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http://www.cracked.com/article/167_5-re ... -prequels/

If you grew up with the original Star Wars trilogy, you probably went through a 15-year roller coaster that was something like this:

You wished desperately they would make more movies;

You groaned when you heard they were making prequels instead;

You bought a ticket out of cautious optimism;

You realized you were right the first time.

If only they'd made sequels instead, dammit! But here's the thing: they did. The story was continued in novels and comics and video games. Oh, and they were so terrible they actually do more damage to the source material than Jar Jar Binks could have ever hoped to.

We mean it. These are the stories that are guilty of...

#5.
Undoing the Ending of Return of the Jedi

As Seen In: The Thrawn Trilogy, X-Wing Series, Jedi Academy Trilogy and many more novels, comics and video games.

Everything had wrapped up nicely at the end of Return of the Jedi. We see the Imperial menace defeated over the forest moon of Endor by the likes of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca the Wookiee and Lando "The Last Black Man in the Galaxy" Calrissian.

He's a collector's item.

The Emperor's plan to recruit Luke to the dark side failed, and Darth Vader redeemed himself by dunking the raisin-faced bastard into the reactor core of the Death Star like Lebron James. Vader, electrocuted and hairless--and decidedly not James Earl Jones--died and the Death Star exploded, effectively wiping out the Sith, releasing their chokehold on the Galaxy and infuriating whoever was the lienholder on the destroyed battle station.

"Bank of America is going to be pissed."

Simultaneous celebrations were held on countless planets because evidently news travels fast through the infinite expanse of fucking space. Our heroes dance with some teddy bears and the credits roll.

Not So Fast...

In the unofficial "sequel" stories, this happens:

That is, the Empire keeps rolling right along, imposing space-tyranny on all who stand in their way.

And the thing is, it's hard to argue with the idea.

Neither the Emperor nor the Death Star had ever been a threat to the Rebellion, so, you know, fuck those first three movies. The Imperials had been able to control the Galaxy without a Death Star for a couple of decades, relying instead on fleet warfare and ground support for good old fashioned genocide. As for the Emperor, does killing the leader of a tyrannical government with a powerful and loyal army immediately end the entire conflict?

No.

According to the majority of the books and comics set after the original trilogy, with the Emperor gone, there were hundreds of Admirals, Generals and Politicians who vied for control of the Galaxy. Without a universally accepted leader, the Empire spiraled into a civil war.

The Rebellion is still, well, a Rebellion, which means it still has to gain victory over the remaining Imperials to win, who are in turn fighting amongst themselves. And so, the Skywalker family, which you may remember as being the entire point of the Star Wars saga, fades into the background as we watch the Rebels continue to fight two different Empires for 20 more years. During that time it's fair to assume billions more people died and trillions more words of poorly written dialog were spoken.

This article is a rather good reason why I'm not a fan of the EU. Given how rich Lucas is why couldn't he hire better writers?

In response to "#4. Cloning the Emperor". This is why I don't like cloning, teleportation, and stealth technology unless it's hard scifi where exploring the consequences of these technologies is a major theme. Because otherwise it creates huge plot holes and unbalances things.

Also in response to "#5. Undoing the Ending of Return of the Jedi". This is why I feel there should have been 4 movies so that we have a better conclusion to the saga because with three movies things got rushed in the third in my opinion.

Ok, so my idea is that we have Vader die to save Luke just like in the original story. But the Emperor lives to star in another movie after the 3rd so there is four movies. Lets say that realizing that regular Force Lighting wasn't bringing down Vader fast enough the Emperor unleashes a blast of Force Lighting that completely wreaks the throne room and blocks out the screen, when the screen clears we then see debris, small fires and a steaming Darth Vader.

Luke not seeing the Emperor and feeling explosions throughout the Death Star helps Vader up and gets him out. Later on we see some guards and a officer enter the throne room and find the Emperor hidden underneath some debris and they tell him they also need to get out.

Death Star explodes and Imperial Fleet retreats with the Emperor in tow.

[Sidenote: I would also replace the Ewoks with a species of war-like humanoid Velociraptors to make the Imperial defeat on Endor more credible.]

Fourth movie is about the Rebel Alliance trying to take the capital would and bring an end to the war and the final confrontation between Luke and Emperor. There would be a Rommel/Thrawn-like Imperial officer villain who is brilliant but honorable whose role would be like Tarkin in ANH-to be a secondary villain. After the Emperor is dead, he would negotiate a peace treaty/surrender with the Rebel Alliance since he is now the highest ranking Imperial and the Imperial military would listen to him. That way we won't have 20+yrs of continued Imperial-Rebel fighting. Ending is Leia and Han being married with Luke acting as the priest. Which I feel is good because the endings of the first 3 movies all had the heroes standing around, posing for the camera.

I think this would be great because we would have this huge urban warfare battle. Imagine a scene where the Rebels captured one skyscraper and the Imperials control the one beside it and they're firing at each other through the windows across a narrow space or a scene where Luke fights the Emperor's royal guards before entering the Emperor's inner chamber, etc.

I think the Sequels should have a Yuuzhan Vong-like villain. Which would a good contrast to the Imperials (e.g. focus on organic vs. technological). And the characters would be a new generation of heroes including the children of Han and Leia. Luke, Han, and Leia would provide cameo appearance and a major theme would be "passing the torch" to a set of heroes. And if we're really ambitious then there would be new Star wars movies and each series of movies would focus on a new threat with a new cast of characters.

The reason why I thought about this so much is that I love Star Wars. But in order for me to keep sane I had to ignore what I didn't like or was inconsistent and then it snowballed from there to thinking up whole scenes and plotlines. I have this whole alternate Star Wars in my head including the Prequels.

And to those who think it's a little out there to disregard so much of Lucas' canon. I'm ok with this because Lucas is a hack. The success of Star Wars was a collective process in which he had alot of help. It was only after he got complete control of Star Wars that we saw some of the worst decisions of the movies. So in my view what Lucas says is and isn't true isn't the end all and be all.

5. How was Empire doesn't immediately collapse= lousy story?
Hell, the Skywalkers are still so fundamentally important to the story that they're the main heroes of every single novel etc left. Hell, as it is, making them LESS important would had been beneficial to the sequel.

Seriously. Sons of suns. Yes, we get it. Make Leia the Chief of State when Mon Mothma retires, make Han and Luke heroes and called out for propaganda runs or some major campaign. But as it is, they're seen in EVERYTHING.

Seriously. A semi-logical seqence would had Luke and Leia featuring in the Bakura crisis(first aid mission to an Imperial world) and the Thrawn invasion. The rest could had been filled by newer characters and etc, preventing the dilution of Core material.
The rest would had them being cameos.... Hell. The JAT was essentially a massive canon hero cameo other than Han Solo. The only thing that could had saved that trilogy was the usuage of mainline heroes so.... yeah. maybe that too.

4. Ok. No questions asked. The dark Empire was a forlorn attempt to have a grand story arc that well.... could had been imagined better. It was good yes, but it was good in the context of Star wars. Not good good.

3. I don't know... Having a bunch of other Jedi left behind would have been useful if they had actually illustrate how worthless they were so that the Sons of Suns and the new legacy of Luke Skywalker would had been shown better.

5.) Again, most of empire military and leaders were intact, so civil war was inevitable

4.) Sort of agree, sort of don't

3.) Jedi did try, and get slaughtered.

2.) Galaxy Gun: Just as potent, easier to defend, Suncrusher shitty KJA idea

1.) Sith are different, Skywalker is asshole, 2 empires, one good.

Most of the cracked readers actually insulted the author and rebutted him; very few defended him. Apparently the EU is quite popular on Cracked.

This article fails out of hand, because in the original incarnation of Return of the Jedi NOTHING shows the Empire collapsing at the end, its just another Rebel Victory. The impression that the Empire really did fall is only added into the edited versions, which I at least personally hate, and which Lucas created long after he allowed dozens of Star Wars novels to be written. So how the fuck can you blame those writers from working from the assumption that the Empire had become more then just the Emperor?

I'm not really sure what this article is trying to get at. Sure, the EU isn't the best thing on the planet and surely Lucas could have gotten better writers but the thing is, the vast Galactic Empire remaining in pockets is wholly credible. After all, the entirety of the Star Wars original trilogy happens in the Outer Rim where we see only a small portion of the vast military and administrative state that the Empire would have been built upon. To have entirely overthrown and dismantled the Empire would have required that the Rebel Alliance had enough military power to track down the die-hards before they jumped away with their individual portions of the imperial fleet... which, even with the speed of hyperdrive, isn't possible. Moreover, the Thrawn trilogy, where a markedly gifted tactician with millions of places to hide from the limited military forces of the New Republic that was able to choose the place, time, and circumstances of his battles nearly toppled a new government with a shaky grasp on political power, is also highly credible. We may not like the Expanded Universe but it does not conflict with established canon (except in rare instances of a retcon) and fits easily into typical suspension of disbelief. The sequels are a nice indulgence but fortunately, since they are all written and not themselves movies, fans that don't like them can elect to treat them as if they don't exist.

i rather like the EU.

Ahh, yes... the Star Wars Expanded Universe:

"I used to be a bog-standard, moustache-twirling villain. Foiled constantly by plucky, unlikely bands of heroes. Then, I got smart... and joined the superweapon of the month club.

"The superweapon of the month club delivers a constant stream of plot devices and MacGuffins right to your door. You'd never imagine the amazing collection of forgotten superweapons the Emperor left lying around for some latter-day tyrant to pick up. Why, the Galaxy was just teeming with forgotten superlaser projects, did you know?

"As a member of the superweapon of the month club, I don't have to waste time thinking about all that boring stuff like 'strategy' and 'tactics', or creating a coherent social and political system to serve as a competitive alternative... you know, the stuff that really makes a Galactic tyrant's eyes glaze over and reach for the bean dip. Each superweapon comes with an expansion pack of crew mooks that can be thrown away at a whim-- and if the heroes (curses!) --defeat your superweapon, don't worry, another will be showing up at your door in no time!

"If you join the superweapon of the month club, each superweapon plot device will also come with a lovely female assistant who will be naive and sweet-faced, and tragically misled. She can temporarily confound and stupify the pesky heroes, and drag out your plot for at least another week or two. And then, by next book, she'll be completely forgotten.

"Operators are standing by."

to be fair the NJO sort of did acknowldege that in a "take that" sort of way. And in the zahn duology the villians were using existing hatreds to cause the NR to rip each other apart (that and playing on the fear of Grand Admiral Thrawn.) and the thrawn trilogy did it in a way that was GOOD. It was more kevin j anderson then the others, and those plots aren't liked even by EU fans.

While KJA was by far the worst offender, he was by no means the only one. Centerpoint Station, the Galaxy Gun or that battle moon thingy from 'Children of the Jedi' come to mind.

I've always thought that Zahn was the best Expanded Universe writer, simply because he was able to create and breathe life into a villain character that was the lead villain that had nothing to do with the Force. Seriously. It's always Jedi, Sith, Jedi, Sith; like some kind of monotonous turn-wheel. Thrawn was a nice change of pace and I am eternally sad that they killed him off, even if his legacy supposedly lived on in Pellaeon.

If they were ever to make the remaining three movies of the originally promised nine, then I would wish them to do the Thrawn trilogy. That at least would keep me from burning down my local theatre because Palpatine supposedly cloned his way back to existence for another round of Jedi-Sith/Cops & Robbers.

eye of palpatine wasn't really a galaxy threatening weapon, galaxy gun i've never read any of the stuff it was in so i can't comment, and the centerpoint station was well executed (that and it wasn't originally concieved as a weapon. It was a tractor beam that got converted into a weapon.

Abacus wrote:I've always thought that Zahn was the best Expanded Universe writer, simply because he was able to create and breathe life into a villain character that was the lead villain that had nothing to do with the Force. Seriously. It's always Jedi, Sith, Jedi, Sith; like some kind of monotonous turn-wheel. Thrawn was a nice change of pace and I am eternally sad that they killed him off, even if his legacy supposedly lived on in Pellaeon.

If they were ever to make the remaining three movies of the originally promised nine, then I would wish them to do the Thrawn trilogy. That at least would keep me from burning down my local theatre because Palpatine supposedly cloned his way back to existence for another round of Jedi-Sith/Cops & Robbers.

No kidding! It seems extremely and painfully rare that a writer goes to the trouble to depict a military villain who is a genuine tactician and strategist. The Thrawn created by Timothy Zhan consistently correctly identified the weaknesses of his foe (like Hannibal with the inflexibility of Roman infantry formations)--and mercilessly exploited it (see Cannae) just like a real-life commander with unique strategic/tactical genius can do. He utilized the tools at hand (Rommel with relatively immobile anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns) to their maximum potential, winning several battles with less shiny ships that nonetheless were used in such a way as to neutralize a strength (significantly superior British tanks) just as other notable commanders have done. There was even the element of his exploits becoming mythic and affecting the thinking of his opponents (Robert E. Lee's exploits in the Seven Days, Chancellorsville, etc making Northern generals very hesitant about taking him on in pitched battle) as has happened with real commanders. I highly applaud Zhan's ability to do this and especially his willingness to put a good effort into it.

Serafine666 wrote:

Abacus wrote:I've always thought that Zahn was the best Expanded Universe writer, simply because he was able to create and breathe life into a villain character that was the lead villain that had nothing to do with the Force. Seriously. It's always Jedi, Sith, Jedi, Sith; like some kind of monotonous turn-wheel. Thrawn was a nice change of pace and I am eternally sad that they killed him off, even if his legacy supposedly lived on in Pellaeon.

If they were ever to make the remaining three movies of the originally promised nine, then I would wish them to do the Thrawn trilogy. That at least would keep me from burning down my local theatre because Palpatine supposedly cloned his way back to existence for another round of Jedi-Sith/Cops & Robbers.

No kidding! It seems extremely and painfully rare that a writer goes to the trouble to depict a military villain who is a genuine tactician and strategist. The Thrawn created by Timothy Zhan consistently correctly identified the weaknesses of his foe (like Hannibal with the inflexibility of Roman infantry formations)--and mercilessly exploited it (see Cannae) just like a real-life commander with unique strategic/tactical genius can do. He utilized the tools at hand (Rommel with relatively immobile anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns) to their maximum potential, winning several battles with less shiny ships that nonetheless were used in such a way as to neutralize a strength (significantly superior British tanks) just as other notable commanders have done. There was even the element of his exploits becoming mythic and affecting the thinking of his opponents (Robert E. Lee's exploits in the Seven Days, Chancellorsville, etc making Northern generals very hesitant about taking him on in pitched battle) as has happened with real commanders. I highly applaud Zhan's ability to do this and especially his willingness to put a good effort into it.

Really, the only flaw in the Thrawn trilogy was Zahn not grasping the sheer scale of a GALACTIC war.

I also like how he not only subtly showed the Thrawn wank to be overblown (Thrawn DID make mistakes, which eventually led to his death, and the duology showed how Thrawn wasn't THAT special even while they were wanking his reputation for personal gain), but that he killed the guy off so other authors couldn't fuck up the character.

Whereas you have Admiral Daala, who couldn't strategize her way out of a wet paper bag and was consistently plagued by failures due to her being incompetent (and too retarded/full of herself to realize it), yet she was constantly made out to be some sort of dire threat and then she becomes the- no, it's too fucking stupid to even say it.

Zahn is admirable in many areas, but he does have one troubling aspect to his writing: he made "minimalism" acceptable in canon. Zahn had trouble grasping the sheer scale of the Star Wars universe, and it is evident if he thinks that 200 Dreadnoughts is going to be a game-changer in a Galaxy that had 250,000+ ISDs.

Swindle1984 wrote:I also like how he not only subtly showed the Thrawn wank to be overblown (Thrawn DID make mistakes, which eventually led to his death, and the duology showed how Thrawn wasn't THAT special even while they were wanking his reputation for personal gain), but that he killed the guy off so other authors couldn't fuck up the character.

That Thrawn was not perfect is actually a positive thing because a flawless character is shallow and boring. For all the Nazi wanking of Rommel, he made errors that pretty much fucked everything over even though he made very few errors overall; a great general but imperfect. Ditto with every other historical general whose reputation is shamelessly wanked. Again, I applaud Zhan for being a good enough author to insert plausible flaws into his impressive character.

Coyote wrote:Zahn is admirable in many areas, but he does have one troubling aspect to his writing: he made "minimalism" acceptable in canon. Zahn had trouble grasping the sheer scale of the Star Wars universe, and it is evident if he thinks that 200 Dreadnoughts is going to be a game-changer in a Galaxy that had 250,000+ ISDs.

This is quite true, but then again can you imagine the depth a writer would have to go into to make us war junkies really appreciate it? Which would then ruin it for those SW fans that only like the hero aspects. Plus the book would be an extra five hundred pages plus, at the very least.

Coyote wrote:Zahn is admirable in many areas, but he does have one troubling aspect to his writing: he made "minimalism" acceptable in canon. Zahn had trouble grasping the sheer scale of the Star Wars universe, and it is evident if he thinks that 200 Dreadnoughts is going to be a game-changer in a Galaxy that had 250,000+ ISDs.

That's kind of an odd way of putting it, as it implies that he thought there were 250,000+ ISDs when he was writing his books. Do you really think that when he was writing the book, he thought anything of the sort? It seems much more likely to me that he had a generally small-minded view of the galaxy in general.

Frankly, I couldn't give a shit about 'minimalism'.

Zahn sort of repented in Hand of Thrawn, when he wrote in the part about twenty five thousands Star Destroyers at the peak of the Empire (and it seemed to imply the Starfleet itself, sans the sector forces).

Serafine666 wrote: If they were ever to make the remaining three movies of the originally promised nine, then I would wish them to do the Thrawn trilogy. That at least would keep me from burning down my local theatre because Palpatine supposedly cloned his way back to existence for another round of Jedi-Sith/Cops & Robbers.

No kidding! It seems extremely and painfully rare that a writer goes to the trouble to depict a military villain who is a genuine tactician and strategist. The Thrawn created by Timothy Zhan consistently correctly identified the weaknesses of his foe (like Hannibal with the inflexibility of Roman infantry formations)--and mercilessly exploited it (see Cannae) just like a real-life commander with unique strategic/tactical genius can do. He utilized the tools at hand (Rommel with relatively immobile anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns) to their maximum potential, winning several battles with less shiny ships that nonetheless were used in such a way as to neutralize a strength (significantly superior British tanks) just as other notable commanders have done. There was even the element of his exploits becoming mythic and affecting the thinking of his opponents (Robert E. Lee's exploits in the Seven Days, Chancellorsville, etc making Northern generals very hesitant about taking him on in pitched battle) as has happened with real commanders. I highly applaud Zhan's ability to do this and especially his willingness to put a good effort into it.[/quote]
I would like to point out that while this was certainly Zahn intent, he tends to protray Thrawn tactics as superpower of the day.

Quick, execute a Mahburg maneveur, those pesky aliens can't handle such a formation, so, a mere ISD can destroy every single X-wing and Assault frigate in the Elomin task force. And of course, all alien starships are manned entirely by single alien species or overruled totally by alien commanders.

Its a pity that Zahn can't write real battles and the like, thrawn political skills and intelligence is amply protrayed. If his tactical skills can be adequately protrayed more than maneveur and guessing of the day, well.... it would work much better.

Abacus wrote: This is quite true, but then again can you imagine the depth a writer would have to go into to make us war junkies really appreciate it? Which would then ruin it for those SW fans that only like the hero aspects. Plus the book would be an extra five hundred pages plus, at the very least.

Not really.... The Katana fleet significance could had been easily tweaked. 200 dreadnaughts could had been a war-turner if by doing so, they provided crucial escort capabilities for example, freeing up larger warships for combat.

Zahn made it clear that his ideas of the Galaxy is that SW occupys a relatively small portion of it with a large Unknown Region and a "small" core of Republic/Imperial worlds, the galaxy isn't tightly intergrated together via the speed of comms and hyperdrive and so forth. Expectging a single world to feed the new Clone military is ludricious.

But then again, he is in good company, regarding those who believe Carida produces the majority of the Imperial stormtrooper corps.

PainRack wrote: Not really.... The Katana fleet significance could had been easily tweaked. 200 dreadnaughts could had been a war-turner if by doing so, they provided crucial escort capabilities for example, freeing up larger warships for combat.
Zahn made it clear that his ideas of the Galaxy is that SW occupys a relatively small portion of it with a large Unknown Region and a "small" core of Republic/Imperial worlds, the galaxy isn't tightly intergrated together via the speed of comms and hyperdrive and so forth. Expectging a single world to feed the new Clone military is ludricious.
But then again, he is in good company, regarding those who believe Carida produces the majority of the Imperial stormtrooper corps.

Blimey. And here I thought that was exactly what people were complaining about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W7paueNuEc

I was watching this "Dinner for Five hosted by Kevin Smith" where Mark Hamil suggested that he turn to the dark Side and he would be the subsequent villain for the next movie/movies. If they did this (which they probably won't but would make good alternate universe) it would blow my mind.

sexyloser wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W7paueNuEc

I was watching this "Dinner for Five hosted by Kevin Smith" where Mark Hamil suggested that he turn to the dark Side and he would be the subsequent villain for the next movie/movies. If they did this (which they probably won't but would make good alternate universe) it would blow my mind.

I find it interesting that Mark had wanted to do one-handed style lightsaber duels but that Lucas wouldn't let him. Now is that because he knew that when he wanted to do the prequels that they would use one-handed styles and so by not using a one-handed style, Luke would look more authentic as a new-learner (which he was) or was it simply that Lucas at the time really believed what Mark said, that a lightsaber should be heavy and double-handed at all times? Interesting interview.

Abacus wrote:I find it interesting that Mark had wanted to do one-handed style lightsaber duels but that Lucas wouldn't let him. Now is that because he knew that when he wanted to do the prequels that they would use one-handed styles and so by not using a one-handed style, Luke would look more authentic as a new-learner (which he was) or was it simply that Lucas at the time really believed what Mark said, that a lightsaber should be heavy and double-handed at all times? Interesting interview.

It's almost certainly because using a two-handed grip allows more precise strikes with greater power and finer control of the blade's motion. It seems that Darth Vader only fought with one hand to show that even one handed he was able to strike powerfully, and because swinging in broad strokes with one hand looks more menacing, increasing (subtly) the threat to our hero.