Lit Expanded Universe/The Force Awakens Parallels

So it's been awhile since I've been on here but since I'm back I figured I'd actually post something instead of just lurking like I used to.

Now I absolutely loved Episode VII but as I was watching it I couldn't help noticing some similarities with the EU, or Legends as it's called now. Anyway, I figured I'd post what I noticed here and see what you guys think, and whether there's anything you spotted that I may have missed.

I figured you guys would appreciate this more than those on tumblr, which was where I originally posted this.

Skywalker-Solo offspring called Ben
TFA: Ben Solo, son of Han and Leia
EU: Ben Skywalker, son of Luke and Mara

Han and Leia have a son who turns to the Dark Side...
TFA: Ben Solo -> Kylo Ren
EU: Jacen Solo -> Darth Caedus

...And kills a close relative...
TFA: Kylo kills his father
EU: Caedus kills his aunt

...And also has an epic battle with another relative...
TFA: Kylo versus Rey (this is assuming that Rey is Luke's daughter)
EU: Caedus versus his twin sister Jaina

...And who also tortures his cousin
TFA: Kylo tortures Rey (again, assuming Rey is Luke's daughter)
EU: Caedus tortures Ben

A Skywalker-Solo feels the death of their spouse through the Force
TFA: Leia feels Han's death through the Force
EU: Luke feels Mara's death through the Force

There's a main character who was once a part of the Empire/First Order
TFA: Finn was a Stormtrooper
EU: Mara was a Hand of the Emperor

 

You missed one:

TFA: First Order
Legends: Empire of the Hand

 

Ah, so I have, I figured there'd be some I'd missed.

 

There's a somewhat hilarious post in the TFA thread along these lines, but I can't remember where exactly.

 

Finn has parallels with the Hand of Judgment, right down to the specific reason for deserting being not able to stomach the massacre of a village full of innocents.

The Resistance is kind of like what the Insiders from Enemy Lines could have been if that plot had gone anywhere.

Then there are the parallels with Legacy Volume II, which I mentioned here:

 

The whole final lightsaber battle is lifted from Splinter of the Minds Eye.

Vader gets shot pre-battle, knocks Luke out momentarily. Leia picks up the saber and fails to fight off Vader, so Luke takes the saber himself, channels the force and inexplicably kicks Vader's ass.

 

Forget the (obvious) FotJ/LotF-parallels. If TFA mirrors one piece of EU it is the DarkEmpire-series:

TFA: After the battle of Jakku the NR believes to have won the war against the Empire and that there is only cleaning up left to do.
DE: With the defeat of Thrawn the NR believes to have won the war against the Empire and that there is only cleaning up to do.

TFA: The Empire has established bases, colonies, garrissons and shipyards in a for the NR difficult to reach region of the galaxy (the Unknown Regions)
DE: The Empire has established bases, colonies, garrissons and shipyards in a for the NR difficult to reach region of the galaxy (the Deep Core)

TFA: Imperial Hardliners have hidden in a for the NR difficult to access region of space (the Unknown Regions) and rebuilt their military strenght.
DE: Imperial Hardliners have hidden in a for the NR difficult to access region of space (the Deep Core) and rebuilt their military strenght.

TFA: The First Order is more radical than the Empire of the OT.
DE: The Dark Empire is more radical than the Empire of the OT.

Both regimes are lead by a darksider of considerable power (FO-Snoke / DE-Palpatine)
Said darksider turns a descendant of Darth Vader to his side.(Snoke - Kylo Ren / Palpatine - Luke Skywalker)
Both leaders have a cadre of lesser darksiders working for them (Snoke - Knights of Ren / Palpatine - Dark Side Elite).
The use of superweapons turns the NR into a Rebel-Alliance again (TFA-StarkillerBase / DE - GalaxyGun).
Both introduce new "super" star destroyers (TFA-Resurgent-class / DE-Allegiance-class)
Leaders have their own personal SuperStarDestroyer. While we have to wait for Episode VIII to see Snoke's personal space-cab according to rumour it is a new version of SSD, while the Palpatine of DE had the Eclipse.

 

IMHO The plot is almost completely identical to Legacy of the Force:

Han and Leia's son falls to the dark side (Jason/Ben)
Han and Leia's son has his private army (Galactic Alliance Guard/Knights of Ren)
Han and Leia's son supported by female soldier (Niathal/Phasma)
Han and Leia's son tortures his cousin (Ben/Rey)
Han and Leia's son has superweapon that has to be destroyed (Centerpoint/Starkiller)
Han and Leia's son has to kill family member to complete fall to dark side (Mara/Han)
Han and Leia's son is trained by disfigured non-sith darksider (Luminya/Snoke)
Han and Leia's son is betrayed by a supporter (Ben Skywalker/Finn)
Han and Leia''s son is opposed by a female relative around his age (Jaina/Rey)
Han and Leia's son destroys Luke's Academy (in Hapes/wherever it is in disney wars)
Han and Leia's son attacks forest planet (Kashyyyk/whever he captured Rey)
Han and Leia's son feels very conflicted about his part in falling to the dark side but decides to stick with it
Han and Leia's son tries to turn his cousin to the dark side to train them (Ben/Rey)

Resistance to Han and Leia's son is a small group only partly supported by the new Republic
Resistance includes young hot-shot male pilot (Jag/Poe)
Resistance has lots of X-wings (Wedge and crew/Poe and Crew)
Veteran leaders of rebellion and supporters of Jedi lead resistance


No only that but the backstory is in many ways the same.


# --------- LEGENDS EU ------------------------TFA ALLUSIONA-----------------

1 - Republic Restored (New Republic/GA) ---- Republic Restored (Republic)
2 - Imperial Remnant Exists ------------------- First Order exists
3 - Han and Leia get together ----------------- Han and Leia get together
4 - Han and Leia have kids -------------------- Han and Leia have kid (or more?)
5 - Han and Leia lose a son in Vong war ----- Han and Leia have kid go to dark side
6 - ------------------------------------------------ Han leaves Leia
7 - Chewie dies -----------------------------------------------------------------------
8 - Luke founds new Jedi order --------------- Luke founds new Jedi Order
9 - ----------------------------------------------- Luke's new Jedi Order destroyed
10 - Luke marries/has kid (Ben) -------------- Luke marries?? Has kid (Rey)




Precisely why did we need a reboot? We're getting a discount version of Legacy of the Force without the fleshed out backstory.

 

That's what I'm saying!

Rey reminds me of Jaina and Ania.
Poe reminds me of the X-Wing boys.
Heck, TFA feels right at home with the Allston books imo.
Finn is like the Hand of Justice.

 

Ok, fair.

Let me re-phrase:


The Bantam and NJO eras were quite fleshed out. We didn't ever get an explanation of how those went to LOTF. But that's still way more backstory about the characters and state of the galaxy. Even if the premise for LOTF was somewhat...illogical.

But no more so than TFA.

 

The similarities with LotF are why I don't like TFA and am not interested the galaxy they have created after Endor, because they are both extremely depressing.

 

A lot of this I hadn't even considered. Though the fact I didn't spot the parallels with other novels/series is probably due to the fact that I'm not that widely read within the EU.

I do have to agree with Darth_Henning though. While I did enjoy the film, throughout it I was thinking 'okay, that's taken straight from LotF'.

Rey also reminded me a lot of Jaina too. But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Jaina is one of my favourite characters in the EU, so perhaps the reason I liked Rey so much is because she was so similar to a character that I already loved. Just a thought.

Also, despite the fact that Disney decided to completely disregard the EU, I refuse to believe that it didn't have some influence on TFA.

 

I really wish that we had something different like the NJO series for the ST.

 

Yeah, but the problem is, the post-NJO is the one thing that had no business influencing anything, because it was just that bad. But then again, plenty of people didn't have a problem with the post-NJO, so plenty of people enjoying TFA shouldn't really surprise me.

 

Niathal is more like Hux, and Phasma would be akin to Tebut or Lon Shevu or something. Niathal and Phasma are both female, but that's really where their comparison begins and ends.

 

I remember enjoying the Dark Nest trilogy and the Legacy of the Force series when I read them ages ago. But then, since they're pretty much the only things I've read in the EU so far, I'm perhaps not the best person to judge how good (or not) they are compared to other EU works.

I think it's also worth pointing out that there are plenty of people who haven't read any of the EU books. None of my friends have read any of them and they all really enjoyed the TFA. It's only those of us who've read at least some of books who notice the rehashing of EU plotlines in the film. Taking a step back and ignoring the EU (as, indeed, Disney have done), TFA was actually really good and enjoyable to watch.

 

I flatly refuse to read that era, because the entire premise, Jacen falling to the dark side, literally makes no sense due to how the NJO played out.

No TFA isn't enjoyable, the state of the galaxy is too depressing for me enjoy it. The Star Wars galaxy didn't need ANH 2.0 to start the GCW 2.0 after Endor, at least for about 100 years.

 

Well since I haven't read NJO yet I can't comment on whether it makes sense or not. I do, however, think that you shouldn't judge something before you've read it. While initially you may think that Jacen falling to the Dark Side doesn't make sense, perhaps TDN and LotF manage to justify it. Perhaps the only person who can accurately judge whether it makes sense or not is someone who's read both NJO and LotF. Even then, everyone has their own opinion.

Regarding TFA, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I respect that yours is different to mine.

 

Starkiller Base = Sun Crusher (with some Galaxy Gun thrown in)

 

As someone who has read LoTF, trust me, it doesn't. They could've still made him Chief of the Waffen-SS of Galactic Alliance and then Chief of State and made him go authoritarian without turning him into a cliche Sith. Pellaeon was an authoritarian and was on the good guy team, but no don't portray authoritarianism as a good thing. You can have a tweener too, not necessarily a heel or a face as your Chief of State. Daala was basically Caedus 2.0 so there was no need to kill him off when they could've kept him around and used him for Daala's role. It didn't make sense that after one authoritarian Chief of State that was violently overthrown one that's literally the exact same, without even a rebrand, is selected.

 

That's fair. You make a good point here about them portraying authoritarianism negatively and it would've been interesting to see how LotF would've turned out had Jacen not turned Sith but was still Chief of State.

 

Remember when you were sitting in a composition class during secondary school, hung over from the party last night or too busy reading the newest EU hardback you spent half the month's paper route money on? The teacher spoke about doing a second draft to the thousand word book report you were probably going to write the night before, but you blew off for another round of Rebellion. Second draft = first draft minus ten percent old Stephen King would say. Then years later you realized how better your word vomit would have been if you had edited the book report. Long metaphor, simple results.

Larry and JJ probably used the cool ideas, and they put the rubbish into the recycling bin. I'm still amazed how people think the new status quo is worth than BSDM nihilists screaming in a uniformed, unidentifiable voice while Cthulhu gets off from wearing Luke's old girlfriends' old clothes.

Even Star Wars needs a jog.