Lit SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)

Despite the difference in mode of warfare, you can still compare the governmental response in terms of death inflicted deliberately and with premeditation - is it really credible to believe with thousands of its citizens being killed by the Vong that the NR would be as restrained as it was in the first 2 years of NJO?

Sure you can say those thousands are a fraction of the population but that's every bit as true of the WTC going up in flames, the US, Canada and Western Europe are millions of people, a few thousand dead are a fraction of that, but it was enough to go to war over and compromise long upheld moral principles for.

A Kyp who walks the razor's edge of the dark side out of a fervant desire to protect NR citizens and, in so doing, atone for his own sins in part, would have worked very well. Instead he's just placed into a box marked "Idiot Bad Guy".

 

I think it's a difference in perception. The Vong invaded a remote corner of the galaxy, and took over planets that most citizens had never even heard of. (Belka-where?) If 9/11 would have happened in, say, Calgary or Toronto would have our response been the same? I doubt it.

Getting back to Skywalker, we HAD to show him as the 'cool rational' leader, so it was up to Kyp to provide the 'Jack Bauer' approach. Personally, I agree, Kyp's stance made more sense.

 

@ Jedi Ben

I just think there are much better examples to chose from in human history.
9/11 was a terror attack, asymmetric warfare and all that. The war after was even more complicated and unusual.

But generally I agree with what you are saying. Even after the destruction of one planet people and politicians would scream for Vong blood. Everyone would be afraid that those weird, strange space aliens could attack their home planet next. Perfect political climate for hardliners to take over.

Yes, the ridiculous way in which Kyp phrases his thoughts is supposed to have him look to us like a bad guy. But aside from his populist behavior I actually don't find much wrong with what he does.

 

There is the location element SF but even so, given media coverage reducing distance, there would still have been a demand for a strong response. That was one of the things I felt was an odd omission from the NJO and liked the addition of it via Invasion.

 

I honestly wanted to ask some of the characters, "Do you want the entire galaxy enslaved by the Borg ripoffs?!" Luke included.

 

Not even the Borg believed in inflicting pain to worship it RK!

 

Hence the 'ripoff' bit.

 

Always thought the Vong were SM taken to the extreme. In VP that warrior definitely got off on the pain.

Must say I'm not a fan of the chopping off body parts philosophy. Warriors don't fight as good if they are crippled. Stupid to do it on purpose.

But then the Vong are pretty stupid on general.

 

They're like the bio-tech equivalents of the 40K Iron Hands chapter- they replace their flesh with implants as often as rank and achievement allow.

And those replacements make them more rather than less dangerous. At least in some cases.

 

But they don't always replace.

 

thankfully Invasion volume 1-3 gives us great moments of Luke helping out in the war effort by saving folks and looking like a bad arse. Dark Horse needs to hire Tom Taylor to write a Luke series....ASAP

Shafted heck in LotF and FotJ he becomes such a non entity. Now I don't like the character especially since he was a KJA creation as he was suppose to be Luke 2.0 with more 'tude..He was definitely a product of the 90's, angst, a dark origin, created to be better than the main character and more powerful(thank the Force GL said no to that ). How many times did we see that in the comics ? Cap, Supes, Bats, Spidey....etc. Still Kyp has salvageable elements of his characteristics, I like a foil for Luke. Someone who doesn't agree with him just cause he's Luke and the leader. Luke needs someone to counter with him at times....but at the end of day they're still allies and friends.

That's what made Mara so great for Luke. They complement each other with different aspects of their personalities. The experiences give them different points of view and sometimes they disagree but at the end of the day they're the best couple at what they do...... that is until they kill her off

and it only went to derail Jacen to being an annoyance til SbS....I mean complaining about not wanting to fight in a war while millions are being slaughter and moons are falling on friends makes you like a jerk and a whiner no matter the case.

but oh how Del-Rey wanted to make it more complex then it was in reality. It was an invasion, but instead of having the dream team of jedi and the NR working together with Luke and co. leading from the get go we have distrust between the two factions... Dissension in the jedi ranks and Luke only being active in Onslaught and then hangs back til Sbs Oh and they had to go and hold him back by restraining his Force use.. I mean come on, there is a way to have Luke full powered fight early in the war and still have the Vong with the upper hand. It comes to their numbers, Luke sure can destroy vong fleets at a time, and halt invasion parties but he can only do that for so long and he can't be everywhere at once. Invasion thankfully demonstrates this.

I think Kyp's execution is much to be desired but at least he was fighting the enemy. What was Luke doing ???

Luke made a Jedi Order to help the galaxy maintain peace since the events of DE. Now the Order is actually active and what does the NR do ? They shun them basically then betray them and that rift has still yet to fully heal. The writers have to understand creating artificial strife between the NR and jedi, the Skywalkers and Solos,etc is a bad idea to create "drama" between the good guys.

It makes a lot of sense, you had a more aggressive Leia and Han while under the dark nexus.

right apparently anything new and good with Luke in it is apparently not follow up. Mindor and Invasion being the biggest examples of this.

agreed

And Revan didn't originally turn dark just because he fought the Mandalorians according to TOR.

 

MasterSkywalker86:

I can't say that I'm all that excited about this... I mean... Why bother? Especially now when we know that we will be getting sequel films, why go back and make a comic of an original draft of ANH? It's like doing an Infinities version of it, and I've never been all that fond of Infinities stories. I don't know how many people would really be all that interested in this. I can now see why they might want to do stories about Luke, Han, and Leia in the period between ANH and TESB or post-RotJ to get fans reinvested in these characters, but I don't really understand the logic in doing a story about the original draft.








Darth_Pevra:

I'm not even sure that Vader was supposed to be Luke's father in A New Hope. Certainly, Leia wasn't supposed to be Luke's sister. I think she was originally meant to be Luke's love interest.

I completely agree. They did seem self-centered and arrogant, a lot like the PT Jedi. I didn't really like them much in the NJO, and I hated that they were arguing with one another at a time when they and the NR needed to present a united front. They had a far bigger problem to worry about in the Vong. It's the Jedi's duty to stand defend and protect, and it seemed as though they were shirking that duty. It really bothered me that Luke took such a passive stance. I especially hated it when he sat back and did nothing when the Jedi kids were in danger. It ended up that young Anakin was the one to save them. I think Kataja is right: Luke seemed more concerned about and focused on Mara than on the Vong invasion and protecting the galaxy. Definitely unlike the usually unselfish, active, and duty-driven Luke Skywalker!






RK_Striker_JK_5 :

I'm glad you're back, Striker! Who are Celestia and Luna?








kataja:

Exactly!








Jedi Ben:

Thanks for the explanation!







SiouxFan:

I agree with you. Luke should never have allowed Anakin and Jacen to be the ones to take on this mission. Luke also shouldn't have allowed a bunch of teenagers to go on the mission to destroy the Voynskr queen either. It was just plain stupid. Luke should have gone himself. He knew Myrkr and he knew the Fallanassi cloaking skills, so he could have hidden himself and could have gone in undiscovered. Instead, Anakin ended up getting killed.

But of course, the reason that Luke and the older Jedi sat back and didn't do much was because the original plan was to sort of pass the torch to the younger generation and let them shine. Sadly though, that made the adults look really idiotic and useless. After a LOT of fan complaints (in fact, this thread was originally started because of Luke's terrible characterizations in the NJO. ), the planning team decided to make a change and back-pedal a little on the kids being constantly in the forefront , and Luke and the other adult characters finally did a little more near the end of the NJO.








JediMatteus:

When you remember that it was almost three years when Luke was pretty passive, I'd say he didn't accomplish much at all, JM! As for the Great River, that all happened off-screen, so we don't really know exactly what Luke even did with that. That could have been done by others too. The leader of the Jedi Order didn't need to most of his time on that.

TUF was Luke's major shining book of the NJO. There were very few other really good characterizations and roles in the NJO. I did like when Luke rescued Jacen with two lightsabers and when he moved the black hole. But those feats were extremely few and very far between.







Jedi Ben:

Exactly!

 

ChildOfWinds

I agree, there seems little point to release a comic based on the original draft unless they're trying to bring in the even more hardcore fan....and even still that might not be as much of a turnout as would be expected.

 

Thanks, Windy. Luna and Celestia are from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. They're the rulers of Equestria.

...

No, don't give me that look.

 

I'm pretty sure they made a MLP Luke pony RK....

sigh they did

 

...

WANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

so RK what are your thoughts on the ST and the chance of an EU reboot ?

 

Well, kinda looking forward to it. As to an EU reboot... I look at it like comics. They're still there. I still own the Thrawn Trilogy, X-Wing series, YJK and so forth. I might get into it, might not.

 

I'm hoping for more Mindor/OT type stories of pulply goodness and the ST looks to be in great hands with more of focus on what made the OT awesome

 

MasterSkywalker86 :

Sadly, we didn't get enough Invasion though, and we didn't get much Luke in the later issues.

Was Lucas the one who said that Kyp couldn't be more powerful than Luke? Or do you mean that the Lucas comments about Luke having Anakin's potential prove that Luke is more powerful than Kyp?

I agree.

Exactly! It was annoying the way Del Rey handled story!

Yes! The Jedi and the NR/GA should have been natural allies, but you're right that they have pretty much had a rift between the government and the Jedi from the time that Del Rey got the SW license. With all of the horrible problems/villains that they have had to face, they would have been far better working together. There was no need to create, as you put it, "artificial strife" between the NR and the Jedi AND between the Skywalker and Solo family members.







RK_Striker_JK_5:

MasterSkywalker86:

Oh, my goodness!.... Poor Luke.... Poor pony!








RK_Striker_JK_5:

Yes, I agree. Plus, there are so many really terrible EU stories and Luke characterizations, especially since Del Rey got hold of things, that I'm actually hoping that at least some of them get over-written.
I might get into it, might not.







MasterSkywalker86:

Let's hope so anyway!

 

I'm still listening to the Thrawn trilogy audiobooks, and have just reached The Last Command. I really like the early Luke chapters; we don't often get to see Luke fill the role of a spy, but I like how resourceful he's shown to be, easily locating his tracker and throwing him off course. Also, Luke outsmarts Thrawn. That's definitely something worth getting excited about (especially since the only other person to outsmart Thrawn in the trilogy, I think, is Han, and according to Luke he's supposed to be the clever one). I would absolutely love to see the scene where Luke's X-Wing breaks free of the freighter caught in the tractor beam filmed.

 

Mindor stories would be cool. Odds are I wouldn't read them, but they'd be cool.

And a Luke pony is cool. Leia pony is even cooler.

 

Don't even think of showing me a Han, Vader or Sidious pony.

*Resists urge to google*

 

...

 

I like the Han Solo frozen in carbonite even better