What is your overall opinion of the EU

[Darth Yan]

The thrawn trilogy actually stays good Jollyreaper. and KOTOR is also Pretty damn sweet

[starfury]

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.

The Only I really liked about the EU was the various Ships and other vehicles, whatever to flesh out the forces of the rebellion/Empire that the movies simply doesn't have the time to do, like the Assault Gunboat/Tie Avenger and Dark Empires's Heavy ships which Fractalsponge interpreted as it made the military of both powers more well rounded, But in terms of actual stories, only the Thrawn stuff was remotely interesting or Dark Empire/Tales of Jedi for thes shining ships and costumes nothing more

[Darth Yan]

I liked ulic qel droma's arc; starting out noble only to become what he despised, and ultimately realizing what he's become only after murdering his own brother. Yes the redemption arc was rather cheesy, but it was touching as well and helped wrap Ulic's arc up.

[jollyreaper]

The big problem is that the EU stuff lost the pulpy influence. Star Wars and Indiana Jones are pretty much exactly the same kind of storytelling. Don't let the ponderous Joseph Campbell stuff fool you. Both projects were love-letters to the classic serials. You had larger than life heroes, larger than life villains. You can't beat the Nazis for classic arches and the Imperials are crafted in exactly that vein. These stories aren't really realistic because good triumphs over evil, even if there might be some pain along the way. There's laughter to go along with the tears.

Of all the scifi projects that have come out after Star Wars, I'd say Firefly probably hit the closest to the mark. To describe it in a nutshell to anyone who hadn't heard of it, all you have to say is "Imagine if they did a TV show bout what Han and Chewie were doing before A New Hope." Eyes light up and people say "I'm totally there." You have your great characters, your laughter, your tears, fighting and 'splosions. It's all included.

Mapping out a storyline for after ROTJ, you have to start with the broad political strokes and that's what frames the story. So far you had the Roman Republic in space taken over and turned into an Empire. You had heroes and patriots fighting to restore the republic. Against that story you include the fall of an order of mystic warriors and the eventual redemption of an evil man by a son who embraced the path of honor and light he'd turned from. Where do you go after that? The Empire wouldn't have fallen in a day. Palpatine ran things as a cult of personality and was not the sort to plan for a chain of succession. Imperial governors would struggle for supremacy. The New Republic would be one faction amongst many. And not every imperial governor would be entirely evil.

So that's the political situation in the galaxy. You've got the New Republic trying to expand its influence, winning systems over one at a time. No reborn emperor, no caches of super-duper secret weapons, none of this sun crusher BS. A Thrawn makes sense. Attacks by imperial warlords against border worlds makes sense. And amidst this turmoil you can tell your stories. Luke tries to reestablish the Jedi Order. That implies a quest to find as much of the lost lore of the Jedi as he can. The EU stories always made Luke out to be a whiny putz. Hated it. In the meantime, Han and Leia marry. That makes sense. Having kids, that's good. Putting together a government on a shoe-string like this is tough. Leia is going to be hip-deep in the politics of the restored senate. There's going to be plenty of special interests to wrestle with. Just look at the post-revolution history of the United States and the story ideas are there for the taking. They're going to have to strong-arm banks and merchants for financing, watch out for.

And this is the point where the heroes from the original trilogy would assume positions of power, be the great worthies, and we meet new young upstarts who will be the next generation of heroes. Good fiction that spans generations does this naturally. You're introduced to the plucky young LT who looks up to the Old Man in charge of the unit and in time he matures and takes command of his own unit. There are new plucky LT's under his command.

What ruins the EU is that there's absolutely no editorial direction. Lucas doesn't care. But there's generally a little more attention paid to the overall storyline in shared universes like a Warhammer 40K or Battletech. The editor at the company decides what the broad moves will be and directs how the fluff will be written. This keeps everything canon. Faction X and Y will be at war? Great. These characters will be involved. Use them wisely.

That Star Wars Legacy stuff looks absolutely pants. Cade Skywalker? More like Sammy Hagar Walker. Dumb character designs, dumb characterization, dumb everything.

[Havok]

Cade Skywalker? More like Sammy Hagar Walker.

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I mean, the rest of your post is spot on, but... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!

[Darth Yan]

In latest EU news, Mon Calamari was rendered completely uninhabitable and 80% of it's population was wiped out by a minor ranking sith scienteist named Vul Isen. Isen's not even a dark lord and he still owns them in the evil department. the GA and IR were able to save about 20%. Cade's final presence in Legacy is taking Isen down, as it seems the Sith are rearing up to rip itself to shreds.

[jollyreaper]

So it sounds like the EU remains awful.

[Raesene]

In latest EU news, Mon Calamari was rendered completely uninhabitable and 80% of it's population was wiped out by a minor ranking sith scienteist named Vul Isen. Isen's not even a dark lord and he still owns them in the evil department. the GA and IR were able to save about 20%. Cade's final presence in Legacy is taking Isen down, as it seems the Sith are rearing up to rip itself to shreds.

Isen was ordered to perform this and subsequent acts of the Final Protocol by the Sith Regent acting for Darth Krayt, so he's not just running aroud and annihilating populations on a whim by himself. the plan was to force the GA out of hiding by this act to finally destroy its last major fleet.

Who is Sammy Hagar Walker ?

[jollyreaper]

Cade Dillweed Skywalker


Sammy Hagar of Van Halen

[Darth Hoth]

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, shit. Most single novels or series suffer a lot from the fannish mind attempting to integrate them into a coherent whole, when of course the authors never intended any such thing. (Well, that, or did it so utterly badly that I would be doing them a favour thinking that they simply did not care.) They are not usually as bad singularly as when contrasted to each other.

Surprisingly, most of the best EU so far has been comics. Dark Empire, most of the Tales of the Jedi arc (before KJA got total control, and the villains degenerated completely), various sundry Dark Horse stories . . .

[Coiler]

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

A mixed bag, with more bad than good. There's potential, but most of it is squandered by lack of imagination and poor writing.

[Ronsu]

Horseshit with some good parts.

Most of the EU just proves that Star Wars doesn´t work outside the context of the mono-myth. With the whole system set up to merch shit for the $$$, there´s no real incentive for consistency or quality control which leads to authors with free hands to rave about their own hang-ups and pet themes. And really, why would they care, the legion of inclusionist fanboys will eat up any old shit that has the Star Wars license. Also, SW is big with the kids, and as any demographic-minded suit will tell you, 'Kids Don´t Think' and will sway their parents in the end. (Note: I think this is a shit attitude, kids get under-estimated for no good reason and do deserve more challenging media.)

I´ve almost turned into an OT purist, although I am interested in some books I haven´t read and that aren´t localised here (the original Han Solo- and Lando-trilogies, Death Star and Luke Skywalker And The Shadows of Mindor).

ROTS is a guilty pleasure of mine. Yeah, it´s extensively silly but I think it works as a subversion and a more direct satire of the old serials like Flash Gordon, Jet-Ace Logan, Commando Cody and the like. For Grudd´s sake, Gen. Grievous is literally a moustache-twirling Snidely Whiplash-type, all that´s missing is Padmé on some train tracks. The movie reveals that the OT is the aftermath of a typical Space Adventure careening to a horribly Bad End; the golden haired, fearless Hero falls right in the clutches of the Evil Overlord and the valiant space troopers in shining armour murder the noble, though arrogant, Knights of Justice, helping set up a fascist Space Empire (blind obedience to authority and militarism is bad, kids) . And so it´s up to the next generation to survive in a universe gone Wrong and bring the space-adventure serial narrative to it´s proper Good End. (Jeez, this is nerdy )
The movie has problems to be sure, but hey, I can glean some entertainment out of it.

TPM and AOTC are irredeemable.

[Darksun]

(Note: I think this is a shit attitude, kids get under-estimated for no good reason and do deserve more challenging media.)

I thought this point worth belabouring.

This can be seen in the way Japan as oppossed to the western world treat cartoons. In Japan cartoons can be for mature audiences with everything that implies, where as in the west they are seen as purely for kids and as such plot, continueity and characterization can all suffer (for as you said, for no good reason) leaving something unsatifsying when examined by any reasonable intelligence. This is demonstrated in the ways many anime series are hacked apart and glued together again for western release with little regard to the aformentioned.

As for the EU i think im with most people here in the opinon it varies. Some of it is utter trash some of it is fairly good. My favourite was always the Tie Fighter game and the Steele chronicles.

[jollyreaper]

Bear in mind that in the early days we only saw the best anime coming over here so it all seemed brilliant. Now we're exposed to everything coming from Japan and we see the sugar along with the shit. It remains damn hard to find good new anime. So much is mass-market drivel solely designed to move merchandise to otaku. The better stuff still exists to mass-market shit but manage to still tell good stories.

[Coyote]

Mostly crap with a few gems included. The lack of overall strategic/editorial direction hampered a lof of it, and we had a seriously bad case of "Star Trek Novel-itis" for a long time. Actually, it was like all the Star Trek novel writers were trying to do Tom Clancy in a science-fiction setting, using Star Wars characters and references.

And I have to say, the absolute dogged insistence of many in the Fan Community to forcibly find ways to shoehorn every bad idea, halfassed character, and poorly-drawn random Star Destroyer in as some coherent and plausible part of the puzzle only makes it worse. Ewoks cartoons? No need to include them. Anything from Vonda McIntyre? Didn't happen. That blurry spaceship way back there? It's just a badly drawn Star Destroyer, not a subclass of a derivative model from the office of the bureau of redundancies department. Nothing to see. Move along.

[Darth Yan]

I actually feel it's pretty good overall (although revelation was a steaming pile of horseshit.) Also The Fate of the Jedi is actually fairly decent (they reveal what happened to callista (the big bad of fotj abeloth murdered her and absorbed her essence))

[The Vortex Empire]

What I'd like to see the EU do is drop the whole focus on the Jedi, Sith, and galaxy threatening enemies. Try making a story people can really relate to. Have a story about some shopkeeper from Coruscant who joins the Imperial Army looking for adventure, something original.

[Darth Yan]

they are making one about a rising holostar rising from poverty to riches. It's called Holostar, by a woman named Mara Kathryn Bonhaff

[SCRawl]

I'm in the "I don't care if it exists" camp. I really don't care what the official LFL policy is -- the movies are the only thing that matters.

[jollyreaper]

they are making one about a rising holostar rising from poverty to riches. It's called Holostar, by a woman named Mara Kathryn Bonhaff

Hannah Montana Skywalker. I can't fraking wait.

[Darth Yan]

dude, why are you being a pessimist. It's not a skywalker, and it might actually be good. it's not the galaxy wide threat thing they usually do

[Ghost Rider]

dude, why are you being a pessimist. It's not a skywalker, and it might actually be good. it's not the galaxy wide threat thing they usually do

Would it make a difference if he said "Britney Solo-Spears"? The point he's making is the idea is asinine that they are making a novel out of an idea that is pure pop media. And given the track record of novels of that sort let alone the quality that passes in said SW properties, he's not being pessimistic enough in this regard.

[Professor Dire]

I agree with many in this topic in that EU is a fairly rank smelling pile with some
jems hidden in it. Jollyreaper hit the nail on the head as to my thoughts on what
should have gone down after Ep VI.

For gaming reference I have a list of SW projects I acknowledge to keep things from
getting too bogged down.

It is as follows:

Tales of the Jedi
KOTOR Series
>Ep I TPM
>Ep II AOTC
The Clone Wars (Cartoon/generalized)
Clone Wars (CGI Film)
Clone Wars (CGI Series)
>Ep III ROTS
Han Solo and the Corporate Sector
The Force Unleashed Series
>Ep IV ANH
Dark Forces Series
Tales of Mos Eisly Cantina
>Ep V TESB
Shadows of the Empire
>Ep VI ROTJ
Tales of the Bounty Hunters
Heir To The Empire
Rogue Squadron Series (And it's offspring)

Honorable mention: Most of WEG's work.

Beyond that, forget it. The Charon were a far more palatable
version of the concept The Vong tried to be and I wonder still to this
day if the vong started as an inept redigestion of those old RPG modules.

[Crazy_Vasey]

The EU is one of the reference sources for why you shouldn't try and spin out a series past the natural end of the story. Well, if you care about things like quality. I'm sure it made a shitload of cash and that's what really speaks in this world.

[Darth Yan]

The things that currently stand out are abeloth (abomination and psycopathe) and vul isen (callous monster and a genuine threat.) The old republic and fotj are actually shaping up to be good.