equivalent of an essay that's been bought online and just had all the adjectives replaced with synonyms.

Oddly enough I never had trouble getting into that ToTJ comics that were the precursor to KoTOR and they had zero connection to the OT, beyond the obvious. No attempt to recreate the set-up or dynamic, no stand-ins for familiar characters or stories, just original tales of ancient Jedi.
For me a big part of the appeal was the way they presented it as high fantasy rather that sci-fi space opera, which ironically felt closer to the spirit of the movies than most of the material more directly associated with the OT. As a result though, it did make me somewhat resistant to getting into KoTOR since it swung the aesthetic away from the really crude, archaic style of the comics and towards something closer to look of the movies. Logically that should make it feel more authentic, but for some reason it took me a while to shake the feeling that it was an off-brand knock-off. As if Star Wars was plagiarising itself, if that makes any sense.

It actually makes more sense than you realize. For me KOTOR felt like it made the Star Wars universe kind of stagnant, like things had not changes in the 1000 years between the fall of the Sith Empire and the rise of the Empire. So, I do get the feeling that it feels a bit plagiarized, but after playing a couple of games, the aesthetic has grown on me. But, I did have a similar feeling.

 

[DimesDan]

As much as I am enjoying rereading the Thrawn Trilogy, I wouldn't want it to be a film or series of films.

 

[Set Harth]

Perhaps you can understand why I was upset with the April 2014 decision?

Because it resulted in Traitor being nothing more than expensive fan fiction?

 

[Voth commando1]

I'm so tempted to ignore you, I've done everything to be polite and reasonable and nice. So I won't be talking to you again.

 

[Neroon]

I'm so tempted to ignore you, I've done everything to be polite and reasonable and nice. So I won't be talking to you again.

Not really.

Both you (@Voth commando1 and @Tuskin38 - have gone out of your way to antagonize each other and do more than stray off topic. You are both on notice to back off, or any other such similar activity will earn you each a warning.

 

[Tuskin38]

Not really.

Both you (@Voth commando1 and @Tuskin38 - have gone out of your way to antagonize each other and do more than stray off topic. You are both on notice to back off, or any other such similar activity will earn you each a warning.

Oh don't worry, I put Voth on my ignore list after my last reply to them.

 

[Hippocrates Noah]

As much as I am enjoying rereading the Thrawn Trilogy, I wouldn't want it to be a film or series of films.

I've read them quite a few times, the most recently probably a year or two ago, but I'm re-reading them right now in comic book form for the first time. They probably wouldn't make a very good film trilogy as-is, but they probably could after the usual changes that screenwriters make to novels in order to turn them into movies. Drop or composite some less important characters/events, speed up the pace a bit, fewer meetings between Imperials/New Republic Politicians/Smugglers, and a more fitting death for the man who the trilogy has come to be known for.

I'm about to finish reading Tarkin, which I'm enjoying but it's not quite what I was expecting. I thought it was going to be more like an OT tie-in, but it takes place much closer to and has much more to do with the PT (which I'm not really into that much) and these animated Rebels and Clone Wars shows (which I don't watch). It's still been a very interesting/fun book though.

 

[Tuskin38]

Another Excerpt from Thrawn

http://www.express.co.uk/entertainm...E-extract-Timothy-Zahn-release-date-Eli-Parck

 

[Reverend]

^Not surprisingly, it seems like a recreation of a very similar scene from 'Outbound Flight'.

I think the only difference is that IIRC the Chiss used to be from the Unknown Regions while now it's been switched to Wild Space? I'm still a little bit fuzzy on the distinction.

 

[Tuskin38]

They are separate regions.

Wild space is "off the map", while the Unknown Regions are mapped but unexplored.

 

[WebLurker]

They are separate regions.

Wild space is "off the map", while the Unknown Regions are mapped but unexplored.

Although the Adventures in Wild Space series features a pair of siblings who's parents mapped out a section of Wild Space...

 

[Reverend]

They are separate regions.

Wild space is "off the map", while the Unknown Regions are mapped but unexplored.

Yeah I know what Wookieepedia says but that's what confuses me. How can something be mapped out without first exploring it? I mean that's how maps are generally made, no? Most material on the Unexplored Regions make it seem the reason it's not explored is because there are very few safe hyperspace routes into that region. Astronomical surveys alone are going to be hampered by the speed of light as most of the data will be tens of thousands of years out of date. So you may be able to calculate the relative positions of stars, but it's not terribly precise.

I suspect this might be a case of the fandom misinterpreting what's been said. I can't remember where I read it, but I'm pretty sure Pablo said it was more the the effect of: they've mapped the edges of the Unknown Regions so they know the extent of it, they just can't find a way in. Whereas "Wild Space" is just a catch-all term for regions anywhere in the galaxy that are off the established hyper-routes. Particularly areas prone to harbour unpredictable navigational hazards. Black holes, dense star clusters and the like. Basically the space travel equivalent of "here be dragons!".

 

[Hippocrates Noah]

Finished Tarkin a couple of nights ago. I enjoyed it but found the end to be a little disappointing. The story they kept teasing about why Tarkin named his ship Carrion Spike ended up being a bit anti-climactic. I thought he was going to do something really crazy/ruthless like destroy his own planet during the Clone Wars or maybe kill his uncle while out on one of his expeditions, but instead he outsmarted some monkeys. And the story of the ship Carrion Spike was kind of repetitive and dragged on until it came to the conclusion I figured it would from the beginning (the bad guys would win because it's a bad guy book) and then capped it off with an ending that seemed a little too Mad Max.

 

[Ithekro]

From what I remember, "Wild Space" was the regions that were charted but largely unsettled and lawless. The Unknown Regions were "there be dragons here" sort of territory. There were few maps and even fewer hyperspace routes that were safe. It was unknown.

 

[Reverend]

From what I remember, "Wild Space" was the regions that were charted but largely unsettled and lawless. The Unknown Regions were "there be dragons here" sort of territory. There were few maps and even fewer hyperspace routes that were safe. It was unknown.

It may be one of those things where both terms have been used independently to describe different things at various points in the old EU and probably also at some point as interchangeable terms. It seems only relatively recently that the two are made out to refer to distinct regions.

ETA

About 5 mins of research later and it seems both terms showed up first in the Heir to the Empire WEG sourcebook.

Interestingly the book itself only mentions the Unknown Regions as where Thrawn has been off expanding the Empire. Wild Space isn't mentioned at all until 'The Last Command' and then only in passing.

How this relates to canon is anyone's guess, but I doubt they'll stray too far without a good reason.

 

[Hippocrates Noah]

I thought Wild Space was where all the parties were and alien chicks flashed dudes for space beads. I must be thinking of Mardi Gras Space.