When do you think the EU jumped the shark?

Coiler · Post by **Coiler** » 2008-02-13 04:52pm

Well, when did you?

I believe it was when the NJO series came out.

Ritterin Sophia · Post by **Ritterin Sophia** » 2008-02-13 05:01pm

First jumped the shark or major memorable jumps.

If it's the latter then NJO, Yuuhzan Vong, the entirety of the Legacy of the Force Novels, anything by KT after the original Republic Commando novel, 5/8/12km Executor, hugely inadequate weapon counts for Star Destroyers of all types.

General Soontir Fel · Post by **General Soontir Fel** » 2008-02-13 05:03pm

It didn't. Or at least, not in its entirety.

Post-ROTJ EU jumped the shark, because the writers were lazy, and kept rehashing the same tired plot points, with the same characters. NJO was more of a symptom than a cause. I'd say the real problem is the stupid background set up by KJA in the Jedi Academy Trilogy and Young Jedi Knights series.

In other eras, it's still doing quite well.

General Schatten wrote:First jumped the shark or major memorable jumps.

If it's the latter then NJO, Yuuhzan Vong, the entirety of the Legacy of the Force Novels, anything by KT after the original Republic Commando novel, 5/8/12km Executor, hugely inadequate weapon counts for Star Destroyers of all types.

Uh-huh. The EU was always minimalist, with a few exception. The Thrawn Trilogy and Allston's X-Wing novels are still good. On the other hand, the non-minimalist Dark Empire series introduces the stupidest plot point ever with Palpatine's clones,

Minimalism wasn't what killed the EU.

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2008-02-13 05:21pm

Well jumping the shark comes from when the Fonz, on Happy Days, LITERALLY jumped a shark... on water skis, in his leather jacket... and Speedo tight shorts.

It's when a series just get so silly that it is, well... silly.

As dumb and trite as the EU has always been, it hasn't quite had that "Jump The Shark" moment.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2008-02-13 05:27pm

Even though I haven't followed the post-RotJ EU for awhile, the moment when I said "Wow, this series is irredeemable" was hearing about how Mara Jade died.

She's Luke Skywalker's fucking wife, and though she wasn't in a movie she was one of the more interesting characters in the universe (and whenever an author badly mishandled her another managed to redeem her). She deserved to go out in a huge fucking blaze of glory, a la Chewbacca or Borsk.

Plus, out-of-universe, this Traviss woman's antics annoy the piss out of me. So I guess you could blame it all on her...if Denning, Allston, and KJA were writing the LotF series I would probably be following it, but Traviss just kills my desire to read Star Wars.

TC Pilot · Post by **TC Pilot** » 2008-02-13 05:29pm

Dark Nest trilogy.

PREDATOR490 · Post by **PREDATOR490** » 2008-02-13 05:39pm

I will got with the aftermath of the NJO. I believe that is the Dark Nest Trilogy but I havent read any of it and dont care to.

NJO seemed like the perfect way to finish Star Wars with the idea that the 'torch' has been passed onto the next generation who are going to repeat the same mistakes as the first so in a cycle of peace and war, we dont need to write 50 more books to do it. Which apparantly they are in the process of doing anyway...

NomAnor15 · Post by **NomAnor15** » 2008-02-13 05:47pm

I don't think "the EU" as a whole ever really jumped. There have always been books in it that we pretty good, and books that really sucked. There wasn't really one book/moment/whatever that killed it. Although, KT's books are clearly the best candidate if forced to pick.

Post by **Coyote** » 2008-02-13 05:53pm

All the way back to fucking Crystal Shard. I read that and knew my beloved GFFA was taking its first swirl around the bowl.

Fiji_Fury · Post by **Fiji_Fury** » 2008-02-13 05:56pm

Kevin J. Anderson did a terrible number on the post ROTJ EU by writing the Jedi Academy Trilogy. Not only did he deliver Kyp Durron, a Force-Sensitive that was more powerful than Luke Skywalker (because that would make him cool or something), but super-super weapon that could destroy... STARS. Fuck planets. They're too small to worry about.

Setting aside Anderson's terrible writting, those two elements were so incredibly stupid it still makes my head hurt. I thought they were retarded as a teenager when I first bought the books, let alone now. There is some horrible EU written work out there, but Sun Crusher and Durron qualify to me as shark jumping.

Karmic Knight · Post by **Karmic Knight** » 2008-02-13 05:57pm

Coyote wrote:All the way back to fucking Crystal Shard. I read that and knew my beloved GFFA was taking its first swirl around the bowl.

Was that the book with the gold plated extra-galactic thing? Or do I have two things confused?

Publius · Post by **Publius** » 2008-02-13 06:02pm

It's The Crystal Star. Yes, the Waru was one of the main villains of the book.

This New Jedi Order and beyond have been wretched beyond words, with precious few exceptions.

Jim Raynor · Post by **Jim Raynor** » 2008-02-13 06:10pm

It's hard to pinpoint an exact shark-jumping moment in a series that has progressively taken so many downward steps, and which has been far from stellar for a long time.

My personal "jump the shark" moment was when I heard the plot of the Legacy series of novels. "Let's do the prequel trilogy AGAIN, with Jacen subbing in for Anakin and the Confederation instead of the Confederacy!"

There has been a lot of stupid ass shit in the EU before, but a nine-book series of BLATANT rehashing was too much for me to even consider. Screw the post-ROTJ EU, I'm not reading anymore of it knowing where it's going.

Post by **Vympel** » 2008-02-13 06:33pm

There's no one moment for me. I'm more concerned with the complete lack of quality control. For example, there are umpteen versions of the background of events from the films (eg. the fate of Maul's Sith Infiltrator, how the Death Star plans were stolen, how the Imperial shuttle was stolen) because no one checks to see if they're rehasing old ground.

Never mind the just plain stupid plot points they insist are canon, and keep reminding us are canon. Because some fan, somewhere, is going to get really offended if someone came out and said:-

"No, Glove of Vader is not canon. What are you, fucking stupid?"

Ritterin Sophia · Post by **Ritterin Sophia** » 2008-02-13 06:49pm

General_Soontir_Fel wrote:Minimalism wasn't what killed the EU.

That's your opinion, I have my own.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2008-02-13 07:11pm

Probably Planet of Twilight, or the death of Chewbacca.

Battlehymn Republic · Post by **Battlehymn Republic** » 2008-02-13 07:12pm

Vympel wrote:"No, Glove of Vader is not canon. What are you, fucking stupid?"

You have to admit, though. Abel Peña has done a pretty bang-up job fixing it.

Post by **Vympel** » 2008-02-13 07:39pm

Battlehymn Republic wrote: You have to admit, though. Abel Peña has done a pretty bang-up job fixing it.

Eh? Explain. Didn't know any "fixing" had gone on.

General Soontir Fel · Post by **General Soontir Fel** » 2008-02-13 08:20pm

General Schatten wrote:
General_Soontir_Fel wrote:Minimalism wasn't what killed the EU.
That's your opinion, I have my own.

Are you a fan of the Dark Empire series? No minimalism there. Just Palpatine's clones conjuring up Force storms, a "lightning gun" that can fire in space, Palpatine trying to possess Anakin Solo before he's even born, Boba Fett's return, and Han shooting Palpatine with a blaster.

Oh, and the TIE tank.

Darth Fanboy · Post by **Darth Fanboy** » 2008-02-13 08:41pm

For me the EU is less like a shark and more like a many humped camel. The early EU stuff was nothing I could get terribly interested in but I did like the Thrawn Trilogy and Allston's Wraith Squadron Books. Loathing KJA's abortion of a trilogy.

The Clone Wars/Republic era stuff was very good when it came out, then it sucked for a while when the comics focused on Quinlan Vos, and got good again when they branched out and followed the whole of the Clone Wars. It plummeted again with the Legacy* Comics and Novels came out, but Dark Times has been really good at the same time.

(*Someone at Lucasbooks must have thought the word "legacy" was too cool NOT to use for two completely different lousy fucking series!)

Elfdart · Post by **Elfdart** » 2008-02-13 08:43pm

I think the circling of the drain began many years ago, when Marvel Comics had a giant rabbit bounty hunter. I bullshit you not. As a grade school kid, I thought "What the fuck is this? Watership Down?"

I wanted to kick my own balls for wasting 40 cents on that piece of shit. I wanted to get my eyes gouged out with an olive fork after reading the paperback where Han Solo chases Princess Leia to a tropical planet...

The problem is, I can't put down a book until I have finished it -no matter how bad it sucks. And boy did that one suck! First of all, like most people who watched ROTJ, I kinda figured Han and Leia to be a couple. So the idea that he would have to court her all over again made me think "Jeez! What an asshole this writer is!". The only good thing about that pile of shit and the other piles known as the EU is that they made be appreciate how great the movies were. Not only in comparison (hell, good stories suffer in comparison), but the fact that I was willing to so much as touch anything with "Star Wars" on the cover after the EU pissed on my sneakers was a tribute to the movies.

All the other EU stuff is just so much fan fiction -only without the quality control.

Post by **Vympel** » 2008-02-13 10:00pm

Dark Empire is a good comic, but it's not a very good Star Wars story, it's grandiose nature aside, IMO. But then, George Lucas apparently loved it, the story goes.

Dark Empire II and Empire's End (ie. some of what General_Soontir_Fel refers to) are just plain shit.

JGregory32 · Post by **JGregory32** » 2008-02-13 11:08pm

For me the time I stopped caring about the EU was just after the Thrawn cycle, I thought it was one of the more spectactular ways Star Wars could have ended. It's a *bleeping* slave revolt by an entire race of assassins due to Leia being the Daughter of Vader. Note the capital letters there people becasue that's a plot point that deserves more attention.

I was able to stomach the first Jedi Academy novel but the second just made me want my money back.

Sadly I would not return to Star Wars until KOTOR came out, it renewed my faith only to tarnish it with the disgrace that KOTOR II was.
Note to game publishers, if your game is missing massive amounts of planed content, contains game breaking bugs that can be triggered by OPENING DOORS please spend a little more time on it. We would rather have a late product than a shitty one.

Darth Fanboy · Post by **Darth Fanboy** » 2008-02-14 01:04am

Vympel wrote:Dark Empire is a good comic, but it's not a very good Star Wars story, it's grandiose nature aside, IMO. But then, George Lucas apparently loved it, the story goes.

Dark Empire II and Empire's End (ie. some of what General_Soontir_Fel refers to) are just plain shit.

DE would have been much better if there had been some kind of way to do it without resurrecting the Emperor. But the idea of the Warlords putting their shit aside and actually getting back to the business of fighting the rebels was welcome, I thought the NR between Bakura and up until right before Heir to the Empire had it way too easy and this sort of made up for it.

Ritterin Sophia · Post by **Ritterin Sophia** » 2008-02-14 01:22am

General_Soontir_Fel wrote:
General Schatten wrote:
General_Soontir_Fel wrote:Minimalism wasn't what killed the EU.
That's your opinion, I have my own.
Are you a fan of the Dark Empire series? No minimalism there. Just Palpatine's clones conjuring up Force storms, a "lightning gun" that can fire in space, Palpatine trying to possess Anakin Solo before he's even born, Boba Fett's return, and Han shooting Palpatine with a blaster.

Oh, and the TIE tank.

Haven't particularly read Dark Empire, and I can't be sure whether the lightning gun claim is true, and from what I know Palpy is killed because some Jedi traps him in his body.