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Given the ups and downs the EU has experienced since the previous poll on this topic, what is your overall opinion of the EU?

Overall, it's pretty mediocre, but with some very good parts once in a while. There's way too much "Superweapon of the Week" type of stuff before NJO.

Given the literally thouands of books, games, comics, cartoons, and whatnot out there, saying that the EU is gold or shit either way merely betrays narrow-mindedness. There's good stuff and bullcrap in varying measures, and until I absorb every bit of EU media, there's not much else I can say.

I haven't dealt directly with the EU much, but I've been exposed to lots of it from secondary material like source books and through conversations on this board. It's got the same problem any extended universe has that is open to anyone with a word processing program, and that is very loose control over what happens and where the stories go. If Lucas had set up some rigorous guidelines, and had people screen for shit (and if I were him I would want to have final say myself), then maybe there would be more consistency, better stories, and a lot less wank.

There are certainly some good ideas for plots, characters, weapons, etc. in the EU; but I feel as a whole it's just a shadow of the original material.

It's a sea of shit with a few gems. Stuff like the Thrawn Trilogy was good, but the vast majority of it sucks.

"Bad but with some good parts" sounds about right. A lot of it is stupid, offensive, or at best contradictory. But there's a few bits I really like.

The Vortex Empire wrote:It's a sea of shit with a few gems. Stuff like the Thrawn Trilogy was good, but the vast majority of it sucks.

This, but to even more of an extreme.

'Bad but with some good parts'. Let's face it, a lot of the novel EU stinks and most of the rest is at best mediocre. There ARE a few gems in there but overall, it sucks.
It gets better if you include the Clone Wars cartoons (which I rather liked) and the computer games (many of which were pretty damned good) and I can't comment upon the comics.

I think, in general, they're lousy when looked at as some kind of continuation of the movies, but I do like some of the art and interesting ideas they come up with. For me it's a smidge above complete horseshit, but not to ignite the fires of scorn, given how uneven the transition between OT and PT is, I frankly prefer the "non-canon" kinds of stuff you might see in Dark Empire's original run to some of the other more canon things added later. So in good faith I won't rate it as total horseshit, if only because I need to grade it against non-EU.

I liked the Star Wars short stories from the Tales From series, they were small, bite-sized flavors from other perspectives, and didn't act like they were super canon and didn't tie themselves too tightly to the actual movies... the laughable story about IG-88 excepted of course.

I completely glaze over at any mention of Solo or Skywalker children, however. Anything that goes that far after the original series tends to hit my bullshit meter really fast, regardless of how deserving it is, simply because that exists in a realm of what if I'd already populated in my mind long before people decided to have Luke marry some random person or have Chewie eaten by Tyranids or whatever the hell happened in those books.

That's kinda the way it is with every Expanded Universe thing though, it's very subjective.

The only books I truly didn't like were Revelation and Remnant. Everything else was good, and I liked the kotor comic largely because the hero wasn't a brooding grim dark hero and the villains weren't snively whiplash cartoon villains. Tastes do vary though.

The EU had a really great start, the Thrawn Trilogy was amazing. As I read them I swear I could hear the different musical theme's in my head. Sadly since then it has been pretty much one dissapointment after another. A whole fucking universe and yet it's always the same 5 schmucks who have to save the day, after 50 odd books that gets a little old. After the tremendous cluster fuck of Darth Jacen I was so discusted I sold almost all my EU books the only EU I care to re-read these days are the Zahn trilogy and duology and the Wraith Squadron books. When I read the blurb for Death Troopers I decided the EU was officially dead to me and that I wouldn't even bother getting them from the library.

Bad, but with some good parts. The bad parts are bad for two reasons. First, there are the authors who just don't care about this being Star Wars. From this we get aggressive minimalism, an aimless and shoe-horned plot, and lack of grandeur. Then, there are authors who strive for a grand, epic scope, but overlook the need for a satisfying fairy-tale story, the need to balance the flash with genuine humanity.

Some authors fail in both these respects.

Take the Black Fleet Crisis, for instance. I'll admit there was some good bits in it, even though I loathe the end result. Its chief problem, however, lay not in its minimalism - because the author, arrogant or not, genuinely thought he was being logical about it, and weirdly enough that intrinsic consistency shows - but in its failure to follow the human element of Star Wars. Politics are all well and good, but Kube-McDowell missed the part where Star Wars hooks on to the primal parts of our brain, where monomyths and fairy-tale endings live.

Such stories satisfy. And for them to work, you need more than a news anchor reciting the consequences of a local extremist rebellion.

Depends on what you want to include in the EU. For me, the EU is the collection of novels and comic books tangential to the main story of Star Wars (as shown in the movies and the movie novelizations). I don't include the TV shows, toys, video games and coloring books.

That said, the Han Solo and Lando books were very good. The authors kept the stories free of wank and more importantly, got the characters right.

The rest of the EU is a moldering pile of horseshit and while I could go poking around in the pile looking for a few worthwhile bits and pieces, it's not really worth the trouble of getting my hands covered in shit. I can't remember in it was the Courtship of Leia or the Thracken Solo novel that was the last straw, but from that point on I avoid the EU as much as possible and just stick with the movies.

Strangely enough, I did find Infinities interesting -kinda like the old Marvel "What If?" series.

Infinities suuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked, interesting concept failed excecution.

Infinities ANH, where the Death Star isn't destroyed, okay that one did a pretty good job, Yoda crashing the Death Star into Coruscant though seemed incredibly un-Yoda like.

Luke Dying in ESB Infinities and then Leia beating a hallucinating Vader in a duel on Dagobah? Miserable failure.

The idea of Threepio being a pivotal character and having his loss have important ramifications for Infinities ROTJ was an AWESOME idea and then it ends with Darth Vader in a white suit joining the hunt for the Emperor who is off in hiding. So much promise and then so much failure.

Darth Fanboy wrote: and then it ends with Darth Vader in a white suit joining the hunt for the Emperor who is off in hiding.

See, now you can't come to the Bay Area because I have to punch you repeatedly in the face.

I felt that Han Solo in the thrawn books was true to the character; he was tough, in command, and was able to take care of himself. I also enjoyed Traitor, because it took Jacen "I'm a whiny little pussy" Solo and made him a genuinely likable character. Vector Prime was okay but the way they made Heleska 4 explode made me drop my jaw in shock at the sheer stupidity of it (I mean come on, Mezicanny's wave? really?). Oh, and Elfdart, I noticed that the EU tends to be better when it's many years in the past, because it allows them to make new characters to grow and evolve rather then mishandling the original cast. The Kotor game is easily one of the best games I ever played, and the comic isn't too shabby either (although as I said, tastes do vary).

Most of the EU is bad shit. Most writers either ignore trying to make it pulp or shoehorn their ideas of fiction, disregarding the universe they are writing in. Though some of it had some interesting bits but they never capitalized on much and most writers ignored anyone else's work except Zahn's. That and it still has the cliched; a never heard of group of GALACTIC CONQUERERS wanting to conquer with their hidden black fleet just waiting a bit off the galactic edge or just from another galaxy.

And the Infinites would've been interesting if they didn't shoehorn VICTOLY!!! every fucking time.

1. Luke misses hitting the exhaust port. So it becomes this wankfest with Yoda and R2 using the Death Star as the blaster ball and destroying the Imperial Fleet then crashing the thing into Coruscant as a final FUCK YOU to the Emperor.

2. Luke dies from Taun-taun. This spins off to something possibly interesting with Leia. Ends up Vader engaging Yoda in Mental Ninja Showdown...with him winning because of the RAAAAAAAAGE and Leia defeating Vader. And it ends.

3. 3PO gets whacked, and because it takes to long to get to Han, so Han goes blind...and just a plain weird turn of events that leads to Leia and Luke facing off the Emperor and Vader. Han blasting the bunker with the Falcon(Oh and Boba Fett dying more manly). And it ends up with the Emperor taking his shuttle and skedattling off with Luke, Leia, Mon Mothma, Lando, Blind Han and



I will say, I still enjoyed the Thrawn Trilogy, even it's ending was a bit forced. And the Han Solo stuff was really good for the character.

I voted #5. Some of the books were nice, and I've loved a few of the computer games. A few one-shot EU books and comics, which didn't stray far from the actual movies, were pretty good. But in the past couple of years I've gone from an EU inclusionist to a virtual movie purist. I pretty much gave up on the EU as an ongoing continuation of the myth after Traviss had her way with it, and they decided to rehash the prequels' scenario for the Legacy of the Force 9-book mega arc. If I'm going to read shit then at least make it quick; I don't want to have to go through 9 to 20+ books to get the entire story. The SW EU is almost like comic books now; they don't do nice, self-contained stories told in a single volume anymore.

Because I understand the concept of 'overall opinion' I can call it horseshit overall without denying the existence of some interesting ideas.

Havok wrote:

Darth Fanboy wrote: and then it ends with Darth Vader in a white suit joining the hunt for the Emperor who is off in hiding.

See, now you can't come to the Bay Area because I have to punch you repeatedly in the face.

It's not my fault that the book suuuuuuucked.

I have to agree with "mostly bad with some good". It often feels like the author is trying to tell a story from the scifi universe they wanted to create, but instead are shoehorning SW characters into it.

And honestly, how many hidden fucking Jedi can there be?

Donal wrote:I have to agree with "mostly bad with some good". It often feels like the author is trying to tell a story from the scifi universe they wanted to create, but instead are shoehorning SW characters into it.

And honestly, how many hidden fucking Jedi can there be?

Too fucking many. Just as there are too many Executor-class ships laying around. And too many Death Stars.

Elfdart wrote:

Donal wrote:I have to agree with "mostly bad with some good". It often feels like the author is trying to tell a story from the scifi universe they wanted to create, but instead are shoehorning SW characters into it.

And honestly, how many hidden fucking Jedi can there be?

Too fucking many. Just as there are too many Executor-class ships laying around. And too many Death Stars.

Actually that's the problem. When they discover some retard, he has something that is

- 1 Superweapon (May or may not work right)
- 3 Star Destroyers (Never crewed correctly so Han Solo or Luke can take advantage of unheard of subsystem)
- Fanatical morons (Who have less training their garden variety hillbilly.)

I wish the threat was some fucking huge fleet instead of joe blow and something that wouldn't be a threat to the Rebellion in SW.

The EU is just about universally garbage. I have pleasant memories of the Thrawn books but I read those in high school. I dread returning to them and realizing they weren't very good. The storylines in X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and X-Wing Alliance were good. But that's pretty much it. Sturgeon's Law has been outdone. It's understandable, really. This is all work-for-hire storytelling and are shackled to an official continuity that cannot tolerate much innovation.

Star Trek episodes had that very same problem with having to hit a reset button at the end. The expressed goal was to be able to watch any episode from any season in any order and not have any questions. They evolved away from that goal a little in TNG but still hit the reset far too many times. So if the show itself is suffering, you can imagine how awful the comics and novels would be. Utter tosh.

So the proper solution would be to pick a new corner of the universe to work in, create brand new characters who will be contained within their own storylines but borrow the flavor of the main universe. That could work, right? You'd think so but no, more awfulness. They even tried that with some Trek books, created a new ship and crew that wasn't the Enterprise, just another ship in Starfleet having adventures. Awful stuff.

Elfdart wrote: The rest of the EU is a moldering pile of horseshit and while I could go poking around in the pile looking for a few worthwhile bits and pieces, it's not really worth the trouble of getting my hands covered in shit. I can't remember in it was the Courtship of Leia or the Thracken Solo novel that was the last straw, but from that point on I avoid the EU as much as possible and just stick with the movies.

Kevin J. Anderson. *shudder*