main
side
curve
  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit Most "unbelievable" EU stories

Discussion in 'Literature' started by President Bossk, Sep 23, 2020.

  1. Vthuil

    Vthuil Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 3, 2013
  2. JediBatman

    JediBatman Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 3, 2015
    Things I found unbelievable:
    • While the TCW micro series and TFU both have Force powers turned up to 11, I think they fit fine if you look at the stories as an exaggerated version of real events. Otherwise they're fine story wise . . . with the exception of the whole Bail maintaining his Senate seat thing. I'm also not a fan of the "Sith strong enough to destroy whole planets" that appear in Tales or KOTOR II either. But I'm already not a fan of Chris Avellone, so KOTOR II is easy to ignore.
    • When two or more EU stories show a conflicting version of the same event, and they try to retcon together a mish mashed story where *all* versions are canon. So you get silly things like Han winning the Falcon from Lando multiple times, multiple ways the Rebels got the DS plans, Boba Fett escaping the Sarlaac twice, ect. Writers, when you get to that point maybe just pick one story to make non canon.
    • Pop Quiz: what do the new Star Tours Ride, the Rebel Assault video game, and the SW Galaxies card game have in common? Answer: They all showed Imperials and Rebels battling on Hoth, but chronologically take place before Episode V. So the Battle of Hoth . . . is actually the *third* battle of Hoth. That's right, the Rebels decided to put their top secret base on a planet the Imps had chased them from *twice*.
    • Heck, the Star Tours rides deserve their own category. The original had R2D2 present at the destruction of a third Death Star. And the new version? Depending on what scenes you get, you might have BB-8, the Battle of Hoth, and Battle of Coruscant appear in the same ride. I think Wookieepedia tries to cobble together an explanation that the Coruscant battle is CSI remnants or something, but I think at that point I'd just throw in the towel. The theme park rides don't necessarily need to 100% fit into canon guys.
    • The Bacta Grenade. The idea is that if your fellow soldier is injured but you can't get to them, you toss them a bacta grenade. Which . . . just sprays bacta out everywhere, and you just sort of have to hope it gets into their wounds. May work as a video game mechanic for healing, but is a completely nonsensical device.
    • The video game Empire at War needed to fill out it's action quota. So in the Imperial campaign, when the Death Star arrives at Alderaan, it finds a Rebel fleet there (complete with Mon Cal Cruisers!) that the escort Star Destroyers have to defeat. So much for trying to pretend Alderaan is a peaceful planet uninvolved with the Rebellion I guess! Not to mention that "this big off screen battle totally happened, it's just that none of the characters never mentioned it" is a huge cop out.
    • Almost forgot: Star Wars Tales had a comic from the perspective of a Stormtrooper. His recruitment involved what was basically that scene from the Dark Knight, where the Joker throws a sharp stick to the gangsters to have them fight over who gets to live/join. And you know how real world militarizes try to get their soldiers to bond with and trust each other? An instructor has the main character leave a comrade to die . . . during a
      *training exercise*. I get it, the Empire builds super weapons, they don't believe in the sanctity of life. But this is cartoonishly wasteful.

    It's almost like this series has a theme about the corrupting nature of evil and the desire for power of something. Besides there are plenty of Sith or Dark Jedi we see who are more like assassins or minions then galactic conquerors.
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2020
  3. Jid123Sheeve

    Jid123Sheeve Guest

    @JediBatman

    The theme of your post....Categorizing everything as "Canon" is silly.

    Especially where Legends is concerned because you lump 40 years of things that weren't technically meant to be a cohesive piece and only became one over time and just natural evolution of how we made Expanded Universe stuff.
     
  4. Hamburger_Time

    Hamburger_Time Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 13, 2010
    I feel like most of those ones related to video game scenarios and mechanics that seem unlikely to have "really" happened are more a consequence of the Wook trying to make EVERYTHING fit than those things actually being canon, though do correct me if I'm mistaken here.

    The "third Death Star" got a rather clever fix in one of those end-of-Legends blog articles: it was a fake created by Ennix Devian to make the Rebels panic so they didn't notice his men robbing their shipyards.
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2020
    MercenaryAce, cthugha and JediBatman like this.
  5. Vialco

    Vialco Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 6, 2007
    Darth's Krayt and Sidious had pretty sound reasons to me. The former had seen how weak democracy and the Jedi could be and saw it as his destiny to unite the Galaxy and rule it with strength. The latter was incredibly powerful and egocentric. He wanted to be the most powerful and most feared being in the Galaxy.

    I do agree that many megalomaniacal Dark Siders stretch belief. Take Kueller for example. A failed Jedi Apprentice who killed millions just to gain power in the Force. Or his misguided apprentice, Brakiss, who was so gullible, he was taken in by a fake hologram of Darth Sidious.

    The Lost Tribe of the Sith was also laughably naïve and incompetent. They had ten thousand Sith and lost most of them in less than a year.
     
    JediBatman likes this.
  6. Darth Invictus

    Darth Invictus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 8, 2016
    The Dark Side is somewhat like a stimulant. It enhances your already existing megalomania, anger or ambition.
     
  7. Vthuil

    Vthuil Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 3, 2013
    If anyone ever wanted to do a "most unbelievable real life SW stories", the Wook would definitely be at the top. [face_dunno]
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2020
    Riv_Shiel and Hamburger_Time like this.
  8. JediBatman

    JediBatman Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 3, 2015
    Thinking about it, though I frequently give Wookieepedia some flak (especially for marking FFG stuff as canon), keeping the weird scenarios is probably the best they can do in some cases. Yes I think an off screen space battle just before Alderaan is unbelievable. But someone could use the same justifications to say TFU contradicts previous portrayals of the Force so that video game shouldn't be considered canon either. So keeping the contradictions (and making note of them) unless a Lucasfilm official makes an official retcon is probably the best move in many cases.

    Jumping through hoops to canonize a time traveling theme park ride is still silly though.
     
    Riv_Shiel likes this.
  9. Jedi Comedian

    Jedi Comedian Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 27, 2012
    I think the problem with Wookieepedia lies in trying to make everything fit into a faux-historical narrative, even things like games that just said "eh, forget canon, let's just have some fun with recognisable characters/tech/locations/whatever". By always being in-universe, there's little room to interrogate what different media were going for and why they might not fit perfectly. By contrast, look at something like Wikipedia's page for Darth Vader, which acknowledges that Vader is a fictional character and so doesn't have to make a cohesive narrative out of wildly different stories by a multitude of different authors.
     
    Alpha-Red likes this.
  10. Coherent Axe

    Coherent Axe Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 20, 2016
    I wouldn't say it's Wookieepedia's fault, per se; it doesn't have the authority to determine how things do or don't fit into canon, so it's just representing the released material. Unless something's explicitly been labelled as non-canon, the Wook can't unilaterally decide that a theme park ride story isn't part of the universe -- especially as, for example, the Galaxy's Edge story is canon, so there's precedent.

    The issue is the Wook representing all of this material, and in turn official Lucasfilm writers using it as a resource on what's canon or not.
     
  11. Jid123Sheeve

    Jid123Sheeve Guest

    Could be worse...Could be the Doctor Who wikipedia
     
  12. President Bossk

    President Bossk Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    Jul 24, 2019
    Well, not that this completely excuses it, but they did lose a lot of jedi on the war. The academy on Dantooine was blown up after all. So they weren't exactly at peak numbers at the end of KOTOR.
     
  13. Vthuil

    Vthuil Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 3, 2013
    At least from what I've seen, the Doctor Who wiki is actually way better than Wookieepedia, because it's able to actually be honest and talk about behind-the-scenes elements and changes to storytelling, instead of forcing itself to pretend everything fits seamlessly into one in-universe narrative.

    (Although Doctor Who also has the advantage of being a series where history can be routinely changed in-universe, so I'm not sure why it was even your go-to comparison in the first place...)
     
    Gamiel likes this.
  14. anakincol

    anakincol Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 28, 2009
    Just a reminder,

    They where going to eat han, chewie and Luke earlier in the film.

    Later at the party they are using imperial helmets as drums, knowing they planned on eating Luke,Han, and Chewie, well you can connect the dots to what may have happened to some of the stormtroopers.
     
    Alpha-Red and Nom von Anor like this.
  15. antitoxicgamer

    antitoxicgamer Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Sep 9, 2020
    Super Star Wars games.

    Luke fights a giant ice creature in TESB.
    But imo they should have made similar games like these for sequel trilogy.
    [​IMG]
     
    MercenaryAce and darklordoftech like this.
  16. IG_2000

    IG_2000 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 5, 2008
    I want them to do a Super Star Wars Prequels and Sequel Trilogy
     
  17. SpecForce Trooper

    SpecForce Trooper Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 19, 2016
    RotS for the DS isn't far off.
     
    antitoxicgamer likes this.
  18. ThisIsTheWay

    ThisIsTheWay Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Nov 24, 2019
    I dunno, after the republic fought & won 2 devastating wars back to back, I can buy them being in pretty rough shape during the events of KOTOR 2. Neither the Order or the Republic would’ve been in much shape to properly handle yet another galactic conflict so soon after the last two.
     
    President Bossk likes this.
  19. Mira Grau

    Mira Grau Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    May 11, 2016
    For me the most unbelievavle EU piece is the sheer number of named Jedi who survived order 66, especially when it was Luca´s inithial intent that only 2 Jedi remained in a sense to counterbalance the Sith. Yet in the EU every author had their Jedi survive, with most of them never doing anything of note afterwards anyway but with the assumption they did survive the empire. Like any case individually is fine and all but just the sheer number of stories who have their Jedi survive just grew far too great. There should have been enough Jedi left to like outnumber Vader and Palpatine like 200:2 if not more. It just doesn´t make sense basicaly none of them ever showed up at the rebellion or Luke´s order. Nor how the galaxy was filled with darkness when still far more Jedi than Sith where alive.

    Yes you can justify an explain it with numbers but still, far too many named Jedi survived for order 66 to remain believable, especially when taking the movies into account.
     
  20. Daneira

    Daneira Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 30, 2016
    Yes, but for every surviving Jedi, there was an Inquisitor, Emperor's Hand, Dark Side Adept, Prophet of the Dark Side, force-sensitive Stormtrooper, etc, so the power balance isn't as off as you're making it seem.
     
    Nom von Anor and PCCViking like this.
  21. Mira Grau

    Mira Grau Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    May 11, 2016
    That was to be fair also a bit of a problem, Palpatine had way too many dark side students/minions for my taste.
     
  22. Quinnocent-Till-Sith

    Quinnocent-Till-Sith Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 21, 2004
  23. Alpha-Red

    Alpha-Red Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Apr 25, 2004
    Truce at Bakura, with all that entechment weirdness. And I wish they had just quietly dropped and forgotten about this instead of revisiting it in the NJO [face_plain]
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2020
  24. Jedi Comedian

    Jedi Comedian Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 27, 2012
    TBH, I don't really know what to make of Lucas's statements, hence why I originally posted it with an image (now gone) of Dr Manhattan saying "without condemning or condoning, I understand".

    It's entirely possible the whole thing was a joke on Lucas's part that nobody in the room got, but even if that is the case, it's a little weird that he didn't then follow up with some "real" suggestions for a name.

    While I agree that at times it felt like too many Jedi survived - only about 2% mathematically speaking, but very few named Jedi seemed to be killed in Order 66 outside of RotS - I doubt it was Lucas's initial intent to have a "two Jedi, two Sith" balance.

    In ANH we have one Jedi and one Sith - Yoda didn't exist yet, and the Emperor was a manipulated politician (per the novelisation). Obi-Wan describes the Jedi as "all but extinct" (emphasis mine), implying that there are other survivors, if only a handful. Even if we look at RotS in isolation, the whole subplot of Obi-Wan sneaking into the temple and changing the beacon suggests that Lucas intended for other Jedi to survive (possibly even then he was thinking about setting up storylines for Underworld).

    Well, for one thing, I personally don't subscribe to a view of the Force as a bean-counter tallying up the total numbers of Jedi and Sith. How would such a thing even work? Does a 13-year-old Padawan, say, really count the same as Palpatine? What about all the other light and dark side aligned Force traditions throughout the galaxy, how are they counted?

    But there isn't ever really a great explanation given for why Obi-Wan and Yoda (and by extension, any off-screen surviving Jedi) don't become key players in the rebellion. My headcanon (which I wish had been made text in the PT), is that Yoda realised he could have beaten Sidious, but it didn't matter. He'd already turned the galaxy against the Jedi, and by killing him he'd prove Palpatine right and cement the public's belief in the Empire. What they needed was for heroes to rise up from the general populace and make their own choice to resist the Empire ... which is why Luke is raised by his moisture farmers and only trained as a Jedi when he's able to make that decision for himself.
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2020
  25. Jid123Sheeve

    Jid123Sheeve Guest

    @Jedi Comedian

    I remember the Plagueis novel going into this whole thing I think regarding the purge...I think.

    Like the idea is less get rid of ALL the Jedi but just get rid of most of the Council Members and heavy hitters, kill the ones in the temple and the stragglers shouldn't pose much of a threat after that.
     
    JediBatman likes this.