Lit The Best of the Old Republic Era (Legends)

I just finished a personal journey through all of the "Legends" (still hate that term) content from the Old Republic leading up to Bane and Knight Errant. Here's my personal ranking of the major pieces of content, let me know your thoughts!

5) Golden Age of the Sith/Fall of the Sith Empire- this was one of the first Star Wars comic series I grew up on. The story of Gav and Jori Daragon was a little lacking but we were introduced to Odan-Urr, Naga Sadow, and the red Sith.

4) Knights of the Old Republic- Zayne Carrick was an interesting character and spanned a massive 50+ comics in this long-running series. It was fun and contained some interesting plot points corresponding with the Mandalorian War.

3) Tales of the Jedi-Redemption- the tale of Ulic-Qel Droma, one of my personal favorite character arcs in the EU. This was late 90s Dark Horse at it's best with clunky dialogue but vibrant species, worlds, and force powers.

2) Lost Tribe of the Sith- some might argue this too high on the list but I really enjoyed this short story series culminating in the comic series Spiral. We don't have a lot of stories of colonialism in Star Wars and it was fascinating to see the lost Tribe develop over different millennia on Kesh.

1) The Old Republic - hard not to put this in the top spot. From the novels with Revan and Darth Malgus to the comic books with Satele and Theron Shan to the video shorts like the Fall of Coruscant and of course the games themselves, this was one of the most impressive installments of the EU imo.

 

Jedi Vs. Sith was great. It told a compelling story based on a handful of sentences from the Episode I novelization that had apparently been directives straight from Lucas's mouth, and the bare-bones conflict presented in the story (bows and arrows!) really effectively set the tone of the very end of a long, crippling and exhausting thousand-year war. It felt experimental in a lot of ways, including the artwork.

I've always liked Beast Wars of Onderon, but I've also always seemed to be alone on that one.

 

Redemption is great, one of the best Star Wars stories ever, but especially because it's such a personal story at its heart. I almost wrote that it's a story that could have been done completely on its own but it also works by building off of the previous decade of TOTJ storytelling. I think in retrospect it's also interesting to compare Ulic and Vima to Luke and Rey in TLJ.

KOTOR I and II are also up, up there for opposite reasons - KOTOR I was like the perfect distillation of everything quintessentially Star Wars, and then II went and completely deconstructed everything quintessentially Star Wars. Both of those were really fun to experience. And again I feel like KOTOR II makes a good comparison to TLJ in how they both tried to do that approach (and I guess KOTOR I and TFA also).

Also add me into the Jedi vs. Sith column. Hopefully any Old Republic movie or show takes its cues from JVS in both storytelling and style.

 

I agree with you that SWTOR is on top. It has so many great stories from the war and it's lead up. The great battles, the sacrifices the cunning. Then the peace and all the stories it has and then the GAME and all the stories it has (now finally back on track with the next expansion).

While I like the Lost Tribe of the Sith, I just don't think of it as 'old republic era', due to how isolated it is.

Redemption is great cause it's a story we haven't seen before, or since really. That of a fallen hero now trying to live and find redemption.

I also love KOTOR, zayne is a great guy and him and his crew are very fun to watch.

KOTOR the game is also good, while I still don't love KOTOR2 (i dislike deconstruction of star wars)

 

I wish they had KOTOR I take place in 2000 BBY and KOTOR II take place in 1950 BBY at the earliest. That way TOTJ's happy ending would be preserved, KOTOR's disconnect from TOTJ plot-wise, character-wise, and technology-wise would make more sense, and Kreia talking about Revan as if nobody who knew him is alive would make more sense.