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

Oh, there are libraries...borrowing from friends...used book stores...etc...If one actually had to read for oneself instead of using Wookieepedia, that is. One doesn't necessarily have to purchase them in a manner that puts pennies in Del Rey's pocket. Just sayin'.

Don't worry, I annoyed myself quite a bit as well!

 

Which used a fair bit of data dug out by DM......

 

DigitalMessiah, http://eleven-thirtyeight.com/2013/07/author-universes-sales-and-mini-eras-the-end-of-the-line/
there you go

aleja2, lol it's all good

 

Where is it?

 

See the link MS posted Solent.

 

Ok. Now I just don´t understand. After such a drop they still allow the guy in charge to keep writing?

 

Uh..... Yeah.

 

your guess is as good as mine....but I have a theory.......aliens

 

The book market has changed substantially in the past decade and Del Rey might have decided that sales between 1999-2005 were elevated due to the films and subsequent sales were a regression to the mean.

 

Or maybe it's easier to make everything a hardcover and phone in most books as opposed to investing the time and money necessary to get higher quality books out there. Considering the number of people who buy Star Wars books regardless, putting too much effort into the novels probably doesn't promise a great return on investment.

 

Aleja, I very much like your post about what you hope to see for Luke in the sequel trilogy. About the only difference for me is that I want to see more of Luke than just a cameo. I don't expect him to be one of the main characters. I expect those to be the younger generation, hopefully, Luke, Leia, and Han's children. However, I do want to see him as the leader of the Jedi Order, and would like to see him do something important in the story. I'd lie to see at least one amazing feat from him. I don't want to see him die in the sequel trilogy. I think they should be able to come up with a plausible way for the younger characters to be the major heroes without killing off Luke.

 

Tron Legacy

Marvel comics

Don´t hope too high.

 

Yikes! I'm REALLY behind now!!!!

I'm going to start with this post and then go back to older ones:


DigitalMessiah:

I can't speak for anyone else, but for the most part, I preferred the Bantam books. They were basically lighter and more optimistic, and stories took place within one, two, or three books, not 19 or 9. The Bantam books mostly had satisfactory endings while most of the Del rey books... even after 9 books,... didn't even feel like they really had ENDINGS at all, let alone satisfying, positive endings.

Bantam created many new and lasting characters, while Del Rey created very few new characters and killed off or ignored far too many Bantam characters. Bantam created many new worlds; Del Rey destroyed many worlds.

Bantam had some true clunkers, like Crystal Star and The New Rebellion, but those books didn't have lasting effects and didn't damage the characters and/or SW galaxy. They could be overlooked and ignored. With Del Rey, on the other hand, its clunkers involved a whole series of books and permanently affected characters and destroyed worlds (Yavin IV) and killed off major characters (Mara, Anakin, Jacen). The effects of the Del Rey books were devastating and permanent to the SW galaxy and characters, and can't be ignored/ overlooked.

Bantam had stories which didn't involve galaxy-wide wars, but most of Del Rey's stories did revolve around galaxy-spanning wars. Del Rey also brought back TONS of Sith.

While I have complained about quite a few Bantam books, most of those complaints are about a small piece of the book, not the whole story. For example, I really like SotP/VotF, but within that story, I absolutely HATE Mara's lecture to Luke, and I'm VERY vocal about it! So, it may seem as though I hate the duology, when in fact, I just hate that one piece of the duology.

With NJO, DN, LotF, and FotJ, I basically hate almost all of each of those series, though I did like a thing here or there, like Luke and Mara having a child in the NJO and all of TUF. I liked Luke holding Jacen in his chair in LotF and I liked a little of Luke and Ben's visits to Force groups in FotJ.

Jedi Ben is also right that some of Del Rey's single books, like SQ, OF, and LSatSoM were very good, while I feel that most of their mega-series books were pretty bad.

 

So has anybody here, seen Luke, and Mara, in Marvel's new Infinity mini series?

 

Aside of Disney owning them I don't see much relevance. Comic characters come back after their deaths and Tron 2 had a weak plot

 

?

 

ChildOfWinds

I don't really like breaking things down purely by publisher. The Expanded Universe was handled differently in 1992 than it was in 1995 than it was in 1998, and it was handled different in 2000 than it was in 2006 than it was in 2013. Both publishers have their good and bad, and I agree that the biggest distinction between Bantam and Del Rey is that Del Rey is shrinking the Expanded Universe through character deaths and the like whereas Bantam was expanding it. For me, NJO was a net gain in story, despite some character deaths -- but I think that they really reached their limit there. The narrative was, IMO, great, the series was handled mostly well in terms of allotment of plot and individual narrative, the characters all had arcs although some were bigger than others, etc. Overall I was satisfied.

Since then, the standalones have been the bright spot of Del Rey. As for Bantam, after the initial successes of the Thrawn trilogy and Dark Empire, they went through a stretch of some questionable storytelling, around 1994-1996 or so, and that's when most the books people in this thread dislike from Bantam were published. They didn't kill any characters, but the storytelling was mostly bad, I think it's fair to say.

 

Marvel has a new mini series called Infinity http://starclipperstl.tumblr.com/post/58384798648/why-is-luke-skywalker-in-marvels-infinity-it
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/08/19/da/

 

I think it's a nice wink and a nod, but Luke has blue eyes and Mara has green. Good catch newdawn12

 

Disney's been asking fans on Facebook about Mara Jade, Jaina, Ben, and Jacen

 

now I can see that Luke and Cap crossover I always wanted Do the characters have names in the book ?

 

You'll have to read the books, i'm waiting for the TPB, but they do appear in multiple panels, check out the link from Bleeding Cool

 

Jedi Ben:

Are we sure this is Rogue Squadron? When was Rogue Squadron created?

Either way, at least I'm pleased to see that Luke will make an appearance in this book!






DigitalMessiah:

Hey! This thread THRIVES on controversy!!!

I very much agree with you about this!

Again, I agree. I don't think that Luke and Mara were handled well as a married couple in most books. In fact, in VP, they seemed more like siblings than a married couple! SQ was a far better example of Luke and Mara working together, showing that they were indeed a team; two people that complemented one another well. I would love to have seen more stories with Luke and Mara investigating things together or working together on a mission or in an adventure story as they did in VotF.

Wow! Again I completely agree with you!!!! I too think that Luke should have developed his own Jedi philosophy. Things got even worse after the PT when authors started to shoehorn PT traditions into Luke's Order. Before that, at least Luke had his own ways of doing things; his own new traditions for a new Jedi Order.

You are completely correct! I really would have liked to have seen this! I hope we do see Luke's own version of a Jedi Order in the new Sequel Trilogy!






Jedi Ben:

I do think that this is why we had such a poor characterization of Luke in the NJO... And Luke was definitely *not* too powerful in Bantam!

It does seem that way, and I don't like it either. I especially don't like that Luke's character was often thrown under the bus to serve the plots. I prefer when plots are developed in a way that respect a character and his/her abilities and character traits and don't twist those characters in order to have their plots "work".

Sadly, I agree with you. That's certainly the way it was for Luke's character! Look at how different Luke and his Force philosophy were at the end of TUF as opposed to TJK. It was like, WHAT HAPPENED HERE?????? There was a HUGE disconnect! But to serve Denning's desired plot, it was LUKE and his character and beliefs that had to be sacrificed, instead writing the plot to respect and enhance the character.






DigitalMessiah:

As I said, it was used because the author didn't know the character and didn't want to write about the character. When he was forced to include her, he gave her the disease so he wouldn't have to learn about her character. He could blame any difference in personality or behavior on her "disease".

Of course he couldn't! But what I didn't like was that Luke basically sat on his hands dithering for far too long while the YV continued to invade further and further into the galaxy, killing more and more people.

I thought Luke was actually given a pretty decent role in VP, but it went downhill from there, never to really improve until TUF, except for a couple of actions, like saving Jacen with the two lightsabers and moving the black hole. (Though the author DID have him pass out!) However, sending a bunch of kids on that Myrkr suicide mission, when Luke himself would have been a far better choice (He knew Fallanassi illusions and shields and was familiar with Myrkr), was ridiculous, as was sitting back when the young Jedi on Yavin were in danger.





Jedi Ben:

EXACTLY!!!!! You don't have to mention what every little bit character is doing, but important major characters like Luke should have been mentioned as doing SOMETHING somewhere!!!!


More another time...

 

same here

 

COW,

Unconfirmed that it's Rogue Squadron but it'd be dumb not to. The Wook has this: