Lit Can Star Wars learn anything from Star Trek?

I should have specified time period. Post rotj like in the Aftermath Books, or journey to Force Awakens.

 

Maybe something in the Poe Dameron series? The post-ROTJ era hasn't been properly explored at all yet.

 

I regret that I wasn't able to elaborate at length much with my earlier post. I threw out the idea of the Star Trek New Frontier novel series as a type of approach, which another poster spotted works similar to the Shadows of the Empire concept of "everything except the movie." New Frontier was that fifth Star Trek ensemble cast that was novel exclusive, you would never "see" them except in your mind's eye (and also excepting the comic miniseries they eventually did). It had it's own tone and energy; different but still felt connected to ST. It took chances with creating characters that a television network might not have been keen to have in a series that they are paying to produce. A similar novel-exclusive series for Star Wars could be a place to take chances and push the envelope for SW stories.

This conversation made me think of a series of Doctor Who novels, called The New Adventures, which told stories meant to pick up from when the old Doctor Who series ended. These DW novels tried to play to the strengths of a novel as a storytelling medium, and made a big deal out of trying to be experimental with DW.

Some older Star Trek novels went experimental in the 80's, and developed stories beyond the original crew, and developed cultures for popular alien races, in particular the Klingons and the Romulans. One thing that Star Trek did not do was make an official announcement that a group of novels were Not Canon; and subsequently reprint those books with some label on the covers that essentially translates as Not Canon. Most of those books went out of print, but some were republished. A couple of newer books came out that split the difference between an old version of the Romulans and the newer television version of the Romulans.

The old Doctor Who New Adventures have come to be thought of as a "test bed" series of novels. Older 80's novels have never been called that as such, but I think an argument can be made that they did something similar. The Legends SW books are fitting a similar role, but are marked with a stigmatic label.

I would love to see novels, standalone and series, that have as their starting point that they are stories inspired by the SW movies (and franchise overall). Imagine how far that could go, conceptually. There are some points where a story would be too far distant from SW. We already have Brian K. Vaughan's Saga comic series as an example of a story inspired by SW. As an anchor point, that's a bit too far from where I would be interested in seeing this kind of hypothetical SW novel series inspired by SW go. Maybe a halfway point between SW and Saga, in spirit.

One other thing I meant to bring up, which I've mentioned on occasion. It's a small thing. If you look at covers of the old Star Trek novels, early editions would label it as "The new Star Trek novel" but the words, letters of Star Trek were in plain font. The novel would be titled The Entropy Effect or The Final Reflection, and conceptually they weren't Star Trek: The Entropy Effect or Star Trek: The Final Reflection. Brian Daley's Han Solo trilogy and Splinter of the Mind's Eye was like that, too. They didn't emphasize those books as Star Wars novels, and didn't require them to have some War going on in every book; their paradigm was "From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker." George Lucas kept re-conceptualizing the series, Star Wars, The Adventures of Luke Skywalker, The Tragedy of Darth Vader. I know the logo sells the books, and I've seen that argument about "saving the franchise" by keeping the emphasis. But the identifying concept, Star Wars, keeps making readers and authors want to emphasize Wars. We've still had great novels that haven't gotten stuck on requiring a war...maybe. Kenobi is a great character piece/western/adventure story. Survivor's Quest is a wonderful mystery/exploration novel. But can the envelope be pushed more? Can we get character piece novels that are even more tightly character focused? Imagine a version of AC Crispin's novel, The Hutt Gambit, as a smuggler's life Slice-of-Life novel, that isn't required to build toward a massive battle just to fulfill a "war" quota.

 

I do think "Star Wars" should be used more as a setting for various genres. I want to see a detective story set in the SW universe. And an exploration story. And so on.

 

Interesting point about Captain Pike and his crew. Nothing on screen contradicted EV, but there were many interpretations of his crew over the years. Like, EV gave us chief engineer Moves-with-Burning-Grace. DC Fontana's novel Vulcan's Glory gave us chief engineer Caitlin Barry, who Peter David used in The Rift and Greg Cox used in Child of Two Worlds. Jerry Oltion's Captain's Table Where Sea Meets Sky and his Enterprise Logs short story "Conflicting Natures" had chief engineer Burnstein. David Stern did his own thing in The Children of Kings and John Byrne's comic series Crew had it's own spin on Pike's Enterprise Crew.
Margaret Wander Bonanno's novel Burning Dreams drew from conflicting sources, giving us Moves-with-Burning-Grace in engineering, but Oltion's communications officer. And the fun thing for me is that even though they're different crews all story-clustered around "The Cage" they're all Pike's crew to me.
"To me, Star Trek had always been akin to Aurthurian legend-there are many voices, many dimensions, but it is essentially always the same tale." - From MWB's Burning Dream afterward.

 

Early Voyages had Pike sparring with the Klingons on a regular basis, complete with archenemy. Discovery (set after Early Voyages) says that, aside from the attack on Michael's parents, Starfleet has had little to do with the Klingons since Archer's time.

 

Well, yeah, now it's been contradicted on screen, but for decades there's been multiple Pike crews out there. All contradicting each other.

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The Aftermath series has a group of characters that (apart from Snap) I doubt we'll see in a movie.

I actually think there are plenty of Star Wars novels that don't have war as the primary plot device - Cloak of Deception, Tatooine Ghost, Courtship of Princess Leia, Outbound Flight, Survivor's Quest, The Last Jedi (no, not the movie), plus plenty of others I can't think of off the top of my head are small scale, contained stories.

 

Scourge is the book you're after.

 

Star Wars is ded son
let the franchise die once

 

All franchises die. It's just hard for us to let them go.

 

A wouldn't conflate losing interest in a franchise with a franchise dying. Things roll on without us.

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What is dead my never die, but only rises again harder stronger...

!@#$ I am such a nerd....

 

I knew somebody would use that quote.

 

SW is used universe. Then again the UR and WS.

Now, addressing the question, no time travel, interdimensions, mirror universes, alternate timelines, or aliens from another galaxy. Perfect for ST, not for SW.

 

Alternate dimensions and time travel existed even in legends. Though the former was mostly a comic/old marvel thing with some modern EU stuff having it and time travel was a rare phenomenon but it did occur.

Alternate universes-I don't have a problem with the idea of a Star Wars Parallel like in TNG which is basically several AUs a character or characters enter.

Star Wars is science fantasy but has science fiction elements as well.

These science fiction motifs I believe could work in Star Wars and have worked-so long as they are used sparingly and effectively.

 

ONE THING ONLY. How to portray a positive, responsible, and idealistic democratic government of various worlds and species united in common cause.

That is all.

--Adm. Nick

 

Coruscant Knights would be a good example also

 

I think the only real examples of this we have seen are with Bomber Command and Cobalt Squadron as far shipboard crews, as for clearly defined groups, both Battlefront novels as well as Norra Wexley's posse in the Aftermath novels are the only new cannon things that jump out at me.

 

Yeah, they should introduce alternate universes. Don't do crossovers though, they are often cringey if not as a one-off episode in a TV show or something that isn't mentioned again. I don't even trust them to continue Legends, unless Del Rey are given complete creative control over that universe (Yes, I am completely serious. Denning has proven to be a better writer than Rian Johnson as well, and TLJ has made me appreciate LOTF), but I would like a one-off mention that Legends exist, they're still out there as another universe. A vision or something would be nice, even if obviously not in a main franchise film.



I did enjoy this fan film as an example.

 

I can see Legends being continued as an official alternate timeline

Spoiler

the vehicle to do this already exists with the whole world between the world's in Star Wars rebels.

Spoiler

There are other ways they could bring back legends as part of the Star Wars multiverse-and maybe have various means in which it could be observed or accessed.

Though I wouldn't be too keen on this as I'm really not interested in marvel multiverse style crossovers.

 

Alternate universes just seem too . . . comic book-ey to me. I can't think of a better way to describe it.

 

I'd say, star trek can get quite a strong cast for the films, like I enjoy the newish ones they've got with Chris Pine... he nails the role.

 

I honestly wonder how many of us who want alternate universes are comic fans. In fact can the OP add a poll into the thread for that? And I mean specifically superhero comics. Not that I think comic fans can't dislike AU in the GFFA, I mean your name proves that

 

It would be nice to get a functioning democracy in SW. It feels like there hasn't been anything even close to that since the Bantam days.

But it would probably come with an evil, "Section 31"-like entity attached to it because nothing can just be good anymore.

ST usually does a good job on casting their main cast.

A) Diversity is built into that, human ethnic diversity, inter-species diversity, diversity of experience and interests.

B) They did a great job finding stars to play in the Abrams reboot.

No. It's the "Can Star Wars learn anything from Star Trek?" thread, not the "Do you like superheroes?" thread.

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