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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit Missed Opportunities

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Danzo, May 21, 2013.

  1. Sable_Hart

    Sable_Hart Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2009
    Maybe I haven't read enough of Legacy to be sure, but it seems to me that the Vong and the post-NJO fallout was not used enough to warrant its close proximity to that timeframe.

    Still seems like an ass-pull though. They could have kept going with Wyyrlok, no?

    Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Palpatine should have been so awesome that at 15 years old or whatever he had all the strategy, subtlety, and refinement to conquer a galaxy. Plagueis should have taught him some tricks outside the Force, but the titular character was too skilled in the art of politics for my liking.
     
  2. Grievousdude

    Grievousdude Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2013
    In Rebel Force Renegade I would of liked to have seen a full on fight between Han and X-7. I still liked the book but I wished that had happened.
     
  3. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 6, 2007
    I wouldn't completely agree with this, but then count me in as one of those Legacy fans. The story is too different to really stand up as a repackaged storyline, while capturing every single element that makes Star Wars great.. The fracture of the Empire and its leadership standing against the Sith for one, Imperial Jedi, the actual Jedi were never really near extinction, the one Sith numbered in the thousands(not 2), and the Skywalker was very different from any Skywalker we have gotten to know before.

    Add to that the attention to small details, like the use of the Vong, the Fel Empire being based out of Bastion(even the inclusion of the Fel's themselves), the Chiss, the Yage family(unconfirmed of course, but still very likely a nod to NJO) , Someone named Ganner(same deal). It is like the ultimate love poem to the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

    I agree with the critiques of the placement in the timeline and there was a tendency to reuse favorite characters which I didn't completely enjoy. And of course the end was a muddled speed warp due to the cancellation, but I have difficulty blaming that one on the creative team.
     
  4. Loopy777

    Loopy777 Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 8, 2013
    The Lost Tribe of the Sith. Yeah, they're still around and will probably be the villains of Sword of the Jedi (if that book happens and I'm not even sure I want it to), but hear me out.

    So, even before Flop of the Jedi, the Chosen One prophecy was null and void because Sith were popping up in every single known era throughout the Star Wars timeline. I personally would have liked it if all these lightsaber-wielding darkside cults weren't all called Sith, but whatever, it's not a big deal. It's such a Not a Big Deal, in fact, that when it was revealed that one of the villains in FOTJ would be a planet of heretofore unknown Sithies, I just shrugged. Of course, they could have done something interesting with them. This is a Sith culture that was splintered off from the Tales of the Jedi-era Sith, so perhaps they could have had all that wacky Exar Kun-style sorcery and holocrons and evil amulets and temples that increase their power and stuff. But no, they didn't do that. They were isolated from the rest of the galaxy for over four thousand years, so they could have been something vastly alien, perhaps not even speaking Basic and not understanding any of the Galactic Alliance's way of life, with the Sith planet itself some kind of weird hell-hole in the same vein as one of the Knight Errant Sith fiefdoms. But no, the Lost Tribe was just a bunch of normal people who like pretty things, they learned Basic quick-quick, and before they even encountered Luke Skywalker they all learned everything about they galaxy they needed to easily infiltrate it and move around. They could have developed all kinds of weird weapons, like swords of fire or glowballs that float around their heads and shoot slimy blaster bolts or living shadows that lurk under their fingernails and get flicked out to shoot shards of sentient darkness that poisons people... but no, they just have lightsabers. Yay, more lightsabers. Hey, remember in Dark Empire when the Emperor made like it was a big deal for a Sith to be using a lightsaber, implying that Darth Vader (and later, a handful of other fallen Jedi) was unique and especially powerful?

    It wasn't a Lost Tribe of the Sith. It was a factory for lightsaber-wielding grunts who Jaina could eviscerate happily and then make jokes about goo fountains because LOL those guys are evil and Jedi are supposed to slaughter them without a second thought.

    How is it that a video game managed to treat the same basic concept (lightsaber-wielding grunts) in a more intelligent and thoughtful manner than a series of novels?

    JJM's short stories are the only good thing to come out of the Lost Tribe, and I'll be glad when Jaina genocides them off the face of the galaxy. We'll have more saber-grunts by the next book, and we won't have to put up with the ridiculousness of the Lost Tribe anymore.
     
    Force Smuggler and _Catherine_ like this.
  5. Trip

    Trip Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 7, 2003
    yeah, i really can't get over how bizarre and sad this is. KotOR is almost a brand unto itself in the broader fandom (ie outside lit's demographic); like, there are many, many people whose only experience with star wars is these games, or who first got into star wars through them. i'd be willing to bet they're second only to the films (and the cartoon, i guess) in terms of broader recognition. yet a decade later... nothing, even though the fandom is still active as ever (just check out #kotor on tumblr).
     
    _Catherine_ likes this.
  6. thesevegetables

    thesevegetables Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 11, 2012
    So much stuff was unfulfilled in Legacy.

    I think Galen Marek could have kept going.
     
  7. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004


    Oh it was most certainly used, with Vong creatures, Syn using Vong weapons, Vong shapers and warriors showing up and the intention of the Jedi to have the Vong help clean up worlds they had vongformed backfiring and actually being the reason the Empire took over.



    Though this is just guessing on my part I always figured the intention to be that Wyyrlok would slowly start to lose his grip on power and be thrown down by the “Alliance”, just in time for the Dragon to come back, so the idea might have been the same but he would certainly have lasted longer.
     
  8. Rawne

    Rawne Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Jan 2, 2008
    TOR.

    The Sith Lords leaves the player thinking that the 'true Sith' are something completely and utterly different compared to the Sith we've seen so far. Turns out they weren't. As it turns out they're identical to the Sith from 300 years earlier and somehow the ones thousands of years later.

    BioWare had the chance to carve out a brand new niche of Star Wars. Again. This time it felt like they didn't even try.
     
  9. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005
    The original missed opportunity is General Han Solo. Han had a fantastic arc in the films, a smuggler and scoundrel finding a cause, taking on responsibility, and turning out, against all his protestations, to be a well-meaning, heroic Rebel. Han's role as a general solidified his maturation as a character, yet the EU immediately regressed from it so that Han could continue playing scoundrel in the Falcon and flying around with Leia in an endless retread of the TESB status quo. Arguably even more important than sacrificing the symbol of Han's maturation, it sacrificed a position that gave him a strong narrative role and purpose, requiring endless invented nonsense for him to run around doing and leaving him in the dust behind Luke and Leia, in terms of maturation and role in the storyline; he's just tagging along now. It got even worse when Leia got out of politics, unmooring him from being roped in to something via her, and left the both of them completely purposeless, a situation the narrative still has not solved. Since Han was constantly in and out of the military in Bantam, we have works that show that Han's generalship doesn't get in the way of the story -- if the story needs him away from the front lines, he can be on leave, he can be assigned to the Minister of State or Chief of State's office as a military liaison/advisor/attache, whatever you need. But the all too few stories that did keep him in that role showed how absolutely tremendous he could be in it, how putting Han in a command role can give him purpose, can give him dramatic tension, can show him as a maturing human being. It's awful that the EU didn't follow through on ROTJ.

    I also have to point out, as another aspect of this that really counts as a missed opportunity of its own, the NJO. The single greatest missed opportunity of the NJO was failing to take the massive invasion and Chewbacca's death as an excuse to have Han recalled to service, commanding fleets and kicking Vong ass. Lando, too. Lando falls into the exact same category of "development and strong story role thrown away for no particular reason other than reversion to the TESB status quo." Can you imagine an NJO where Generals Bel Iblis, Antilles, Solo, and Calrissian all come out of retirement to fight?

    Catherine already said it, but the failure to follow up on the post-NJO shakeup of the status quo is inexcusable. A cowardly decision to revert to standard formula and not just fail to follow up on story hooks, but actively spike several of them, ignore the rest in such a way that they're unlikely to ever be taken up again, and demolish the progress and development that the NJO had spent nineteen books building up to hand over to the next leg of the EU, the post-NJO story direction is unparalleled in the scale of mindless destruction it has wreaked on the EU. Dozens of fantastic story opportunities, novels and novels of character development for multiple pivotal characters, wantonly thrown away in service to an insanely misguided, perennially underthought random collection of stupid story concepts. It's not just missed opportunities in the sense of ignorance or failure to follow up on lurking potential, it is the active refusal to exploit and destruction of tremendously well-developed, blatant opportunities, premises, and character development, that had been handed over on a plate.

    I'm sure I'll think of more later.
     
    RC-1991, Loopy777, Trip and 3 others like this.
  10. instantdeath

    instantdeath Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 22, 2010
    I'll echo General Han Solo heartily. Especially the "he resigned, no wait he didn't, oh yes he did" back and forth mess. There's a plethora of stories you can tell about a man who hates authority suddenly finding himself in a position of authority.

    Also: Boba Fett. Everything about Boba Fett. Or most everything. Daniel Keyes Moran, and a few of the comic stories, show he has great potential as a character, that there was a reason he survived the sarlacc, but at this point he's little more than the undisputed King of Cameos. And I haven't even read Traviss' stuff, so it's very possible I haven't seen the darkest place the character has been brought to.
     
  11. General Immodet

    General Immodet Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 5, 2012
    Yeah, right, Fionah Ti just disappeared... I never got why they introduced her just to let her drop later on.
     
  12. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
    I would guess they had already finished Monster before getting told that the series was getting axed.
     
  13. General Immodet

    General Immodet Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 5, 2012
    Probably
     
  14. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    I have been away from the expanded universe for some time (partly because I don't live in U.S.A. and not many of the Star Wars books was translated), one of the last things I read (chronological speaking) was the Young Jedi Knights series. So when I re-found my interest for Star Wars (and had learned English and the internet had became what it is today) I begun to look up what had happened to my childhood heroes, the Republic and the bright future we were promised.
    :-B[face_hypnotized]:(=((:_|
    Well, lets just say that it was not pleasant...

    To me the inability of the publishers to fulfil the promises of a hopeful future for the expanded universe is the biggest Missed Opportunity of the expanded universe.