I read all the X-Wing books. They're all really good.I was impressed how the writers created such an interesting series around non-core characters. And for the most part they all seem very real and human ... they can die. Though at times the series got TOO far removed from reality, like saying how pilots could be the ideal group to infiltrate and lead an invasion of an enemy state. But otherwise, thoroughly enjoyable. Sad that these are getting tossed aside.
Comment has been collapsed.
I haven't read much of the EU, but I remember reading a book about the various bounty hunters you see in the empire strikes back, with all of them searching for Han Solo. I thought it was really cool to see some backstory for IG88/Dengar/Etc
Comment has been collapsed.
Heya Dhoom...I think you mean Tales of the Bounty Hunters? That was a fairly good story, and most importantly it saved Boba Fett from what as a stupidly ignoble death. Han Solo may be my favorite overall character but, come on, wacking one of the galaxy's greatest bounty hunters into the sarlacc pit by (literal) blind luck was just plain silly.
I actually just reread Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina after almost 20 years, still some very enjoyable stories in there.
Comment has been collapsed.
Lots of people tend to have fanboners for Thrawn but I don't think he is honestly as well done as a character that people tend to make out.
EDIT: Also notice that quite a lot of the "Old Star Wars EU" tends to be rather depressing in places and dare I say it.... GrimdarK? Then again it does contain an Ewok member of Rogue Squadron...... so yeah.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well they killed a fan favorite for one... that might be one of the main reasons that EU got tucked under the rug since Disney wants to use him on the next films, I am glad of his return :]
Comment has been collapsed.
Good point. That death impacted all the core characters from pretty much right after the original film trilogy. I didn't think of that. Yeah ... if they want him in the next films ... that makes a huge proportion of EU invalid. Excellent point there.
Comment has been collapsed.
Lots of death and destruction comes after Endor, fuckloads of Imperial Superweapons wrecking the galaxy, and when things finally seem to start settling down the Vong invade and come in basically killing everything. That and the New Republic is rather short lived.
Comment has been collapsed.
Someone with WH avatar says there was a lot of death in SW? O_o
Anyway, I had pretty different feeling. Heroes always win, no one dies, protagonists are always right, superweapons are destroyed in 20 min, and Vong were a threat only thanks to utterly inept Republic tactics. In WH40K terms, it's like Ciaphas Cain stopped Black Crusade, Hive Fleet or Waagh every book, only guy that died would be pluck IG recruit #8950398, and Tyranids would be totally defeated in 15 book "epic" series...
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah actually you pretty much nailed in on the head lol.
Also seriously like where are the Empire pulling all these Superweapons from? It''s more like a Futurama Parody with the Professor having loads of Doomsday device.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, the Superweapon of the day plots really got old to me, and compared to some I have read very little of the EU. How many were there? Death Star I and II, Kevin J. Anderson gave us the Sun Crusher, the Death Star prototype, and Darksaber (technically a Hutt using former Imperial advisers), the World Devastators, the Eclipse Star Destroyer....am I missing anything else built by the Empire?
Cutting out the Empire, I am sure there are several more Superweapons just sitting around as well.
The whole constantly throwing Superweapons around plot lines is specifically why I tend to prefer the minimalist approach by Zahn, though I agree that he and others do sometimes go to the far extreme as well (3 million Clone Troopers in the entire galaxy)...
Comment has been collapsed.
Galaxy gun, Soverign Star Destroyers, some force storms I think? Oh there's loads....
Comment has been collapsed.
The things you describe, though, are from a single comic, Dark Empire. It was so over the top authors needed new superweapon every 20 pages to top last one. The entire rest of EU has less than that, so there's that. It's like saying Warhammer is bad because Soul Drinkers suck.
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, if you count Imperial Remnant/and or Maw Irregular Fleet... The Remnant had developed a nanokiller by 41 ABY that could technically be tailored as narrowly or broadly as one wanted, such as targeting any clones who might still be alive that far out, or an entire genetic caste of an insectoid race, as well as dispersed with ease on planets to make them a death trap for those species/people. Then there's the whole Metal-Crystal Phase Shifter that was designed in the Maw Installation, and later deployed to most of Daala's fleet at the Battle of Fondor that same year, where it was used to great effect to quite literally cause ships to collapse in on themselves.
Comment has been collapsed.
+1. The Emperor using a non-human as part of a secret, critical taskforce? Thrawn using art as a means by which to identify weaknesses? The books were good and did a great job capturing much of the feel of the original trilogy films, but have to agree with you on the character.
Comment has been collapsed.
Eh, if you look at prequel Trilogy, Palpatine uses a lot of aliens with special abilities as parts of his staff. That part of Thrawn Trilogy was vindicated. As for art - we never learn if he actually did anything with it, or if it was just carefully cultivated lie to throw his potential enemies off track. He beat plenty of people without ever looking at their favourite pictures, did he not?
Comment has been collapsed.
I wonder what he would make of that huge poster of a bikini model taped to my ceiling ...
"This species ... not worth conquering."
Comment has been collapsed.
Yub yub, LT Ketch reporting for duty. You do realize there never was a Ketch though, right?It was a just a joke played by Wes Janson on his best friend Wedge:), in the first Wraith Squadron book.
As a kid reading the Timothy Zahn trilogy I was fascinated by Thrawn because he was so different from Vader and the Emperor. I reread the trilogy once as a young adult and thought that it still held up very well and that Thrawn was still a great antagonist but not the god-like being from my teens.
The EU got progressively, well, stupider. FFS in Darksaber a Hutt crimelord was building a Death Star-style superlaser to control the galaxy.Yeah. Dumb. Plus it saw the death of a quietly noble character, Crix Madine, who quite literally died for no better reason than to add gravity to an empty and forgettable plot. It's not surprising though considering it was written by an author I loathe, Kevin J. Anderson(he wrote the execrable Jedi Academy trilogy which featured a different deus ex machina, the Suncrusher). He managed to ruin two wonderful mythologies, Star Wars and Dune.
Comment has been collapsed.
If I get X-Wing want to make the Kettch Flying School?
Comment has been collapsed.
Like ramming Super Star Destroyers into Torpedo Spheres cause an Admiral has a hissy fit?
Comment has been collapsed.
Way to go for an obscure reference, I actually had to look that one up, first published in the Adventure Journal which I used to subscribe to in the '90s. Although its latest mention was in Essential Guide to Warfare, which I have only begun to read in ebook form. Where did you learn of Grunger et al?
Comment has been collapsed.
I always thought the darksaber was always intentionally a shitty superweapon that was bound to fail as it was shoddily constructed, and never did any real damage whatsoever, basically just so the author could tell funny skits involving the designer of the death star
Comment has been collapsed.
Could be, but I find Anderson's work with the SW:EU in general so uneven that in retrospect I cannot help but cringe when I think about DS.
Also, is your avatar that one British actor, Ray something? Has been in some good movies like the Departed?
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes, it's Ray Winstone, great sounding actor who was in so much stuff, this is him from Sexy Beast. The stuff Anderson wrote about the Jedi Academy was very important for the expanded universe as it gave Luke something to do and set things up for so many future novels and characters, and the Tales from the X series wasn't as good in every story, but had some fun with the side characters you just saw to the side in all the films. Plus Admiral Daala didn't take any shit from anyone and basically killed off all the imperial warlords to tie up those series of storylines, which if you liked the X Wing books you could enjoy or hate.
I tried to read some of his Dune books though and found them a real slog to get through.
Comment has been collapsed.
Winstone, that's it, good actor indeed.
I am fully aware of how important the lore that Anderson wrote is to the overall SW saga; in fact that's my very issue with him being such a lackluster writer who ran out of ideas,ruined some great characters, and introduced some really awful ones. Daala was decent as far as SW villains go, although I wish she had been killed off before she became such a pathetic echo of her former self, especially following the Gavrisom-Pellaeon Treaty.
The Tales series were some of my favorites but Anderson just edited those for better writers, contributing, I think, one to each anthology.
Like I said before, when I first read the JA trilogy at about 14 nostalgia was very high and my tastes were less refined than they are now. I simply made the mistake of trying to reread them a few years ago despite having a "Bad feeling about this".
Yes, his DUNE books with Herbert's son totally ruined the setting imo, trying to re-cast the seminal series as standard SF rather than the masterwork it was.
Comment has been collapsed.
Good: Darth Plagueis, KoTOR 1+2, Infinities, Genndy CW, Son of Dathomir ( half Canon, half Legends? Both?), Outbound Flight, Republic Commando, Han Solo trilogy, some Dark Horse comics, Dark Forces stories, Crimson Empire, Robot Chicken Star Wars 1-3.
Bad: Droids, Ewoks, Holiday Special, Dark Empire, The Courtship of Princess Leia, the Crystal Star, Masters of Teras Kasi, Jedi Trial.
Comment has been collapsed.
Some of my favoutites when it comes to EU books are the Thrawn Trilogy, Han Solo trilogy, Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter, the MedStar books and Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina. Some comics are really good too.
As for games.. Tie Fighter is my favourite game of all time. That and the KotOR games, are the ones that really stick out.
Worst? .. That Star Wars dance off thing for the kinect.. And the holiday special.... Noo.. Just... NOOOO!
Comment has been collapsed.
If you have a joystick then you should definitely try Tie Fighter, it's fantastic. Great story, greater gameplay, great music :)
Comment has been collapsed.
Rebellion is one of my favorites too, if they had married the diplomacy system to the overall combat aesthetic of Empire at War then they might very well have created an entirely new genre of strategy games.
I second the X-wing series. You can find them all on gog.com now, re-released and fully updated to work on modern systems.There are even mods to improve the graphics for most, especially X-wing Alliance.
Comment has been collapsed.
I HATED the whole New Jedi Order series. It dragged on and on and on. The Solo sons were mainly spoiled, angsty brats. And in my view, the whole Yuuzhang Vong species felt a little too ... organic, unlike the rest of the universe that seemed to be based on technology.
I think I got to Book 8 or 9 ... the one where the younger of the two Solo boys is stranded and hunted ... and just gave up.
Honestly, I think the entire Star Wars universe would be better off if whoever is in charge just said, "We're not cutting out all of it. Some of it was really good and we love it. Instead we're going to go through and selectively and surgically cut out the stuff that was total crap and pretend that stuff never happened."
Comment has been collapsed.
The sickest thing is that because the movies MUST be canon, Jar-Jar Binks survives the purge. Ugh. The injustice.
Comment has been collapsed.
I'll admit, I never read the New Jedi Order stuff, I just remember hearing that the Yuuzhang Vong were horribly written, with their force cloak being inconsistent on how it works from book to book and so on.
The hard part with picking and choosing is that so much of the EU built up on itself, so while there are a few things I'd like to see become canon again, I can see why they'd want to just start from scratch. I believe currently the only canon stuff is the movies + Clone Wars and Rebels, though perhaps they will reintroduce old favorites over the years.
Comment has been collapsed.
You missed on one of three best SW books ever written. Yes, later half of NJO is crap, but there are 2 books by Wraith Squadron author and one about Vergere that perfectly capture the spirit of movies. Reading these 3 made NJO worth it (but skip everything after them, it's utter manure).
Comment has been collapsed.
I'll dig those out. Thanks for the recommendations!
Comment has been collapsed.
Specifically, Rebel Dream, Rebel Stand and Traitor. I am not surprised you gave up, though, book 9 and 10 were meh and what followed after Traitor was IMHO garbage. I read every SW book up to that point and NJO ending/Swarm trilogy made me gave up on SW entirely :(
Comment has been collapsed.
Best: Revan Era. KOTOR I & II
Worst: Star Wars Republic Commando Cliffhanger ending. Also Chewbacca dies in one of the books.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, that whole scrapping the canon thing was a pretty dick move. That's all my input on this thread.
Comment has been collapsed.
Especially since it was done solely for the purpose of making money, not because they deemed it all unfit to be part of SW cannon. now all the writers of all the Star Wars novels have to pay a percentage of their earnings to Disney.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yep. Disney is a cool beast; but it's still a beast nonetheless that must be fed tons of fucking money because all it does is hemorrhage money; never-ending cycle.
Comment has been collapsed.
WTF is wrong with the Ewoks? I really don't get why people hate them.
Comment has been collapsed.
The best for me are the stories portrayed n the Jedi Knight video game series, about Kyle Katarn, Luke, The Jedi Academy and their pupils., as well as the novels about the Old Republic , Darth Bane and the birth of the modern Sith lords and..yeah..I liked The Clone Wars animated series too. Worst? I dunna...there is a lot of garbage
Comment has been collapsed.
Anything in the Old Republic Era honestly, i find everything about it much more interesting than anything related to the actual movies, both the old trilogy and the new one, don't get me wrong i like them i just like the EU better. You had mandalorians, Jedi that acted like righteous knights not the mostly bored and complacent diplomats of the clone wars era, galactic wars, strange sith powers and weird connections to the force and the Sith themselves, so many interesting Sith with none of that angst ridden emo bullshit they pulled with Anakin. Revan is probably my favorite sith, tho i guess that's also because i'm such a KOTOR 1&2 fanboy xD
Comment has been collapsed.
Wait so KotR is no longer canon? Aren't they still supporting The Old Republic MMO? Surely they can't be supporting something that is no longer canon? Revan/HK-47 are in the MMO so surely their exploits in KotR 1 and the Exile in 2 survive and all the backstory that goes with them?
Comment has been collapsed.
7 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by looseangel
1,480 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by FranckCastle
43 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by Chris76de
15,519 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by InSpec
37 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by drschnell
1 Comments - Last post 2 hours ago by LonelyBoy
1,105 Comments - Last post 4 hours ago by FreeFall
112 Comments - Last post 5 minutes ago by freshVeggie
1,428 Comments - Last post 20 minutes ago by pizzahut
2,430 Comments - Last post 34 minutes ago by lionheart987
879 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by doodlehasdoodles
8 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by Mayanaise
27 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by Kyog
30 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by ionface
The old EU was declared non-canon awhile ago, to much nerdrage. Some bits of it, like almost anything by Zahn or the X-Wing series have been sorely missed, but there are also huge swaths of the old canon that people just kind of felt embarrassed by.
My question is, what would you guys consider the Best and Worst of the old Expanded Universe?
Also, have this.
X.
Comment has been collapsed.