Lit Unpopular EU opinions

I have always had this problem with Mara.

 

In the Hand duology it's being told that he was 2 steps ahead of everyone even Palpatine and then being told that Thrawn is up their with Mara and Vader as the most important people for Palps. With everyone including Han and Lando shaking with fear at the mere mention of his name.

Zahn then goes a bit further in his Side Trip story where Thrawn leads Idiot Vader by the nose. Then in Choices he warns Palpatine about the Ewoks and tells Vader the rebels are on Hoth and again leading him by the nose.

That pales though with what he did with Mara but I will leave that for another rant.

 

Lol it's funny how different opinions are as I thought the exact opposite and that he flat out ruined them and the TIE fighter in particular.

In ANH you had great dog fights and if not for Han the Empire would have won. In this they wipe out TIE's by the thousand, making them completely tensionless as well as the Imps stupid for not being able to give there pilots shields which the "ill equiped" Rebels seem to have on there ships.

 

My unpopular opinions:
I dislike Mara Jade
I dislike the Thrawn Trilogy and think it is badly written
I dislike Dark Empire
I like Bria Tharens arc in the Han Solo trilogy
I find most members of the OJO boring as hell
I enjoyed the Lando books (Vuffi Ra for the win!)
I dislike the idea that Luke and Mara marry
I think most EU novels are very badly written with no respect for the craft whatsoever
Powerful Jedi bore me out of my mind
I like the Bane trilogy but I also think Bane is clinically insane
Palpatine is not even close to being a genius
Same with Thrawn
I like how I-5 got force sensitive
I very much enjoy the Star Wars Tales and wish the canon system were abolished
I'm annoyed by the insistence that Palpatine is stronger than Vader when we've seen them kill each other in ROTJ
I really like TCW even though some episodes are really bad
I want more smut in SW like Xizor almost seducing Leia
I want more Sex in SW generally
I want a more inside look into the love life of the Sith
I don't think Boba is all that special even if I don't have anything against him
Revan is a Gary Stu
I think the Rule of Two is a steaming pile of nonsense

Yea, I can't think of anything else. Maybe later.

 

I liked Darksaber. I actually think it's pretty seminal in moving Luke's Jedi toward the NJO.

 

I'm a huge TIE fighter fan, so I feel ya. I've been wanting a TIE Fighter novel for years just so they can win a few.

I have no problem with the TIEs not having shields, but imo that should mean that the TIEs should be able to fly circles around an X-Wing. The TIEs really low mass, due to lack of shields, hyperdrive, life support, etc should give them a significant acceleration and maneuvering advantage over the X-Wing. The X-Wing should have the advantage in firepower, shields and armor and just be more well rounded in general, with features like hyperdrive, life support and an astromech. Various sources have stated this, but it's hardly ever the way it plays out, and certainly not in the X-Wing books.

It's been a while since I read them, but in comparison to other writers, I don't remember Stackpole really racking up the TIE kills in great numbers.

 

Agree about the more sex, tbh.

 

Oh, don't get me started on that.

Probably the best analogy I can think of for how interstellar warfare in the GFFA works is the Pacific War. Admiral Nimitz hopping from island to island, taking smaller outposts and cutting supply routes and leaving strongly-defended islands to rot on the vine sounds like the classic model for waging galactic war. That said, the Japanese were not defeated by a few squadrons of Hellcats, Corsairs, Lightnings and Mustangs shooting down droves of Zekes, Tonys, and Franks.

 

That is the general notion, specially on EU books. It was with the Clone Wars TV series, that isn't so. Still it would be awesome if conquering a planet meant battles in Space as well on planet.

 

Not unsure is this is unpopular opinion.

Boba Fett died in RotJ.

 

Explain.

 

Fell into a Pit where he was slowly digested over a 1000 years? Doesn't sound dead to me.

 

Couple of weeks or months actually. I wouldn't either but Fett would probably want revenge on Solo for that I'd imagine

 

What I say is what anakinfansince1983 said.

He found a gruesome dead being digested for a 1000 years, meaning his doesn't get out of sarlacc.

 

Meh, when you look at Fett's arc over the course of Star Wars history, it's incredibly thematically inappropriate for him to die in the sarlacc. Just because it was in the movie doesn't mean it should be holy doctrine.

Daniel Keys Moran's two Fett stories easily justify his survival.

Now, Fett should have died in LOTF or before.

 

It certainly would have done a lot to boost Caedus's reputation as a villain. Taking down Boba Freaking Fett would have done wonders to dispel the whole "Darth Caedus is a massively incompetent villain" bit. Also, Fett not going after Jacen was incredibly disappointing.

 

Exactly. Too bad the authors of LOTF were intent on Caedus not being a credible villain (if he has to be a villain at all, that is).

To expand on what I said, I believe from the beginning, as early as KOTOR II, Jango and Boba Fett represent the Mandalorians. For Boba in particular, hunting bounties is a distraction, his lowest point before he gets it together and focuses his efforts on consolidating a dying and scattered race. For Boba to die without doing anything with the Mandalorians is what we like to call an unresolved plot point (and we get enough of those to not need another).

 

How does falling into a creature that slowly digests you over a thousand years equate to instant death? Fett had a suit of armor on that could have had some kind of tool that could have helped him escape.

 

Boba Fett's damaged Z-6 jetpack ended up being very helpful in allowing him to escape.

 

Didn't he have a flamethrower as well? Jango did so I'd assume he would as well

 

Correct, they were both basically walking arsenals.

 

I've finally thought of an unpopular opinion for this thread!

For some reason, and I'm not really sure why, Kuat of Kuat's death really bugged me. I'm pretty sure it's #1 on my list of tragic deaths that bothered me in the EU.

I mean like, the guy really started to develop a character by the last book. He was introduced as some cliched twisted Bond villain standing there in front of his picture window stroking his cat felinx all day, but by the third book that really wasn't the case. He was twisted, sure, but not particularly evil. Just a really confused dude who spent his days alone creating puzzles in his head. He just wanted to build things but the bureaucracy of his job just ate him from the inside out.

So when he decided to go kill himself that was... I dunno, something very different for the EU. It wasn't the usual "I'm a heroic dude off to save the galaxy and sacrifice myself!" type of death, it was actually legit suicide. And when his felinx entered the room at the last minute it was sort of a twist of the knife in the gut.

 

See, now here's maybe an unpopular opinion for these parts, but I do think that nothing in the EU should contradict or retcon the movies. Fett's EU resurrection really bugs me not so much because I really don't like Fett, but because of that. And as much as I enjoyed the Plageuis novel, I'm also somewhat irked by him still being there behind the TPM scenes. Although to be honest that bugs me a bit less due to how little I care about TPM and how underused Plagueis is compared to Fett.

Do you really think Karen Traviss would have let that happen in a series she was a part of?



Anyway, on the subject of Stackpole from earlier, I thought of one other thing that bugs me about him - he kind of ignored established canon in a few big ways. Just off the top of my head:

-He twisted when and where Winter was supposed to have used the Targeter alias, and who was supposed to know about it. (Although to be fair Zahn also seemed to have forgotten in Allegiance)

-In TTT, it's specifically mentioned that the New Republic moved its capitol to Coruscant less than nine weeks prior to Heir, and that it captured Coruscant not too long before that. Then in Wedge's Gamble they capture Coruscant almost three years before TTT and establish their capitol there immediately after.

-In the DESB, Pestage is established as being with Clone Palpatine on Byss during the events of DE, but Stackpole has Pestage being killed years earlier. (Yes, later sources try to retcon it to be a clone, but even those retcons are contradictory, and more to the point they're not at all present in any of Stackpole's own stuff). His Pestage also contradicts the DESB rumors at Pestage's own background, but since those were self-admittedly rumors I'm more willing to give him a pass.

-I seem to recall that parts of I, Jedi contradict the equivalent parts from JAT, but since I'm not big on JAT I have to be honest and say I don't really care as much.

It's just something that interests me, given how highly regarded Stackpole and the X-wing series are on this board, when other people are ripped apart from continuity snafus (Filoni, Reaves, etc). It makes me wonder if Stackpole would be viewed more critically if his stuff had come out later.