Lit Do you like the new canon?

Why are you thinking that's what I wanted? As "shut up and go away" really isn't it.

John and Jan were very good at expanding on the ideas but they don't go that far from the core in the end, they just explore them well - the Vos epic remains the best examination of the dark side going.

Legacy throws some curveballs into the equation but, in the end, Krayt still loses to a Skywalker and Fel goes out to Antares. One of the things I liked in Legacy particularly is that the signs of Fel's final fate were there all along, but people didn't want to buy it. It's a shame Volume II never really got the chance to get going.

I'd also suggest there's more complexity in the OT era of the new canon due to how the Clone Wars impact is being woven in. They're actually trying to fuse the trilogies together despite the difficulties.

 

Eh, Tom Baker (who is now an official Star Wars actor) said it best, "There's a difference between a children's story and a childish story."

Star Wars is Family Entertainment.

Simple doesn't mean BAD.

And even then it's stretching as Good vs. Evil doesn't mean it's lacking in wisdom or literary merit. As anyone who studies RL history can say, while good may be complicated and often gray--evil is very rarely actually justified or sympathetic or complex.

One thing I love about the new canon is Disney is just showing the Empire as an actual dictatorship. I.e. cowardly, corrupt, brutal, and motivated by greed rather than ORDER.

Edit:

The odd thing is, I *LIKED* Legacy but I didn't like it as a canon story. I liked Cade Skywalker but I hated the way the story tried to pound in a message which didn't fit the character. I'd happily have enjoyed stories about Cade Skywalker bounty hunter and smuggler but the comics tried to insist ONLY a Skywalker could defeat the Sith and personal choice or decency had nothing to do with it.

It was very different from the OT where Luke FAILED using his powers. He couldn't beat Palpatine with power.

He defeated Palpatine with love.

 

I didn't.

 

Ok, fine, so you don't want to keep this conversation going, I'll take the hint.

 

Rey is the hero™.
Kylo Ren is the villain™.
Star Wars is black and white. I do feel as if I expect a little too much. Hence my last few posts.

 

Heh, yeah, the same black and white that then drops the Dad-bomb on Luke and has the force of terror that a galaxy still fears decades later redeemed.

It starts out as black and white but it doesn't stay that way.

 

I've not engaged with the new books at all, really, with the odd commendable exception it all seems pretty uninspired tie-in stuff.

Vaguely related (unoriginal, I'm sure) headcanon: Rogue One is an in-universe film produced in the New Republic, which jazzes up the mundane fact that the Empire really did just accidentally leave a gaping weakness in the Death Star's design. I think I'll apply this to the Han Solo film as well, unless it's actually good.

 

While I loved Rogue One I don't think the exhaust port retcon was at all necessary. It just seemed a bit cheesy to me. Nothing is impenetrable. I think the weakness is entirely reasonable and the retcon makes it seem like the powers that be feel Star Wars needs to make more sense; it doesn't.

 

What about moral ambiguity is "square peg in a round hole"?
Look at the TCW episode "Heroes On Both Sides". Star Wars can be many things- and be them well.

 

Yes but I want a series which is about good people triumphing over evil because good is better and you can be by holding true to ideals which are right.

 

I do find it strange how people really do buy that the OT is perfectly black and white - see post #256.

It wasn't, SW was doing moral ambiguity well before the PT e.g. Thrawn and Baron Fel, the PT just built further on it.

But, while there is great latitude for the types of stories SW can do, that latitude is not infinite - which is what Legends forgot.

 

Absolutely agreed. I find it odd how the argument is supposedly made in the OT's favor on the basis of "simplicity" - isn't that whole argument contradictory?

I seem to have encountered this problem on several threads of the type "what was the ultimate message/tragedy/meaning of the Force etc. etc." And if you value Lucas' words on the subject, they're not all clear cut either, unless you're deceivingly selective with them.

Legends just got let off the rails - until their weren't rails left, and it was just coasting along on who knows what. I really feel some confidence that that type of managerial error won't be made again though.

Plus - I'm always one for debunking 'headcanon' as just a form of interpretation (yes, it can be more than that too) - sort of an essential process for any decent peace of art/media/fiction, no? So in that light, yeah, it's all just different interpretations and that as always is driving the interest or lack thereof in the new canon.

 

What gets forgotten in amid all the talk of how Legends went wrong is what it did right.

For whatever reason it may be, DR put out far better material under constraints - give them a blank canvas and it all went off the rails, but give them a structure to work with? We then get the Luceno and Reaves verses, Shatterpoint, Mindor, Crosscurrent/Riptide, Knight Errant, Lost Tribe omnibus.

So maybe it shouldn't be a surprise they're doing better with the new material - they're working to a structure set by someone else.

 

People who assume Darth Vader being Luke's father was about moral ambiguity are, bluntly, wrong. It's not. It's about REINFORCING Good vs. Evil and showing moral ambiguity is often every bit as immature as the Black vs. White narrative is often claimed to be. Yoda and Ben Kenobi are shown to be imperfect and flawed as mentors which encourages to Luke to SURPASS them by showing more Jedi compassion and mercy than they were capable of doing so.

The biggest flaw of the Prequels was that it was fundamentally a story about immature people. Weak people without conviction or a strong moral center are not any better written than anyone else.

I want Star Wars to have people who have people who BELIEVE in what they do.

There's far too much out there which has people who claim no answer is somehow better than having one.

 

Why is that a flaw of the prequels? Because it isn't like the OT?

 

I mean, not really. He just said it was flawed because it wasn't like the OT.

Also, jog my memory with TCW episodes about or including Jedi demonization, because I can only remember one or two.

 

All respect to you people's opinions, but I just prefer moral ambiguity. And I'm not asking Star Wars to change. I just want it to continue that which it has already done. In Republic Commando both sides of the Clone Wars are neither good nor bad. They are both flawed organizations. The books never enforce the narrative that one is absolutely better than the other. I think Star Wars stories have been best when treated this way. Unpopular opinion, yes.

 

Unless you were the Mandalorians, in which case you were obviously superior.

 

I think there is room in the vast universe of storytelling that is Star Wars for more morally ambiguous stories – in books, comics and anthology movies, for sure – but I just don’t think that’s narrative of the Saga movies. The Saga movies are essentially epic soap operas about tales of good and evil for general, family-friendly audiences. It’s in part what makes the Saga movies, well, the Saga movies.

 

I felt a major flaw of the Prequels was the protagonists flaws really undermined the sense of joy and fun from the movies. Qui Gon was one of the few heroes you could really root for and that's a thing I associate with Star Wars.

 

The most usual examples cited are the Ahsoka the Fugitive arc of season 5 (because the Council basically kicked her out of the order before any conviction had occurred) and the Fives arc of Season 6 (where the Jedi don't challenge the Kaminoan assertation that clones are property).

Another possible candidate- Obi-Wan the Infiltrator arc of Season 4 - where, in order to infiltrate an assassin group, the Council authorise the faking of Obi-Wan's murder, and let Anakin believe he's dead for a long period (weeks, at least).

 

The PT wasn't about joy and fun though. This just goes back to SW not being able to not be the OT.

 

IF I were to list all of my flaws with the Prequel trilogy, it would go like this:

* The fact there's no one we can really root for because the Jedi are so painfully flawed.
* Palpatine works as a villain Sue who only suffers one serious set back in the entire setting.
* Everyone is Senators, Politicians, or Jedi with the exception of Anakin's mom.
* Anakin is a psychopath from the second movie onward and shows no hesitation to becoming a child murderer.
* Padme is shown to be a person who doesn't ever get to display her own convictions like her daughter but is wishy washy about Anakin.
* Large gapping plot holes.
* Obi-Wan and Anakin never getting to display their friendship.

And so on and so on.

Really for me, the Prequels didn't get to show GOOD the way it should have been shown while it allowed EVIL to get a full on display. As a writer one of the basic rules wa "show don't tell" and they showed Anakin as a ruthless murderous bad emotionally disturbed fascist but never showed why the Jedi would tolerate him or why he would love his wife enough to die for her and his child. We needed GOOD characters to root for against the bad even if the GOOD characters lost.

We lost that with Qui Gon.

If you want a visual explanation of my biggest problem with the Prequels, we had the FORMATION OF THE REBEL ALLIANCE CUT.

I mean...what?

The Muggles got shafted in the Prequels.

 

Yes, the Prequels most definitely are not like the best movies of all time.

Yes, they're different.

And they're worse.

They didn't have to be identical to the original trilogy and could have told their own story, which they did, but they lost a lot of what made the original movies great. Which is BAD. It certainly didn't make the movies BETTER.

I'm just saying.