CT Marvel comics and post Star Wars (1977) nostalgia

Several months back, I read a post either on IMDB or in some comments section in an online article, in which the writer stated that Star Wars for him/her meant the time post the first film when possibilities for new adventures were almost endless. To paraphrase, I think he/she meant the time when the figurines were everywhere in the shops and Marvel had a series of comics in which they were winging it due to the fact that they knew nothing as to the way George Lucas was going to move the plot. This person also said that the 'real' EU was the Marvel comics, Splinter of the Mind's Eye and, to a slightly lesser extent, the Han Solo books by Brian Daley. Anyway, I very much found myself in agreement with 'said' person in that the time between SW and TESB was the time that was full of possibilities and, perhaps ironically, the later EU and the prequels were overreaching and couldn't possibly live up to our imaginations.

Having said my peice, does anyone else here agree that those days were the heyday of being a Star Wars fan and that today's over-saturation is interesting without evoking anywhere near the same kinds of feelings? I'm not having a dig at new fans, simply saying that less is sometimes more and that Star Warts these days is too trapped in its own laws and history.

Post script, I think the original author of the comment also mentioned the radio play and extended scenes in the Star Wars novelisation and how they added to the 'flavour' of those days.

 

I know exactly what you mean - The Film Formerly Known as Star Wars left things wide open for further adventures, and the possibilities were endless, due to the sort of light-hearted space fantasy it was. Once ESB took the story to a more intense level, the focus changed, narrowing it somewhat by emphasising the importance of the immediate story (largely Luke's journey to becoming a Jedi Knight, against the backdrop of the GCW). The idea that the next SW film could have been a tangential story following the two droids, or perhaps Han and Chewie on a smuggling mission, was just ludicrous.
I don't think it was necessarily a bad thing, but it's definitely worth acknowledging that there was a period when the SW films might have taken a direction similar to that of the Marvel comic series (and the Marvel series is also the best way of illustrating the one-time 'serial' vision of SW). Early comments by GL after SW was released (and some before) suggest that this was most likely the case. 'Father Vader' changed all that, as did the addition of episode numbers, to a certain extent.

 

Good thread - being an older SW fan (I was a kid when ANH was released in '77), my favorite EU is what we saw in the late '70's/'80's - i.e. the Marvel comics, the Brian Daley Han Solo novels, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the Lando Calrissian novels, The Ewok TV movies, and the Ewok/Droid Saturday morning cartoons. There is something very innocent about this early EU, and these days when I want to read anything I find myself more interested in reading these early books/comics than the more "popular" & mainstream '90's-on EU novels/comics...Ditto for the '80's TV series....

IMHO, it's also a heck of a lot easier to get into this earlier EU than the '90's-on EU - i.e., at this point there have been so many novels, comics, video games, etc. that I honestly can't keep track of them all. I followed this EU from around 1991 - 2001, but then gave up after reading several of the Yuzzhan Vong novels...too much to follow....

 

I get where you're coming from about a golden age where it felt like anything could happen, but for me that time refers to the late 90s/early 00s. Maybe it's an age thing--I wasn't a kid anymore but I was still pretty young, and TPM, the NJO, and Knights of the Old Republic were all things that wowed me in a manner that never happened before when Star Wars was defined by the OT, the Zahn novels, and that stack of goofy Marvel comics I bought secondhand as a kid but could never really get into.

 

The pre-Father Vader period is the golden age of SW for me, so definitely nostalgic for it and glad to see due acknowledgement.

 

I was only 3 when Star Wars came out, so I didn't really experience that aspect fully. When it kicked in for me was after TESB, where my friends and I were contemplating the fallout from the events of the film. By that time, I was a regular reader of the Marvel series and having recently revisited those issues via TPB, it's amusing to see how they had to improvise on the fly during those Post-TESB/Pre-ROTJ days where Han is frozen, Luke knows Vader is his Father and they basically can't even touch any of it for nearly three years. Talk about spinning your wheels!

 

True, that. The Tarkin storyline was originally proposed as an "The Empire builds a new Death Star" storyline, but for obvious reasons, Lucasfilm told them they couldn't do that. They then asked if it could just be an planet-destroying superlaser on a Star Destroyer or something like that, and Lucasfilm was like, "Sure, just as long as it's not spherical".

Those creators where very surprised when they saw ROTJ, and Lucasfilm's directives then made sense to them.

 

Wow, I find that sad.

 

That rings a bell - wasn't it called the 'Space Needle' or something dopey like that?

The Marvel comics provided a good few gems which the later films threw out the window - a mention of an old mission involving three Jedi Knights - Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke's father and a Jedi called 'Darth Vader'.
There was also the very first 'Prequel Era' story in issue #24, 'Silent Drifting', with Obi-Wan looking like a member of the Fantastic Four:





And much later, a further glimpse of Anakin's ghost, post-ROTJ:



Good fun.

 

Yes, it's not as if the Marvel comics and the novels were perfect, far from it, but it was the sense that Star Wars could go in several directions whilst still focusing on the main characters. The first film was self-contained and to my then youthful mind what came after was more episodic. On the contrary, the quest to 'bring balance to the force' via the Skywalker lineage was taken to heart and, somewhat ironically, 'The Adventures of Luke Skywalker' (and friends) was well and truly put on the back-burner'.

Now most of us know what a good sequel TESB was but it was not without its problems. I can condone the decision to make Darth Vader Luke's father but with that came the (perhaps) somewhat inevitable idea to humanise the character. Generally, villains that one can relate to are preferable but to my mind, that did not work for Vader... for me he lost his edge when he wasn't motivated by complete ruthlessness; there was absolutely no sign that there was an element of virtue under the armour and it kind of devalues the Emperor in that the real 'big bad' was a kind of singular, detached 'off stage' conception.

I wasn't originally going to rave-on about Vader but he's not the main point and to me the 'saga' and the need for Star Wars to continually outdo and anticipate itself distracts from the essence of its original conception. It either wants to mimic itself or be 'bigger', 'darker' or more divergent. I miss the times when it was simply a Space Opera with its own, unique, world.

 

In a sense, by making it the Skywalker Family Saga, it actually made itself smaller. The focus was narrowed by the storyline being directed upon a very specific set of characters and perhaps discounting the importance of others, 'shrinking' the universe as a result. Again, not an actual criticism - the storyline became far more intense and perhaps even more rewarding - but it did happen, and was a change.

 

To add to my last post, the Al Williamson/Archie Goodwin & separate Russ Manning SW newspaper strips that came out in the late '70's/early '80's are incredible, and would definitely fit into this early EU. These are all set between ANH & ESB.

 

I agree, but I was talking 'bigger' in the sense of more intense and dramatic. Those things are fine if you don't go overboard and also lose scope.

I like the archetypes that the Skywalker clan represent but to me Lucas dug his 'franchise' into a hole by making every story thread constantly loop back to the original characters and settings. In that way, once the original story was told, it was hard to know where to go with the story. You either begin to repeat yourself, relying on internal cliches and taking them to extremes, or you write material that doesn't suit the universe you are writing for. For instance, the story of Luke and Darth Vader looked like it was heading in one direction and went in another. Originally, it looked as if Luke would have to reject the Dark Side and defeat his father to bring "balance to the force" but the whole 'three-way' confrontation with the Emperor put a stop to that and there was a kind of dramatic cop-out. It became an unlikely story of redemption rather than the story of Luke having to make the toughest decision of his life (the fact he may have to kill his own father). If that had occurred (and Luke had have had a missing sister to find), it would move the plot on more naturally for further adventures.