Lit Anakin Solo is overrated

The thing is, Starkiller doesn't threaten Luke's "primacy" anymore than Mace Windu. Mace beat the friggin' Emperor before Luke was born, and could definitely have beaten Vader. But circumstances didn't allow it. I think it is pretty clear in TFU that Palpatine is feigning defeat against Starkiller to begin with, and Starkiller likewise didn't kill Vader due to circumstances anymore than Mace Windu did.

Is the fact that Mace Windu is a film character a noteworthy distinction? I don't see why if the EU is supposed to be on the level with the films and it is a huge issue when there's a perception of disrespect. I suppose I don't understand the cognitive dissonance of the general EU fandom that bemoans every contradiction to such a zealous degree that it seeks to interpret ambiguities in the worst possible light to be outraged over them, but at the same time is zealous in defense of the primacy of Luke, Vader, and Palpatine against the fanfic EU characters that threaten it.

I'm curious how fans will react if the ST and a hypothetical fourth trilogy introduce a greater villain than Palpatine that kills Luke and is dispatched by the son or daughter of Han and Leia. I know the SOS thread won't be happy. But I suspect that the OT has been hard coded in fans minds as sacred and everything else is fanfic in status in comparison and can't rival it in perceived importance. Which is why the PT and the ST are losing propositions. Sadly, I'd think EU fans would be the one group that wouldn't fall to this mindset, but this form of purism curiously infiltrated it around 2008.

 

Of course the OT is a sacred word of law, why do you think everyone gives Yoda's words on things primacy? Even in the things that he's blatantly wrong about?

I for one can't wait to see the fallout from the SOS thread if Luke dies or even if he's not the one to kill the villain at the end, and how many people whine about how they're "quitting Star Wars" because Luke is the only character ever allowed to do anything.

It's weird to think that, being fans of the EU, we might be more inclined to welcome whatever story twists and turns the ST and subsequent spin-off films bring. Because honestly, the fans who do hold the OT and even the PT on a pedestal, anything that comes close to challenging those films for primacy will be shouted down because it's "not Lucas's Star Wars" or whatever. We're more used to disappointment and seeing things we enjoy superseeded and characters we've come to love die. Case in point: all of the people still upset over Anakin Solo's death. It'll be hard for the ST to hurt EU fan more than we've already been hurt in the past.

 

I know what you mean DigitalMessiah. While I was never a fan of Galen Marek, it always bugged me that people hated on him for supposedly diminishing Luke's accomplishments. As you mentioned in your post, he didn't do anything that Mace hadn't also done before; however because he is an EU character, his skills are considered disrespectful of the OT. It reminds me of the arguments I have seen that Legacy is disrespectful to the OT because it happens to have a resurgent Sith order and Empire. Just because the OT happened to be the stories that started the Saga shouldn't mean they are the single most important event in the entire history of GFFA.

 

Arguable.

 

Why is the PT viewed as lesser? Because it's crap, pure and simple. With the casting it had combined with the advances in SFX available to it, the PT should have been frelling fantastic! Instead, due to a wondrously destructive cocktail of creative hubris, wooden directing and "a lack of vision" it doesn't compare to the OT due to being so damn soul-less.

The only good things to come out of the PT was the utterly unexpected EU materpieces of the Luceno and Reavesverse, Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, the Vos epic but, great as they are, they are so in spite of the source material, not because of it.

I can see myself re-reading quite a bit of PT-era EU where I can't see myself rewatching the films because they're so leaden.

As to the ST, we know too little to know how that'll pan out, but this being the internet everyone's already inclined to damn it. Go nuts over the film when it's out? Screw that, the internet goes nuts 2 years before the film's even out!

 

At least with Starkiller, you can argue that Vader just trained him too well!

Maybe so, and not something I'm interested in revisiting, but it's damned all future endeavors in Star Wars to the point that a lot of folks are immediately critical about everything not written by Luceno, Stover, JJM, or Ostrander.

 

Really? If that were so how come I enjoyed Kemp's Korr duology? Why did I bother with Scourge? Or Dawn of the Jedi: Into The Void?

Once upon a time the quartet you cite were all new authors for SW but they wrote their stories regardless, people took a gamble and liked their work, they did more work that was of consistent quality so become known as a good buy. Before them you could look to the likes of Zahn, Stackpole and Allston - no one knew what to expect from him when he did X-Wing 5, but if people didn't know Allston, they knew the brand - both Star Wars and X-Wing and their trust was rewarded.

The bigger problem is Star Wars, as a brand, is tainted due to less than stellar products being issued, the attitude has become: Stick Star Wars on it and watch it sell regardless. Want to redo the Clone Wars? Why not? No one's going to object enough to stop buying.

 

The same was true when Bantam was publishing their novels, most of which were crap, but folks weren't nearly as cynical about it.

 

Starkiller's just badly written and shouldn't have been created. A cash grab if i've ever seen one. Galen at least had some kind of story arc, his clone was just insane.

I also disagree that most of Bantam was crap. There was crap to be sure, but it was sprinkled between good works, whereas since TUF pretty much everything's been crap, with the occasional good work like the Korr novels.

Jedi Ben The PT Era also gave us the Jedi Quest young readers series. Not a major contribution, but similarly to TCW I thought it did a good job showing who Anakin was before the Vader era, and actually backed up the claim that he was a good man.

 

I don't see the distinction.

I think the overall ratio of quality is the same, but the perception thereof is not.

 

Bantam--Mostly good works, with bits of crap.

Post TUF--Mostly crap, with bits of good works.

 

Meh. Windu had him cinched.

 

Bantam had the excuse of experimenting because they didn't expect the success of TTT.

1993-1996 is Bantam experimenting, 1997-1999 is them tasking Zahn and Stackpole to draw it together into a more cohesive as that's what was then wanted.

Also it was mostly pre-Internet, I only found this place in '99 as Bantam's run was ending.

I do think there was a difference between Bantam and DR, the former tended to be more careful because they weren't certain of what they had. Their experimenting cut both ways, it gave us inconsequential stinkers like Crystal Star, but also brilliant little books like the Tales series. In contrast, DR had the luxury of having a known quantity fanbase - or so they thought - coupled with a more commercial outlook that fans lost can always be replaced, which likely also was a reflection of LFL's take.

You can't under-estimate the level of expectation for the PT, nor the venom its failures spawned. For us, as EU fans, that hit is definitely much reduced due to the quality of the EU work, but if you go just by the films the PT is a staggeringly toxic injection of cynicism into a series known, amongst other things, for being more optimistic. And it's irrevocable, especially in the light of Lucas' latest editions! I mean SW can never have too many "NNOOOOOOOSS!" can it? (Oh yes it can.)

The sad thing where DR is concerned is their late post-OT work eclipses all else and that's a shame.

 

I dunno, TCOPL, Callista trilogy, TCS, JAT, Black Fleet, BH trilogy, and Corellian trilogy are largely considered crap, and that's 17 books of 38 adult novels. 18 if you include The Truce at Bakura, but people seem to be merely apathetic to it.

I'm not sure why you limit Del Rey to post-TUF and make 1999-2003 a no man's land. But outside of the uber plot novels, e.g. the 22 novels comprising Dark Nest - Crucible, people generally have enjoyed all the other novels. That's 22 novels over a span of nine years, which is more crap than Bantam put out over eight years. And some folks like the Allston novels in those series. Del Rey put out a lot more novels in that time than Bantam. Of course, there could be some bad one-offs, but I don't feel like counting them (the TFU novelization comes to mind).

I think the overall quality has been largely consistent, especially if you don't artificially eliminate NJO, and the only distinction between Bantam and Del Rey is that bad books are even more infuriating when they ruin or kill popular characters.

 

Much like DR's Anakin and ObiWan stories then DJ? The "tragedy of Darth Vader" ? Only works for me with EU material.

 

I limit it to Post TUF, because that's the era where people truly started to think of everything as crap and why everyone's become so cynical about the EU. I'd also count a good number of those novels you listed from Bantam as decent.

Jedi Ben "Only works with EU material"

Sad but true my friend.

 

It's more to do, for me, with stories being avoidable or not. Most of Bantam's stinkers can be placed into the category of entirely avoidable, you don't miss anything by not reading Courtship or BFC, in contrast, stories like LOTF are a roadblock that can't be got around if you're following the big 3.

I'd even suggest the big enduring controversies have this in common - Zahn's work, DE, SBS/TUF/NJO, Denning's Big Arc of Death and Ambiguity (tm).

Interestingly, the great bulk of your examples of Bantam's crappier products fall into that experimental span of 1993-1996!

 

And Kyle wasn't?

The EU is a cash grab.

I think Starkiller is much better written than Kyle in the context of their respective games. Curious to hear Grey1 's opinion on this, though. Starkiller has the luxury of story being given more importance in contemporary games than Kyle did. Kyle is a typical Schwarzenegger hero -- more a walking series of one liners than a personality. I suppose the distinction between the two is that the games gave Starkiller more personality than they gave Kyle, and the novels for TFU didn't really do much if anything to expand on that, whereas I feel like there's a characterization for Kyle within his multimedia work. Namely the audio dramas, where he has a consistent voice actor and a lot of dialogue. Haven't read through the novellas yet, but my mental image of Kyle is I guess built on the foundation of those audio dramas now based on my experiences detailed in the Dark Forces saga thread. Which is a substantially different character than the "Chuck Norris facts" version.

Well, that is half of their run.

 

Kyle's better written than the idiot clone we got in TFU2. The original in the first game's got more development throughout though i'll agree.

Not necessarily. Something just being created and sold doesn't make it a cash grab in my mind. Being created, with extremely poor quality, to cash in on the success of an earlier work (Most sequels in history) make it a cash grab, like TFU2.

Kyle does have the benefit of appearing in numerous other works that actually add onto his character, whereas Galen's stuck with his game and nothing more. As you said the novel and the comic didn't really add much.

 

So I take it you'd have a much better idea of what they should have done at the time then? Everyone's a genius in hindsight.

Every successful series has had twin goals: Make money while making the buyers feel appreciated. Once the latter sense is lost it is very hard to regain.

If you say: But they just want money and will do anything to get it! My response will be: Fine, but they're not getting mine!

 

I think everyone seems to shortchange TFU2 with the inability to handle ambiguity. The game rather deliberately leaves it as an open question as to whether Starkiller is a clone or not, because the central premise of the game is a question of his identity and it is a character driven story. So I'm not sure why everyone up and decided that he was a clone, and I think they're kinda missing the point. I think Starkiller's portrayal in both the TFU games have a lot more nuance and subtlety to them than Kyle Katarn, who is painted as a character -- mostly in JK -- with much broader strokes. Which isn't to say I dislike his arc in JK, it's rather good and I think it shows understanding of the franchise; it just happens to be really simple. I suppose you could argue the same is true of the OT vis-a-vis the PT, but I'm not going to argue that Starkiller's characterization or arc is bad despite being more involved than Kyle's.

Plus, I think there seems to be an element here of what Grey1 mentioned about the book circuit being elitist. Though TBH, I don't think most the Star Wars novels are particularly cognizant of their character arcs, and even authors which are don't necessarily choose to have them all the time. For instance, there's pretty much zero character development in the Thrawn trilogy on the part of the Big 3, with really only Karrde and Mara Jade getting arcs. A lot more could have been done with Leia having children but it's more a plot device than anything dealing with her newfound maternity. That's not necessarily an indictment on that story, but it just illustrates the complexity of navigating the EU, and characters like Kyle and Starkiller are necessary in my mind because they can more easily have fully fleshed out character arcs that are integrated into their own stories than the Big 3.

 

The closest you get in Katarn facts Kyle would probably be the Vong comic, his smartpantsery in Jedi Academy ("You always sense a disturbance in the Force") and probably the general 80s action flick atmosphere of Dark Forces, which I always see as an almost-tie-in to the Terminator future soldiers (like, you know, Kyle Reese). None of these is, of course, actually close to the Facts thing. The Facts were a joke that got around in a time when people were pretty meta about the EU - you could suddenly read about everything on the Wookieepedia, and there was lots of articles and source books explaining entire eras without any need for continuity nerds to actually have ever lived inside the ever-changing continuity. Marvel comics? I know about the green rabbit! JJK? Yeah I heard those were lame! Jedi Prince? It's a hoot! But no, never read them. So you get a continuity in which the character is not worshipped for what it is, but for what "social" effect it had for us.

Anyway, gotta run. I can't truly compare Kyle's and Starkiller's stories since I didn't play TFU (just read the comic); Jedi Knight was an excellent experience, one of those in which the minimum of story/plot isn't a problem at all because you can simply embrace the atmosphere. The main problems that make Starkiller a different case than Kyle, though, aren't character or story or atmosphere, I suppose; it's the insertion of the character in places where there previously wasn't a Starkiller-spaced hole in continuity. Plus general elements in TFU that don't gel with the old stuff, we've been through that a thousand times by now. Kyle didn't get inserted in the continuity; he just had a niche, and someone made a connection afterwards. And regarding Mace Windu - I don't think that Starkiller takes away from Luke; that's the game mechanics vs. what should be seen in canon discussion. Which wasn't helped, probably, by LFL taking a lot of stuff in the games literal by putting them into comic and book. Anyway, I'll chime in again later.

 

Maybe I just don't see Starkiller as a character hurting continuity. The biggest issue that comes to mind with TFU is Bail Organa as a traitor clashing with his role in the Star Wars radio drama having Lord Tion visit Alderaan and openly receiving him. But that has nothing to do with Starkiller.

Other than that, so what? Bel Iblis wasn't in the original founding of the Rebellion as it was described. Why is Starkiller somehow a problem, but Bel Iblis wasn't? It's an event that was never depicted in narrative, so it's fair game. The Thrawn trilogy described a Clone Wars that was vastly different than what we ultimately saw in the narrative, and that's the nature of things. I assume because the status quo at the time of entry into the EU is never a problem, and Starkiller was introduced after people started reading the EU, but Bel Iblis was not and thus was always part of their status quo. But Starkiller is no different than Dash Rendar, Ahsoka, Darth Plagueis, or Nick Rostu, all these characters that get inserted into the timeline.

And why would the Rebel leaders or Rebels in general openly acknowledge or even know that their whole movement was started as a scheme by the Emperor? It absolutely makes sense that that information would never be mentioned and only known to those involved.

So the Big 3 don't become BFFs with Nick Rostu or Dash Rendar and never see them again? That makes more sense than becoming BFFs with Corran Horn, Kyle Katarn, Mara Jade, et al., and that is more "Sueish" than inserting a character that plays a role in a story and then recedes from the spotlight. Their paths intersect and then they go their separate ways.

 

The difference is Starkiller and all of the events surrounding his existence radically alter the message of the founding of the Rebellion, while Garm Bel Iblis does not. I don't understand what the problem is with Dash Rendar or Darth Plagueis, though I am not nearly as versed in Darth Plagueis as I could be, and I have no opinion on Nick Rostu yet. Starkiller and Ahsoka Tano are a problem to me, because from my point of view, they really were inserted into the timeline where they don't belong.