Hello everyone. I just wanted to start a thread where we could talk about some events that happen in the expanded universe that should have not happened, or maybe should have been executed differently. Don't get me wrong; I absolutely love Star Wars. I just wish that the authors of the books did a little more research or used more common sense/logic when they went to put their ideas onto paper.

For instance, in the Legacy of the Force series. Why did the Bothans decide to fight against the GA? The books lead you to believe that they held the GA responsible for the assasinations of Bothan officials, but they never had proof of this. In fact, Jacen had ordered Lumiya to kill these targets to make it look like Correllian terrorists were behind the attacks.

So, I ask again, why did the Bothans join Corellia? Without the Bothans, the GA would have quelled the uprising and the war would have been over in a heartbeat. Without the war, nothing would have distracted the Jedi from finding out Jacen was seeing Lumiya and then there would have been no Darth Caedus. I really hate it when these authors leave out bits and pieces or just throw facts out the window so that they can convienantly write a story.

Anyways, that's enough ranting on my behalf for now. I just wanted to know if any else out there who have a specific event that thinks could have been approached a different way.

Sincerely,
Jester007

The problem with Dark Empire, is that it and the Thrawn Trilogy was mostly written independent of each other. I also wouldn't say it invalidates his character, at the time he was still had little experience with the darkside and the turn to the darkside thing is vintage Skywalkers. Also Dark Empire and Thrawn Trilogy was the post movie EU at their time so everything else has to break away from them.


The EU that bugs me was Vong. The Idea was ok but the execution was just plain bad.

This is how i feel about the Entire EU personally. Sure some of it is fun (minis games etc) but easily dismissed.

I think the recent stuff like Republic and current comics like Legacy and Dark Times are actually really great. I went about ten years without reading any comics after college and they sucked me back in. But they do muddy the EU a little, just like everything from Dark Empire on, with what must be hundreds of Jedi surviving this supposed purge of the entire Jedi order. If there's all these cheeseballs with lightsabers like Jax Pavan and Ferus Olin kicking around, why does Yoda tell Luke that he's the last of the Jedi?

I don't care for the Vong either, and I'm not a fan of the Thrawn Trilogy (althought Thrawn is a cool character, Mara Jade - not so much). It just didn't feel like Star Wars.

Some of the dialogue in the EU books is particularly horrendus and silly-sounding.

Um...you guys have seen the same Star Wars movies that I've seen, right? I mean, cheesy dialogue and Star Wars pretty much go hand in hand, lol.

Sure, SW books are not as 'high brow' as a lot of other Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels are, but the trick with SW books is that they have to reach a target audience that stretches from young children all the way up to people who are 50+ and grew up with it. That's a ridiculously tough target audience. Somebody like Robert Jordan can fine tune his writings to a more specific age range, and thus the writings seem to fit better. You'll find that most SW books are aimed at the teenage/young adult range most of the time. A few novels like Death Troopers, the Republic Commando series, and the Fate of the Jedi novels are finally feeling like they are better aimed at the 25+ crowd. But like said earlier in the thread, you just have to take what's in the novels with a grain of salt.

And, IMO, if you just brush off all the comics without actually reading them, you're doing yourself a big disservice. The original Tales of the Jedi comics with Exar Kun, Nomi Sunrider, etc., are excellent. The 'Open Season' TPB with Jango Fett is a great one, and the latest Legacy and KOTOR series are absolutely phenomenal.

I have to admit I don't like much of the EU regarding the new trilogy of films, but that is probably because I don't much like the films. I really like the books relating to the original trilogy and most of the books afterwards, especially those immediately after RoTJ like the X-Wing series.

Legacy of the force books were good too, as were the Vong. I do enjoy the comics, but I can understand one's dissatisfaction with the medium as it is very difficult to portray lightsabre duels to the detail we expect from the films.

Demosthenes, if you can borrow some comics then I would suggest Pride of Baghdad, DMZ or Y the Last Man if you need something with a bit more substance to get you into the medium. There are many comics that are just as high quality as books and are for adults.

Also, Shadows of the Empire was probably my favourite book of the EU.

Hmmm. You'll have to wade through a bunch of garbage before you get to the good stuff if you are deciding to go chronological. After Bane, just skip to the Thrawn Trilogy. Then you will have a better litmus test for what is good EU and what is not.

Per the OP, Dark Empire is a bit overboard in my opinion. However, it has been noted that Lucas said it would be the closest thing to a sequel trilogy if he were to ever do one. But that in itself doesn't make much sense because with the Reborn Emperor, it basically negates Darth Vader's redemption and destruction of the Sith.

And don't get me started with all the post ROTJ Sith stuff. It's ridiculous and uninspired. When Bantam first started publishing these novels, it was usually the "super weapon" of the week kind of thing. (See Darksaber, Jedi Academy Trilogy, Dark Empire had it too, even Thrawn trilogy boasted some super technology that threatened the Alliance...). But eventually they worked past that, we got some interesting novels and series, then the NJO series came and turned the EU on it's head. And that lead to more Sith. BOOOO!

As I have explained to my cat many times, I don't really understand all the harping the movies had regarding the Sith heritage and legacy, and their ultimate destruction in ROTJ, that Lucas would authorize all these new Sith related stories. Way to stick to your convictions, George. I'm going to go and melt all of my post-ROTJ Sith mini's right now! Sayonara, Darth Krayt.

I'm going to have to agree with the general notion that there are waaaaay too many post-purge Jedi Survivors. It totally undoes Yoda telling Luke that he's 'the last of the Jedi'. yes, the last Yoda only knew of, but if Jedi keep coming out of the woodwork with little explanation other than 'they laid low for a while', we get the feeling that the Empire was really lax when it came to quelling their biggest political/metaphysical adversaries, not to mention the utter ruination of Darth Vader's image as a killer of many Jedi. If I could eliminate one thing out of the EU, it would be all of the surviving Jedi from the purge. Yoda and Ben should have been the only two who had fought in the Clone Wars and come out unscathed. The only other explanation I can fathom would be hiding out in the far far stretches of the Outer Rim and not using the Force at all during the 18 year stretch between Order 66 and the destruction of the Death star.

The logic of Jedi survivors is so crass that, if the Rebellion had so many floating around (like Kota, it seems, according to a recently released PSP title), why didn't one of them pick Luke up directly after the Death Star and finish his training? Why wasn't there a Jedi Underground network if so many had escaped Darth Vader's apparently copper fist? I run SWRPG from time to time, and the only explanation I had for one Jedi survivor was that the Clones shot his fighter down over a jungle world and assumed he'd died in re-entry... not bothering to check in on the corpse. I'd love for people to use more imaginative ways to justify surviving Jedi, but, one last time, if they were so common, why hadn't they tried to do something to end the Dark Times at least a decade before Luke grew up and bull's-eyed the Death Star?

Agree with almost everyone here. Loved the Thrawn Trilogy and a smattering of the other early EU books that detail how the New Republic still had to clean up what was left of the Empire.

Hated the palpatine returns comics because like everyone said, it invalidates the importance of ROTJ and Anakin's sacrifice to save his son.

As for the Novels, everything from the Vong to Jacen's fall is just silly. The books were horribly done and Jacen's fall was just retarded, including the death of Mara. The only semi bright spots in any of those was the way that chewie went out (the vong had to drop a freaking moon on him to kill him). And Ganner's last stand in traitor. Everything else was just silly and bogged down to the point of inanity.