Comics Dark Empire Trilogy

The connections of Dark Empire and TTT come together far better with the Supplemtanry material of Dark Empire and the Essential Guide to warfare.

 

I'm wondering where the "Zahn refused to coordinate" idea comes from. Wookieepedia's page for Dark Empire doesn't actually source it.

And according to Veitch's interview, Zahn never even found out about Dark Empire until Heir to the Empire had already been plotted out:

https://starwarsinterviews.com/revi...empire-author-tom-veitchs-new-star-wars-book/

Bantam decided to keep Zahn in the dark about the existence of Dark Empire until he had finished plotting Heir to the Empire. My suggestion that we collaborate on the post-ROTJ timeline fell on deaf ears.

He's talking about his suggestion to Bantam, not to Zahn.

Indeed, when he turned in his own synopsis for Heir to the Empire, he was apparently unaware that the comics project even existed. Then, once his synopsis was approved, somebody got the idea of asking him to critique the story treatment I had written for Dark Empire.

Both were pretty harsh critics of the other's work - but there's no "It would have been only a year after ROTJ but Zahn's refusal screwed that up" in the interview.

Nor in this interview:

https://www.starwarsunderworld.com/2016/08/interview-with-dark-empire-writer-tom.html

Instead, Veitch credits his critique of Heir to the Empire, as being the reason Zahn's subsequent works were more cinematic.

 

Hmm. Maybe it's just one of those truisms that's been spread around without anything to back it up. I've done a bit of Googling myself (even turning up this Lit thread from 2008 where @Jeff_Ferguson asks the same question you do) and while plenty of sites perpetuate that story, there are no direct quotes from either author.

 

I just realized I forgot to link to that thread but I see it's been taken care of.

As for Tim and Tom, it seems that the fault is on Lucasfilm ultimately for keeping the two projects separate and the writers of each in the dark about what each author was doing. But I think the reason they did this is because Lucasfilm seems to value giving creators a wide berth in which to work to be as creative as possible. Hell, they are still doing that today with their movies. They seem to not want to put too much oversight on their storytellers.

 

The Zahn/Veitch thing worked out as well as could be hoped for given the circumstances, although the sudden absence of ysalamiri or even mention of them in the face of a villain who would be very vulnerable to them is odd.

 

Also each project was a total gamble at the time - no one knew if there was simply a dormant fanbase that simply needed waking up or one long gone.

Nor was it guaranteed if one succeeded, the other would do so.

Only afterwards, after multiple printings of both did LFL realise it had something it could really tap into.

 

I would love to Read a Veitch interview post-TROS. It seems many of the similarities, at least in terms of the basic idea, were things that Lucas himsef rather liked. And I love how much importance Veitch attaches to the visual and pulp nature of Star Wars. I’m curious what his issue was with Starkiller Base in TFA, and whether he thought TROS was a more original piece of work.

 

see here

 

I've read that section a couple of times now and I'm still not seeing it as adversarial in the way "issue" suggests.

 

@Xammer That’s an awesome interview; thank you!

@Sinrebirth, To be fair to Veitch, his and Zahn’s works marked the beginnings of the EU, and two different visions of how that story could be continued. Considering that DE had a bad reputation among a section of the fanbase for a long while, it could seem to him like SW went more along the path set by Zahn than his. Certainly there have been more than enough stories that are more mystical and cinematic since, but a large portion of them really moved away from that.

@Jedi Ben, I agree that the interview doesn’t explain Veitch’s one issue with Starkiller Base. But he does talk more about the concept, so I’d imagine it might to do with Starkiller being forced to recharge and move from system to system. Or perhaps that it was destroyed so easily?

 

@Sauron_18

But then years later we Dark Empire Fans got our revenge as we waited patiently in the shadows and Dark Empire influenced the final movie of the Skywalker Saga and thus retconned the ST into essentially being Dark Empire

I'm kidding...Mostly

But in all serious NuCanon has gone along a more mystical path in general than Zahn's more Sci-Fi military based path. Hence why a Dark Empire like scenario is honestly a good fit for the direction Star Wars has been going in as of late.

 

Bamtum apparently kept Zahn in the dark so to speak , as Veitch thinks, because Veitch work and Tim's work competing authors and sharing the same SW timeline setting. Bantum also wanted to do everything from comics to novels, they wanted more control. They wanted some big inhouse thing and take advantage of the graphic novels selling very well at the time, & they did not want to do a collaborative effort with rivals essentially nor share. They also seemed to have forgotten about Marvel that had the license at the time.

There seems to have been a very heated exchange between Veitch and Zahn with possibly only fragments reaching the public over the years, but it has yet to see print and probably never will. But Zahn book Heir to the Empire was heavily criticized by Veitch which Zahn took personally, Veitch believed it to be unncinematic, a rehash of ROTJ and he especially didn like the villains.

 

It's funny, every time I read Veitch's critiques of Zahn and defenses of Dark Empire, I come away more appreciative of Zahn's approach and less so of Veitch's.

 

It's funny that Veitch claims Thrawn is a copy of Tarkin/Vader. If anything, Thrawn is basically evil military Sherlock Holmes, and Pellaeon was Watson.

 

Haven't read through that whole thing yet, but this stuck out to me...

Substitute villains? *cough cough* Snoke...Royal Guards...Starkiller Base...everything about the First Order *cough*

 

I mean they are essentially substitute villains in a way.

Like it was a challenge at the time of 1990 to have a villain after The Emperor and Vader and while they are defiantly good C'both is defiantly a bit of diet Emperor even the final battle is in a throne room where their is a Jedi Duel.

It's not a one to one...But I get the sentiment

 

Well I was kinda late to the Thrawn Trilogy, and had already gotten the gist of it from the internet before reading it myself...so I guess I already had those characters built up in my head as an essentially part of the universe. Still...if we're talking about substitute characters, I don't think it gets any more blatant than the sequel trilogy.

 

Well...yeah....But he's talking about the CONTEXT of 1990 which when it was released one could get the sentiment

So by that logic the same thing will happen to the ST villains too.

Again...Out of the Universe Context is key.

 

Zahn took a "scientific" approach to the Force, even providing ysalamiri that somehow biologically weakens Jedi. Even though Zahn claimed he disliked the concept of midichlorians in an interview, they actually seem to fit right into his "biological/scientific" take on the Force as shown in the Thrawn Trilogy.

I even made a joke about how Zahn's "science" take on the Force and how Dark Empire's mystical take on the Force would end up if they interacted earlier in this thread.

 

Ah battle meditation the first true time the EU was attempting to "Fix" something from the movies

 

And unnecessarily, for bonus points.

 

Battle Meditation was already strongly implied in the Return of the Jedi novelization when it said the fleet lost any kind of military competence once the Emperor was killed. I assume Zahn was just following up on that novelization (unless he didn't read it).