Lit Books A More Civilized Age: Exploring the Star Wars Expanded Universe, by Rich Handley

"To Be Continued: Crucible and the end of an era" seems like an appropriate chapter title. The book was, for better or worse, the last hurrah of the post-ROTJ universe that Bantam and Del Rey had been building for over two decades. And the chapter seems like it will be focused more on the concept of that universe coming to an end than it will a scholarly examination of a book that happened to be far enough in development to not be canceled after the Disney buyout.

The Family Guy specials were a bigger deal than people realize. Like Steve said, they're definitely among the best-known derivative SW works, and they're probably the biggest example of Lucasfilm allowing other companies to both use and profit off of their intellectual property. MacFarlane has said as much in interviews, too --- he was surprised that LFL were so chill about him doing those projects, and he didn't think that any other production company would have let him get away with doing the same thing to their movies. Lucasfilm has always been very unique in that regard. Remember a few years back when some website had fans re-create all of the original Star Wars movie, with each fan getting a fifteen second clip? LFL didn't demand it get taken down --- they liked it so much that they featured it on the main page of starwars.com, and then ended up hosting the Empire version on the official SW youtube channel. In 2008, some guy made this image, and then wrote to LFL to ask if he could sell it on a T-shirt. Their response? Go for it.

The fact that fans, whether they be average Joes or rich celebrities like Seth MacFarlane, are allowed and encouraged by LFL to actively create their own content like that (think the Fan Film awards) and even profit from it, is an important part of SW's... well, of its expanded universe. If this book is going to have chapters on action figures and not just the EU as we strictly think of it on this forum, then I definitely think that Family Guy deserves a chapter too.

 

I always figured Robot Chicken was more of a pivotal event for Star Wars parodies than the Family Guy specials, though.

Edit: Though I'll freely admit that I plain do not like Seth MacFarlane, so it's possible I'm getting a bit distorted by bias here.

 

Edited to remove certain allegations of offsite conduct by a person involved with this book. This edit should not be construed as an endorsement or lack of endorsement of said allegation.

 

I am slightly disappointed, however, that there doesn't appear to be a chapter covering LucasArts and its Star Wars games.

 

How so?

 

I was going to mention the Rogue Leader book, but yikes, that came out almost a decade ago.

Jason Schreier at Kotaku at least did write a good article on the decline of LucasArts. More recently, his new book Blood, Sweat and Pixels has a chapter on the development and cancellation of 1313, though I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

 

Yes! That article about the fall of LucasArts was illuminating. And depressing.

 

You best post some sources.

 

I've been reading a bit of the first book today, ie selectively choosing chapters to read because I'm not really interested in reading the whole thing. And it's... OK? I mean, it's exactly what it purports to be --- a bunch of writers penning personal essays about the saga --- but what's disappointing is that it's nothing new, and it's nothing special. It feels like a bunch of Insider articles collected into a book. I guess I was hoping for rare behind-the-scenes info, or unique takes that we hadn't read before. But with chapters with themes like "Why Empire is the best film" and "Why you might be surprised that A New Hope parallels The Wizard of Oz" it's just kind of like... "Yeah, and... ?"

I thought the essay on the Holiday Special would be fun, but it doesn't offer anything that plenty of existing newspaper or sw.com articles on the Special haven't already done. It gives a lengthy description of the plot, a bit of background on 70s variety shows, and then just kind of... ends. I was looking for something new, but it's all just info that could easily be found by a quick perusal of HS-related topics on the Wook. I can say that with a lot of confidence --- I used to write a lot of Holiday Special articles on the Wook, and most of the sources cited in this essay are specifically sources that I dug up and collected together in articles such as Lumpy, Mermeia, and Bea Arthur. I don't say this to claim credit or anything (trust me, it's nowhere near as egregious as this case), but just to point out that, well, maybe these books aren't as ground-breaking as I thought they were? Maybe the one on the EU will be better, since scholarly analysis of the EU isn't as beaten-to-the-ground as analysis of the OT is. We'll see. Maybe skip the first book.

 

That was pretty much my impression looking through the table of contents of it. Stuff on the movies is so overdone, especially when it's packed with hot takes like "why the prequels are great" or "isn't the Holiday Special crazy?"

I'm more interested in the comic one, although that also seems like the risk of being relatively trite. The Dark Empire article seems like it could be interesting, but even Insider did a great three part article on it a few years back. The history of webcomics and the UK Marvels could be interesting. The last two also seem like they could be interesting, charting the end of Dark Horse and the return to Marvel, but depends if those authors actually have anything insightful to add or if it's just a summary of events from three years back.

 

Honestly, I'm worried that the EU one might also suffer from being a bunch of rehashed info. I love the NJO, but will they have anything new to say about it, or will it just be "Lucas vetoed Luke dying! Stradley suggested Chewie! Anakin and Jacen were switched! The planning team wanted more gravitas than the Bantam books had!" for the 29th time? I'll still give it a purchase, as it's a kind of project I'd like to support, but it'll probably end up being skimmed as well instead of read cover-to-cover.

 

yeah I saw this thread and was like, oh! and then I opened it and saw the table of contents and the subjects and the people involved and i was like, ...oh.

bummer tbh.

 

The biggest disappointment was that they didn't get me to write about the NJO, right?

 

Another weird thing about the essay on the Holiday Special is that it asserted twice that Kenny Baker was involved with it, and even wondered why his name wasn't in the credits. No... no, Kenny Baker was not involved with the Holiday Special, per his own admission. I mentioned that when I wrote Artoo's "Behind the scenes" section at the Wook back in 2010. I can't help but lose faith in a book when I feel like I've done better research than it has.

 

OK sorry for the double post, but, well... I don't think I want to buy this book anymore. I think the inclusion of Zahn and Windham in the Table of Contents got me excited, but Zahn's is just a foreword and Windham's is just about the making of one of his own books. Otherwise it just seems like a bunch of Rich Handley's friends playing 'Member Berries with the EU. Steven Greenwood, founder of Wookieepedia, even has an essay in the second book (the one about comics). Nice guy, liked him during my time at the Wook, but is he any more qualified for something like this than I am? I guess so, if you realize that these books are just a bunch of fan essays bundled together to look professional.

I read a bit more of the first book (the one about the movies). The chapter on the Ewok Adventure movies was just like the Holiday Special chapter --- long plot summaries and a bit of BTS info that was seemingly mostly drawn from Wook articles that LelalMekha and I wrote. I dunno why I expected what I did when I made this thread a few days ago... if these essays all appeared as articles on TFN one day, I'd be like "neat" and probably not read them. I guess the foreword by Zahn gave them a veneer.

So, yeah, maybe give these a pass. Carry on.

 

It's my second favorite third party book after STAR WARS ON TRIAL.

Mind you, I work in academia and I think there's definitely a disconnect between people here who are thinking of it as a work by professionals versus academics (which it is). I find the former to be fine but the latter is IMPORTANT.

It signifies people are treating it as a subject worth writing about by us snooty intellectuals.

 

I don't really care if it's by professionals or not; I just want it to have substance. I haven't found any in the first book yet.

I also think that calling these academic is preeeeeeetty generous.

 

Well, on a happier note, I got my copy of Jason Schreier's Blood, Sweat and Pixels, and read the 1313 chapter last night. At least some of the stuff in it comes from both his journalist friends who covered some of the LucasArts events, and some of it comes from his own interviews and correspondence with people involved, so some of it was new.

Personally, the biggest revelation for me was that it seems fairly evident that the recently-cancelled Star Wars game at Visceral was essentially a resurrected 1313. 1313 was being specifically designed as a Star Wars Uncharted, and in early 2013 there was apparently momentum for EA to purchase LucasArts and complete 1313 and First Assault, but that fell apart after the SimCity fiasco. In the last few hours LucasArts existed, there was even a last-ditch attempt by the 1313 team who went to Visceral and pitched having them take on 1313. That obviously failed, but a year later the head of Visceral specifically hired on a lot of the former 1313 team to work on the new game specifically because of that pitch.

In any case, not really what this thread is about, but since we're talking about third-party journalistic work on Star Wars, it's worth reading if you can find it in a library (or just buy it if you have 16 bucks, if you like reading about game development in general, it's well worth it).

I think one of the more interesting recent articles on the Holiday Special is the oral history that the How Did This Get Made podcast did with the director two years ago. Not sure if you read it yet, but figured I'd link it anyways: http://www.slashfilm.com/star-wars-holiday-special-oral-history/

 

1. I think most people would find this information obscure.

2. I would not.

 

Substance isn't about the obscurity of the information. Essays like (to quote Steve) "why the prequels are great" or "isn't the Holiday Special crazy?" have no substance. Chapters that spend pages tediously listing every piece of merchandise related to the Droids and Ewoks cartoons in lieu of saying anything interesting about them have no substance. Essays that offer nothing new or unique have no substance. The first book didn't have academic essays by academic people; it had dead-horse beating by Star Wars fans. Packaging all of it together into a published book doesn't make it academic or intellectual. It just puts lipstick on a pig.

 

Yeah, I basically think this is the best third party book about the EU they could have produced and you're dead wrong.

To each their own.

 

I haven't read any of these books, so I have no actual first-hand position here, but if Jeff's description is accurate... it's really hard to call that 'substance'.

 

He's not.

It's discussion of what the Expanded Universe is, how it came about, and the history of its development.

It's a guidebook to the Legends EU.

 

What I've been saying has been entirely about the first book (the one about the movies), as I've established in every post. I haven't read the EU one yet, because the movie one was meh enough to turn me off of it. Everything I've said about the EU book has been speculative. If I'm wrong and it's actually worth reading, I'd be interested to hear why, but some expounding upon the basic "It's good, and it's academic" will be necessary.