So how are there non-believers in STAR WARS?

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 8:37 pm

Kaelik wrote:
Occluded Sun wrote:To return to the original topic for a moment:

The vast majority of everyday people have never seen a Force user. There are stories that go around about them, but they're not fundamentally different than other kinds of rumors and legends people tell.

Then they all died, or went away at least. So as far as most people know, all those tales about making the Statue of Liberty disappear were just nonsense.
Pretty sure that whole "They were a branch of government" thing makes a bit of a difference. I mean, most people have never seen a supreme court justice, but they still don't doubt their existence.

Are they part of government? I know they were very cozy with government but not that they were full on a branch of the Republic. I always felt they were more like Blackwater or something like that.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 11:19 pm

No one knows exactly. I think Jedi were more like Teutonic order, where they are religious military dudes with some autonomy, and a lot of pull in the government.

Wiseman · Post by **Wiseman** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 6:33 am

I'd consider it something like that. They called themselves the defenders of the republic after all.

Also, Kaelik, since you seem to be defending the EU, can you recommend me some of the good books it has? I've been trying myself but it's been pretty hit and miss.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 7:41 am

Wiseman wrote:I'd consider it something like that. They called themselves the defenders of the republic after all.

Also, Kaelik, since you seem to be defending the EU, can you recommend me some of the good books it has? I've been trying myself but it's been pretty hit and miss.

I've read very little of the EU, but Darth Bane trilogy is one of my favorite books.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 2:12 pm

Wiseman wrote:I'd consider it something like that. They called themselves the defenders of the republic after all.

Also, Kaelik, since you seem to be defending the EU, can you recommend me some of the good books it has? I've been trying myself but it's been pretty hit and miss.

1) I read these books when I was a teenager, so I'm not saying these are literary masterpieces, but as I recall:
The Thrawn trilogy is pretty good, the Hand of Thrawn Duology
The X-Wing series is usually pretty good.
I, Jedi
The Corellia Trilogy maybe?
I can't recall the Black Fleet Crisis being good or bad off hand.
I liked the New Jedi Order (all the Yuhzahn Vong stuff) though it does suffer a bit from the complete about face of the story when executive staff decided that "people would be confused about Anakin Solo and Skywalker, so let's kill off Anakin Solo and have Jacen Solo follow his plotline."
Legacy of the Force is okay, aside from the complete and utter garbage of everything having to do with Jacen Solo, so you may or may not enjoy it.
Fate of the Jedi is pretty good.

I also read all the books for like 7 year olds, and the ones for 14 year olds, the Apprentice series, and I enjoyed them, but they were too kiddy for me at 12 so I have no idea how bad they would be now.

2) The biggest problem is that how much you enjoy the good books is dependent on you having read the shitty books. So for example I would say that nothing written by Kevin J. Anderson is ever good, but if you don't read it, things will be less enjoyable down the line.

Ultimately, if you have better things to do, do them, don't read star wars books, because the sheer time investment to get the most out of them probably makes them just not worth it, when a good part of that is going to be spent reading shit.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 2:14 pm

Longes wrote:I've read very little of the EU, but Darth Bane trilogy is one of my favorite books.

...whuh?

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 5:15 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:
Longes wrote:I've read very little of the EU, but Darth Bane trilogy is one of my favorite books.
...whuh?

Book series'

Hadanelith · Post by **Hadanelith** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 5:51 pm

Kaelik has done a pretty decent summation here, but I'll simplify.

Michael Stackpole: Good.
Aaron Allston: Good.
Timothy Zhan: GOOD.
Jude Watson (the young adult stuff): actually pretty decent.
Karen Traviss: avoid.
Kevin J. Anderson: read the plot on the wiki, set the books on fire.

By series:

X-Wing is excellent.
Thrawn Trilogy, also excellent.
Hand of Thrawn Duology, also excellent.
Jedi Academy Trilogy: Execrable.
Black Fleet Crisis is...bad.
Correllia Trilogy is...not bad.
New Jedi Order is...controversial. Some like it, some hate it (I'm on the hate side).
Everything after NJO is garbage.
Some of the really old stuff is actually pretty good. The Han Solo Trilogy, the Han Solo Adventures, the Lando Calrissian Adventures - those are fun.
Most of the Clone Wars stuff is decent, but anything with 'Republic Commando' attached is misery.
There's a bunch of flailing about with plot that happens between Episode 1 and 2, and most of it is missable.

Oh, and for the love of the Force, avoid Children of the Jedi, Planet of Twilight, and the Crystal Star like the most virulent plague. The first two are written like bad Star Wars hurt/comfort fic, and the last one is a terrible episode of Star Trek. Just...stay away.

That should get you started.

If you want more explanation, or to ask about something specific...I read pretty much every Star Wars novel that was released before maybe 2005. After that, it got spotty. So feel free to ask.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Wed Sep 02, 2015 7:04 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:
Longes wrote:I've read very little of the EU, but Darth Bane trilogy is one of my favorite books.
...whuh?

It's called an omnibus:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16071610-darth-bane

A trilogy can, in fact, be a single book.

Post by **fbmf** » Thu Sep 03, 2015 10:47 am

The Truce at Bakura sucks.

Game On,
fbmf

Aharon · Post by **Aharon** » Thu Sep 03, 2015 3:46 pm

I liked Yoda: Dark Rendezvous by Sean Stewart.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Thu Sep 03, 2015 5:10 pm

Matt Stover's Shatterpoint is probably as good a shared universe novel as I've ever read.

Hadanelith · Post by **Hadanelith** » Thu Sep 03, 2015 8:45 pm

fbmf wrote:The Truce at Bakura sucks.

The Truce at Bakura was built from a marketing plan that never went anywhere. Seriously, they wanted to turn the Ssi-Ruuvi Imperium into a major, galaxy-wide threat. No, it doesn't make any damn sense. Nope, doesn't jive at all with novels that have already been published. And yup, 98% of the nonsense that came up in TaB was never mentioned again. The Ssi-Ruuk do get a mention during the New Jedi Order (as they get completely fucking wrecked), but honestly it would have been better if they'd been completely dropped and ignored for the rest of time.

That said, I don't blame the author too much - her writing was...okay, it was mediocre. But the plot she was handed was a disaster, and there was only so much she could do with it.

In a lot of ways, I see the Truce at Bakura as a trial run for the New Jedi Order. 'Oh noes, scary dogmatic aliens with weird technology from outside of known space are attacking and killing us indiscriminately! We must band together and fight them!'. It's a terrible plotline for Star Wars. It always has been. It always will be. Because it misses the fucking point. This right here? This is the bad side of the Expanded Universe. *sigh*

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Thu Sep 03, 2015 11:32 pm

I really enjoyed the Tales From/Of [The Mos Eisley Cantina/Jabba's Palace/The Bounty Hunters/The Empire/etc] books. They're actually among my favorites. Even though they do have Kevin J. Anderson's name on the cover.

I always thought the Ssi-Ruuk were cooler than the Yuuzan Vong. If not just because they looked like dinosaurs, and their series wasn't 19 books long. But that might be because I largely quit the SW fandom at the point the New Jedi Order books were in like mid-arc and didn't show any signs of ending soon, and Truce at Bakura had already existed when I first joined the fandom.

And I think the ass end of the Expanded Universe is just about anything involving Boba Fett. There's a lot of stupid there but my favorite is one comic where he whips out a lightsaber and duels Darth Vader:

I think they were overcompensating for him dying from a burp gag in Return of the Jedi.

RelentlessImp · Post by **RelentlessImp** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 2:57 am

And I think the ass end of the Expanded Universe is just about anything involving Boba Fett.

I think they were overcompensating for him dying from a burp gag in Return of the Jedi.

I have no idea where the Boba Fett fandom came from, but it was there before they started writing EU stories about him. People fangasmed over Fett so hard when he originally appeared, and I have no idea why. It is unfathomable to me - he was basically the worst bounty hunter in existence. He couldn't capture or kill his targets, and he only captured Han Solo because Darth fucking Vader gave Solo to him for unexplained reasons on Bespin. He was inept and idiotic and the prequels only made it that much worse.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 3:56 am

Fett's appeal comes mostly from being a blank slate people can project whatever they want onto. But there is a genuine seed there. In Empire, when Vader is at the height of his give-no-fucks, Fett is the only person (besides the Emperor) who doesn't get smacked down hard when he interacts with Vader. Vader even shows Fett something like professional courtesy. And because Vader has the audience's respect, some of that rubs off on the characters he shows respect towards.

unnamednpc · Post by **unnamednpc** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 6:35 am

That, and that bitchin' helmet. Mostly the helmet.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 3:59 pm

I'd say that it's the armor.

I really like the costume designs in Star Wars. That extends to the video games and the prequels. It's evocative of pre-industrial armor for knights and samurais and the like but it doesn't go out of its way to slap you with the whole 'it's the space fantasy future!'.

Boba Fett is the equivalent of the Black or Green Knight in terms of that general 'feel'. And that's awesome.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 5:10 pm

Ralph McQuarrie's designs are the shit, man.

Didja know that he did stuff for Star Trek, too?

RelentlessImp · Post by **RelentlessImp** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 5:21 pm

Except in execution, Fett is more the Monty Python Black Knight than the Arthurian Black Knight.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 9:21 am

I have been told that the original plan for Empire Strikes Back was to have the attack on Hoth be made by Imperial jetpack troopers who were going to have the Fett armor. And they decided to nix that idea because it made the Empire seem too "elite" and they ended up going with something clunkier and more brute force themed. Then they had the mock up of the armor and scuffed it up to use as a bounty hunter because they didn't want to throw shit away.

It really is very cool armor.

I have also heard that the entire Sarlac thing was the result of George Lucas throwing a temper tantrum over the fact that a character he didn't think was important and was created extemporaneously for a movie he didn't even direct got so popular. That Fett wasn't really part of his story and so the fact that people made him out to be so cool and important and shit grinded his ass. So he did what any mature writer would do, and as soon as he got the pen back he wrote the character a pathetic death with a small penis.

Given everything else I know about Lucas, this legend seems incredibly plausible.

-Username17

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 3:04 pm

The question, then, is: would Star Wars have been better if it had jetpack troopers instead of Boba Fett and military walkers?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 6:50 pm

I don't think it's contentious to say that Return of the Jedi would have been a better movie if it had been written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan.

-Username17

rasmuswagner · Post by **rasmuswagner** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 8:07 pm

Kaelik wrote:
1) I read these books when I was a teenager, so I'm not saying these are literary masterpieces, but as I recall:
The Thrawn trilogy is pretty good, the Hand of Thrawn Duology

I sincerely doubt that evaluation would survive a re-read.

Hadanelith · Post by **Hadanelith** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 10:49 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:I don't think it's contentious to say that Return of the Jedi would have been a better movie if it had been written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan.

-Username17

If for no other reason than that they would have gone with Wookiees instead of Ewoks.