Lit After the NJO ended, where did you expect the EU to go?

Oh, you don't need suppression when the memories in question have clearly gone anyway!

 

A return to Bantam Era trilogies and standalones, as well as more focus on the next generation (Or a rebuilding, considering their numbers were reduced dramatically by the Vong War.) I expected Luke to take up more of a Yoda-like role, Jacen to become a teacher, Han and Leia to remove themselves so closely from galactic events, and didn't have any idea or care about what would happen to Jaina.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot, for some reason I had this expectation that the next major antagonist would be Palpatine returning to life again, which would have probably been better than what we got.

And just to make it clear, this isn't what I wanted, it's just what I thought the EU would do, maybe because they were clearly trying to tap into the prequels and they pretty much did in every other way except the antagonist, instead opting for poor mimicries.

 

Well, it's not as if anyone is asking for an end to that type of epic clash of evil. It just needs to be earned and, sometimes, the enemy can be different. NJO proved this. And Legacy proves also proves that we can have the big lightsaber fights with Jedi and Sith as well. Kemp's a great addition to the EU but consider even his own books. Crosscurrent, Riptide, and even Deceived have a pretty personal scale to them. We've just seen the same thing with JJM's Kenobi and Lebbon's Dawn of the Jedi novel. Both of those books are some of the best the EU's seen in years.

 

Technically the old order did not gave rise to the Sith, it was the older, pre-Ruusan reformation, order that gave rise to the Sith. The old order has actually a rather good track record of jedi not falling

 

There's continuity between the two beyond one man.

That's the other problem that has befallen the new Jedi order -- it's more defined by old Jedi than new in SW Legacy.

 

yeah i will agree that the post-njo, specifically, FOTJ destroyed Luke's legacy. LOTF did not even manage that

 

I understand that legacy Comics introduced some interesting characters, and was pretty good for a comic series. I do not mean that it was not good comic literature. What i mean is that it's very existence timeline wise and the state of the universe trashed what came before and weakened Luke's legacy, and what the Jedi should have become. Having thousands of Jedi gone to the point there were like what 100 left by the start of this series, was catastrophic. I do not know the numbers, but speaking in generalizations, about 50 years or so after Luke dies, the Jedi order goes from a thriving few thousand Jedi, to as many as Luke had before the YV war. That is a failure of not just Luke Skywalker to prepare his Jedi for anything , but the failure of the New Republic( I know it is not called the New Republic any longer but i like the name). Having a sith dominated galaxy once again, with only one Jedi that can save them, is epic fail for this universe. Let alone that the supposed savior is a self absorbed, immature jerk who blows off Luke Skywalker, and oh has a freakin drug addiction.

I am fine with characters having flaws and unique characteristics to make the story more enjoyable, but it could have been that way and still have a better Skywalker to go to. Kol is the one that should have survived.

This series should have never existed, and if it was going to exist, should have been hundreds or even 1,000 years later.

 

I expected Jacen to fall to the dark side, which did happen, and I also expected Luke, Han, and Leia to take a step back so the younger generation could take center stage, which didn't happen (I guess cause the NJO killed most of the younger generation lol).

And like Sable_Hart said, I kind of thought the whole thing was going to go downhill.

 

I'd argue that Jacen had already taken center stage by the conclusion of the NJO, and that Jaina had also become at least as important as Han and Leia, if not more.

 

I agree. I meant I expected that to continue, not reverse.

 

What did I expect?

I didn't have story expectations. I would have, however, loved more books like "Survivor's Quest," focusing on one or two of the "big" characters and then adding new characters and situations to the universe (or backstory, as the case may be.) More "X-Wing" books. Books from the perspective of other characters like "I, Jedi." Or "Kenobi"- which I haven't read but I am looking forward to it - which looks at Ben through the eyes of "normal" residents of the galaxy.

However, I did have certain expectations of the editorial team:

For the editors at Del Rey to realize they worked for what used to be the preeminent label in published science fiction, and act accordingly. Not to act like the Star Wars license is just another media tie-in and therefore it doesn't matter what they shovel, people will buy it. Unfortunately, they weren't wrong - the mere existence of Dark Nest proves that a) they didn't really care - "Just write three books about Star Wars, anything you want, bugs are fine" - and b) yes, people will buy anything.

But I wanted them to be better than that. Alas, I should have known the writing was on the wall after reading the mess that was Vector Prime. (No, I could care less about Chewie's death. Amateurish writing, on the other hand - head hopping between character POVs like a flea with a hot foot and an excess of tell (Danni Quee is SO smart, we're told over and over), not show (when we see Danni in action, however, she's the idiot who pretty much allows the invasion to take place) - makes me see red. THAT's the quality of writer Del Rey wants to put on Star Wars?!)

For the editors at Del Rey to hire writers who understood they were writing STAR WARS. Not Halo. Not Starcraft. Not Forgotten Realms. Not World of Warcraft. Not Star Trek. STAR WARS. And specifically, Star Wars as a continuation of the Original Trilogy. Yes, the Prequels are newer, but they are the PREquels. The Original Trilogy was the conclusion to the arc (at least so far). Therefore, the events, the universe and the characters need to spring from and follow organically from Return of the Jedi, NOT Revenge of the Sith. But Del Rey goes on to hire writers who think that Star Wars is a sword n' sorcery epic or a violence-for-violence sake's video game where there are no repercussions because hey, the new level resets the game.

Star Wars - especially the OT - is a space opera. Per Lucas, its antecedents are Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers and Edgar Rice Burroughs and classic westerns and World War II dogfights and samurai films and Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. It's action adventure with princesses and farmboys and rogues fighting meaningful villains (not just the Emperor and Vader, but also Jabba, Boba Fett, Grand Moff Tarkin). It's NOT Cthulhu and eldritch evil, or torture porn, or crapsack universes where no one wins. Yes, there are magical people with magical swords, but there are also smugglers and bounty hunters, politicians and gamblers. And the whole point of the six films is that they DO win. Love conquers. Good triumphs. The darkness is banished.

But no, let's follow up the NJO - with trillions dead and whole planets changed out of existence - with LotF, in which pretty much the only person who gets what they wants is Lumiya. Yay!

And who in their right mind (well, except apparently certain powers-that-be and their authors) want Luke, Leia and Han to end up abject failures?! Yet that's exactly what happens. The New Republic is destroyed; everything Leia stood for as a leader of the Alliance and the New Republic Chief of State is wiped clean and she's succeeded by Fey'la and then DAALA, of all ridiculous things. Han ends up with - what exactly? Well, he gets a dead co-pilot and two dead sons - the older son killed by Han's only remaining child. He doesn't seem to have a role of his own that I can tell other than being Jaina's father, Allana's grandfather, Leia's husband, Luke's brother-in-law and Lando's errand runner. Luke - oy. His Jedi Order is a mess, his nephew and apprentice turns Sith and murders Luke's wife for being out of character, and it turns out that balance his redemption of his father was supposed to bring? Yeah, not so much.

For the editors at Del Rey to hire real authors. Real authors = writers who study, think about and demonstrate a solid grasp of storytelling, character arcs, thematic resonance and the Hero's Journey and plot logic. NOT people whose primary experience when it comes to putting words on screen pretty much amounts to writing game modules for Dungeons & Dragons. Would it have killed them to hire authors who actually had successful original novels under their belts?! Instead, they primarily hired work-for-hire media tie-in writers and game designers like Traviss, Denning and Golden, who have little to zero experience with creating original characters and settings. No wonder we didn't see an expansion of the universe under Del Rey.

(I'm putting the onus on Del Rey because, as I understand it, Del Rey was responsible for hiring the authors and vetting the story proposals. Lucasfilm seemed to get involved later in the process, vetting stories from a bigger picture perspective - they knew what else was going on with the brand re: video games, comics, etc - and giving continuity assistance. But I'm an equal opportunity finger pointer, if need be.)

For the editors at Del Rey to realize after the NJO that they just can't handle a story spread over multiple books by multiple authors, and to return to one-offs, duologies and trilogies by single authors. Alas. This was not a lesson they learned at all. (At Dragon*Con yesterday, Aaron Allston said that writing the 9 book, 3 authors series was like "The Three Stooges fighting over the wheel of a car.") But Del Rey should have had their hands firmly on that wheel, as the editor/publisher of that series. No wonder this portion of the EU has been a very risible train wreck.

Ironically, it seems that now the current license is nearing its end, Del Rey has finally wised up and is indeed hiring authors who successfully created their own worlds such as Martha Wells, James S. A. Corey and Kevin Hearne, for one-off tales in the upcoming "Empire and Rebellion" books. It may be a case of too little, too late, but we'll see.

ETA: As it is, I still assert that everything post NJO (I do think they honestly tried with the NJO, poor dears, but they bit off far more than they could handle) is one big troll and they are LULZing all the way to the bank...

Is it 2015 yet?

 

Considering that there still was an Order 80-90 years after Crucible, I would call that a win. Especially after DNT/LOTF/FOTJ. Besides only half the Order was killed in Legacy. More than 90% of the Jedi Order destroyed in the first 2 Purges? Win in favor of Luke.

 

aleja2

I don't think that NJO was informed all that much by the prequels, because it was planned out in 1998-1999 and The Phantom Menace does not have the darkness that Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith had. I think that the effect which the prequels had on the NJO's tone was negligible -- thematically I think it was slightly more influential. For instance, I think Zonama Sekot wouldn't have existed if Episode I were entirely different.

I think the biggest difference between the NJO and the post-NJO is that the NJO is honest storytelling. Luceno and Stackpole and Wilson and Shapiro and Rostoni and whoever else was involved in the initial story planning took the Star Wars galaxy as it existed after the YJK series as their status quo basis. They looked at the themes and cosmology and metaphysics of the films. And they crafted something which was its own story which acts as a perfect companion to the film saga, both in plot and in theme.

The post-NJO takes the prequels and informs its setting and plot from them. The new Jedi order, which was established to be its own unique group with a different hierarchy than the old Jedi, is warped into a facsimile of the old Jedi in nearly every aspect, and similarly dominates the plot like the old Jedi do in the prequels -- though it's debatable whether this is because they're copying the fact that the old Jedi dominate the plot in the prequels, or they're copying the adversarial relationship between the Jedi and the government which featured in the prequels. I'd argue both! This isn't honest storytelling. This is spin-off storytelling, in which the stories are so utterly dependent upon their source for cues in all aspects that they're saying absolutely nothing new at all and have no reason to exist except commerce.

The New Jedi Order series had a reason to exist. It was saying something new that was true to the films but different and acted as a companion piece. Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi aren't even not saying something new, they're not saying anything at all. They're pure commerce.

 

No, LOTF and FOTJ did that. The NJO left us with Jacen, Jaina, Ben, Zekk, Tenel Ka, Jag, Tesar, Lowie, Tahiri, Tekli, Valin, Jysella, Alema, Octa Ramis, Doran Sarkin-Tainer, Tam Azur-Jamin, Klin-Fa Gi, Izal Waz, Wonetun, Marke Medjev . . . the problem is the failure of the later books to follow up with what they were given.

 

I expected about what we got. I didn't necessarily expect Jacen to be a sith and killed within a series, but I would say that was one of the reasonable storylines to pursue next. The reason I feel LOTF didn't resonate with fans was because it was all so rushed. We should have seen several books for each stage of his fall to make it more coherent. But the basic premise of one of the main characters turning sith was certainly not surprising. I guess the main thing that never connected was why Jacen felt he needed to really be sith to attain his goals, instead of just using the dark side as needed and falling more slowly.

 

It doesn't make sense why Jacen felt he needed to be a Sith at all, even with whatever motivations that he has to be a Sith. Denning already gave him a load of new Force powers that were unique and which no other Jedi had. He didn't learn any new powers from being a Sith. He didn't gain anything at all from it. Why did he need Lumiya? His motivation for killing Nelani was that Lumiya wouldn't be able to train him in an imitation of Anakin's need to be taught how to save Padme by Palpatine, but Jacen didn't actually need to learn anything from Lumiya. That is the definition of copying the source material for the sake of copying it.

And it's only unsurprising that a character falling to the dark side was the story because we now know that the authors were content to emulate the source material instead of telling new stories that said new things in the universe.

 

The fall should have taken the whole 9 books and not 5. LOTF was not rushed. Okay Jacen's fall was rushed but the war portion of the story was handled terribly. That was not wrapped up well at all. So many plot points left over and the only thing for the war part of the series was no one could decide who should be leader and they gave it to Daala? They put the war on the backburner for the Allana plot and the Mando plot and the Twin fight and then before the book was over we got the Daala bombshell. It wasn't as bad as Abeloth in FOTJ who was just there each book. Didn't she get creamed in every book?

 

The pivotal moment is when Jacen turns on Nelani, and that scene never made sense to me. He turns on her because the Force keeps showing him that, so long as she lives, he ends up cutting down his own uncle. So Jacen cuts down Nelani instead. Despite Yoda's assertion, undoubtedly passed along by Luke, that the future is always in motion.

 

Well, you see, Anakin/Jacen had a vision of Padme/Luke dying. And he had a Sith Lord that would teach him... how to avert it? And if he didn't kill his Jedi ally, then the teacher wouldn't be able to train him.

 

I will never for the life of me understand why Jacen listened to Lumiya of all people. I just can't.

 

Yeah, it's not as thought she was a paternal figure to him and good friend. But when you're aping source material these sorts of details just get lost in the shuffle.

 

She wanted to kill Luke for years. So why stop now? The Palpatine thing was believable but this? No. Jacen knows the history, why would becoming a Sith be the right thing to do? What's the worst thing Luke's done to Jacen to possibly have Jacen go to one of Luke's enemies and join them?