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Lit How did the prequels affect the post-RoTJ timeline?

Discussion in 'Literature' started by zchmrkenhoff, Feb 8, 2017.

  1. zchmrkenhoff

    zchmrkenhoff Jedi Knight

    Registered:
    Jun 17, 2015
    Phantom Menace came out in 1999, just before Vector Prime. Surely the writers of the NJO had seen it.

    AoTC came out in 2002, right in the middle of the NJO series.

    RoTS came out at the end of the NJO order series.

    What influence did the prequels have on all of this? I imagine that a writer in the NJO who had to characterize Anakin Skywalker undoubtedly had to think to himself "this character has the same name and is the same age as the character I just saw in that film."

    I'm just curious if there's any way to document the influence the prequels had upon this era.
     
  2. Ackbar's Fishsticks

    Ackbar's Fishsticks Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 25, 2013
    The prequels definitely influenced the shift in portrayal of the New Republic and its successor states. From a government that was flawed and had bad along with good, but was still generally a vast improvement over the Empire and something that deserved to be fought for, to the same incoherent mess, wavering between corrupt/incapable and malignant/authoritarian, that we see in the prequels.

    I think they also influenced the portrayal of the Jedi; there was a whole thread about this a couple years back titled "Have the Jedi Become Boring?" that goes into this in more depth. (http://boards.theforce.net/threads/have-the-jedi-become-boring.50016988/).

    For my money, the universe was poorer for it. I liked the fact that the post-ROTJ Republic and Jedi were markedly different from what came before. Because it made sense; they're rebuilding from scratch, of course they'd go in another direction; one would hope they'd go in another direction, given that the Old Republic eventually morphed into the Empire. And because the universe you see in the prequels was never meant to be the default, normal condition for the Republic or the Jedi. Precisely the opposite, in fact: the Republic is at the peak of its decadence, the Jedi are at the peak of their ivory-tower tendencies, the entire system has gotten so rotten that it's on the verge of collapse, all of which is supposed to be highly unusual, not the normal state of affairs. Portrayals of both of them in other eras should be different, not emulating the prequels.
     
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  3. KikReask

    KikReask Jedi Knight star 1

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    Jul 13, 2016
    I wouldn't know how it influenced most of the books I haven't read yet, but I know that the prequels did affect the books in one little retcon regard of The Clone Wars. Back before Attack of the Clones it was thought that The Clone Wars was a war about some mad rampaging clones who attacked the Galaxy, I noticed this when Thrawn talked about The Clone Wars in Heir to the Empire and it certainly sounded like a different conflict he was talking about, but I think it was the original Marvel comics that first painted up that image of what writers envisioned the war to be.

    In regards to how the prequels influenced the post-ROTJ books, I recall one book of The New Jedi Order series had an exploding Trade Federation ship on the cover, and details of the prequels would show up in later books like Jango Fett being Boba's father in the Legacy of the Force novels, although by then the prequels had long finished. I doubt most writers would have used too much from the prequels inbetween film releases in order to not get contradicted later on. I do remember seeing one image of Luke and Mara Jade fighting against Droidekas but I'm not sure when that happened, probably Survivor's Quest.
     
  4. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 30, 2012
    I recall a character saying that another reminds him of Senator Palpatine.
     
  5. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

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    Sep 2, 2012
    Viqi Shesh I think. Was it Leia that thought that? Pretty sure.
     
  6. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    At the time? The prequels had a deleterious effect on the EU. As noted, the NR became bloated; corrupt; untrustworthy. The Jedi became staid and set in their ways. There were bits of that earlier -- as far back as Zahn, esp. re: NR politics -- but the prequels tended to reshape the EU in their own image. Or perhaps the EU felt it had to be reshaped by the PT to be relevant.

    Currently? The biggest change the PT has done to the NEU post-Endor situation is that it explains why the Empire is falling so quickly. Because the PT compressed the timeline and made the Empire much younger than previously thought, the Empire comes across much more as a temporary regime. Consequently, it is much more despised and falls much more quickly: it doesn't have the sense of history and permanent establishment keeping it going. It's a necessary and logical change to the post-ROTJ timeline, in light of the prequels.
     
  7. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    I have to agree they made the EU poorer; the prequel-ification was the reason I stopped reading the EU. Someone made a great review and the point that the one dimensional characterisation was forced upon much more interesting characters; I agree. Jedi stopped being wandering ronin and became boring flipping out space ninjas.
     
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  8. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

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    Sep 30, 2012
    Characters would become aware of what happened in the prequels without explanation.
     
  9. vncredleader

    vncredleader Force Ghost star 5

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    Mar 28, 2016
    I really like this fact. Reminiscent of real life regimes like the Third Reich being this massive regime that would last for one thousand years.........or you know like 12 years cause the whole, making the world at large hate you and want to kill you, thing.
     
  10. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    The Republic comes across as less this mythical thing from the past, and more as a return to normal. A flawed return to normal, given that the Imperial period kind of has to be swept under the rug with Imperials being pardoned or what not, which takes us to TFA -- but it makes sense. I mean, most people who are older than young adults at the Battle of Endor were around for the Republic -- they remember it. Granted, it's been long enough and institutionally disruptive enough that it can't just be restored instantly: but it's not forgotten either.
     
  11. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2003
    It was 23 years, right? The age of Luke and Leia in ROTJ, since they were born during ROTS.

    In real-Earth time, that's 1994.

    So it wouldn't be too different from someone nowadays talking about "oh I remember the days before Newt Gingrich took over Congress and put it on this path."
     
  12. Jeff_Ferguson

    Jeff_Ferguson Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2006
    The prequelification of Luke's Jedi Order was terrible. It didn't really happen in the NJO, thankfully, save for surface similarities like a Jedi Council --- Luke successfully led them through a war and came out of it telling his students "Maybe the Force is even less black and white than we thought." The Jedi were wearing flightsuits instead of Tatooine moisture farmer robes, despite what later artwork set during the period wants you to believe. One Twi'lek Jedi even disappeared into the Force when she died in Dark Tide. But then Legacy of the Force brought the Jedi back to Coruscant (in a Jedi Temple rebuilt to look exactly like the old one), returned things to a strict light-dark dynamic, gave everyone the awful robes, and put the Jedi Order through another Clone Wars. K'Kruhk and T'ra S'aa coming back to lead them didn't help things (one of the few parts of Legacy that Ostrander and Duursema really botched), especially when K'Kruhk was still trying to cite the Clone Wars as a relevant precedent 150 years later.

    Also Luke and Mara fought a Droideka.

    There's actually a weird exchange in Survivor's Quest where Luke is like "What ever happened to the Trade Federation?" and Mara says "Well they suffered at Naboo, came back at Geonosis, and I'm not sure what happened next because Episode III hasn't been released yet."
     
  13. Vthuil

    Vthuil Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 3, 2013
    The NJO and the post-NJO make an interesting and useful contrast on how "prequelization" was handled, and it's fascinating to me that the latter did it so horribly after having had a direct example of how to use it constructively.
     
  14. Jid123Sheeve

    Jid123Sheeve Guest


    In regards to compressed timelines.

    It also shows that white British actors and desert sand don't mix. And man...Uncle Owen and Aunt Baru got old quick. vncredleader All that labor and effort only to be never mentioned again....Sad. :(
     
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  15. vncredleader

    vncredleader Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 28, 2016
    I swear to God Luceno needs to do Lars the novel or they need to make Lars: a Star Wars Story.
     
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  16. Jid123Sheeve

    Jid123Sheeve Guest

    YES!

    Also vncredleader good point about the Empire, while the Empire was always Nazi inspired it became more Nazi influenced in later things. Earlier I think it was probably meant to have a more Roman Empire feel. Though to me I've said the Empire is Nazi German, Roman Empire and the British Empire in it's hay day. Makes me curious how old the Empire was supposed to be, or if Palpatine was meant to be a lot older then just 80 at the time.

    Also something I'm curious about how the Prequels effected the post ROTJ timeline is how much presence the Sith had. While I know Lumanya was a Sith (Now I could be wrong since I never read the books) I always felt that during the Bantam and NJO series the Sith prescene felt ....lessened. Though it's funny that the TOTJ series were going on and Exar Kun was in Luke's Jedi Academy novels (Though I wonder if he was called a Sith in that novel or not) But I do know that the post NJO era had Sith heavy stories with Jacen and then Legacy obviously with Kyrat.
     
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  17. Nobody145

    Nobody145 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2007
    Yeah, the quality of the prequels aside, every era having to rip off the prequel era status quo led to a serious drop in quality. A galactic government doesn't have to be perfect, but after the prequels we didn't have any really good leaders. When Borsk Fel'lya was one of the better ones, that says something (ambitious and self-serving, but not evil). Ok, Omas meant well, but he was never that effective, and after him there were no good leaders.

    There was also this shoehorned in plot line in the Dark Nest trilogy about Artoo having some holorecordings from the prequels, but it mainly served as a way to depower Luke for some lame reason.

    Before the prequels, the Jedi (and Republic) were seen as good things brought low by Palpatine. After the prequels, the Republic is always seriously flawed, the Jedi are often sanctimonious and oblivious (at best), and oh yeah, we kept getting "Jedi purges" or rather plenty of Jedi redshirts dying... when post-NJO there are never many Jedi at all! A lot of NJO involved "blame the Jedi for everything!" and post-NJO it got worse, and we had plenty of Jedi deaths. Not that I'm saying Jedi should be invincible and never die, but that Luke can only train so many at once, so even having a hundred trained Jedi by LotF-era is a really big accomplishment. Even if Luke could manage teaching multiple students at once, and they all went on to teach a few more students, you can still only have so many Jedi in 30 years.

    That's one of the things I disliked about the Legacy comics, it opened with a Jedi purge, and the Jedi never played much of a role in that series (and the main representatives were the Hat and tree lady who spouted recycled prequel era platitudes) so that more screen time could be given to the Imperial Knights.

    There's also that whole stupid "no attachments" thing. In theory its a good philosophy to try to adhere to, a monk kind of thing, that if you focus on serving then when you lose comrades it won't cripple you. It didn't work out for Anakin Skywalker, but he was already messed up and the Clone Wars didn't help. Before the prequels, it seemed like Jedi would just be like wizards or superheroes with relationships, but after the prequels there was that whole "Jedi shouldn't marry" thing that popped up in some eras. The Old Republic era really ran with that, but KotOR-onwards ripped off a lot of prequel stuff in general.

    Not to mention the whole Jedi Council thing. Post-NJO and especially FotJ really overused the "useless Jedi Council" scene. Actually, the prequel era Jedi Council scenes were usually more useful since they had to coordinate thousands of Jedi Knight. FotJ had almost the entirety of the NJO in one building so they could all be useless together so as to drag out the plot and waste as much paper as possible.
     
  18. Darth Invictus

    Darth Invictus Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Aug 8, 2016
    I always felt LOTF's SGCW was strongly influenced by the prequels.
     
  19. TheAvengerButton

    TheAvengerButton Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Aug 11, 2011
    This was one of the problems I had with Zahn, his constant need to try to define the past before anyone knew what it was.
     
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  20. JediBatman

    JediBatman Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 3, 2015
    The consensus seems to be that the Jedi became more stagnant and the New Republic/Galactic Alliance became more corrupt in reaction to their portrayal in the prequels. But are the prequels the ONLY source for this?

    For example, I haven't played KOTOR II, but from my readings of the Wook and reference books it seems like a major theme is that the Jedi and Sith are not very different. Now development on the game began in 2003, so TPM and AOTC had already been released certainly. But if you look at other works by Chris Avellone, he seems to LOVE moral ambiguity. One of the underlying themes of Fallout New Vegas is that the New California Republic is a corrupt but well intentioned democracy, while Ceasar's Legion is a brutal dictatorship, but efficient.

    So how much of that stuff in KOTOR II is the influence of the prequels, and how much is just Chris being Chris? How much of the portrayal of the Jedi and Republic was influenced by the prequels, and how much was simply the direction the authors decided to go? It's a real chicken and egg scenario.

    Although given that LOTF had a Confederacy of Independent Systems Confederation, and Jacen himself compared his predicament to that of Anakin, I'd say emulation of the prequels in some cases was undeniable.
     
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  21. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    The main effect of sandwiching the awful story and themes of the prequels onto the much better OT was that the scale changed. Technology made the OT smaller, and that's good. The less you see the more your imagination fills in the gaps, and that personalises it. Your connection is no longer just "I had fond memories and loved the action" (which seems to be the main driving force for prequel fans, and frankly it seems superficial). It's about the hours you spend constructing all the things you didn't see.

    So instead of good stories about Corran becoming a Jedi by fighting a gang of pirates in a fairly localised setting, it became about the upper eschelons of the leaders. In modern vernacular, and this is not a good fit, but it went from being a story about the 99%ers to the 1%, and given the lack of depth any of those senators had in the PT I can't see why that OMG THE STAKES ARE HIGHEST EVER IMAGINABLE! AGAIN! approach was deemed best fit.
     
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  22. Jeff_Ferguson

    Jeff_Ferguson Force Ghost star 5

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    May 15, 2006
    I sure got tired of Coruscant by the end there.
     
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  23. Dr. Steve Brule

    Dr. Steve Brule Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Sep 7, 2012
    That's true about Avellone, but I think one thing many people miss is that Kreia says a lot of stuff in the game, and there's not a whole lot of directly refuting her via dialogue, your very actions as a character (provided you go about the light side path) are a constant refutation of her.
     
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  24. Jedi Princess

    Jedi Princess Jedi Master star 4

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    Mar 25, 2014
    Ugh, I hated it. I hated how Knights of the Old Republic changed its era to match the prequel trilogy and I hated how post-NJO changed its era to match the prequel trilogy. And I love the prequel trilogy; I love it in large part because of the context it provides for IV - VI, I love it because it portrays the galaxy as a living changing thing, and I will forever be frustrated that The Force Awakens wasn't brave enough to establish how that galaxy has continued to live, grow, and change. I get that a lot of people thought the prequel trilogy wasn't Star Wars enough, but I really feel that each trilogy should be very different from each other. That's what makes Star Wars relatively unique amongst the really big fictional universes, the status quo changes over time in ways that, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe only pays lip service to.
     
  25. Darkslayer

    Darkslayer #1 Sabine Wren Fan star 7

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    Mar 26, 2013
    Ender, nice parody of PT haters [face_laugh]