Why I hated the EU

I agree with this so much! Thrawn, Abeloth, and Vitiate are mary sues with their predicting battles from art, possessing everyone in the galaxy, and planet-destroying rituals. Also, the consecutive-voweled clones are silly and Force-sensitivity shouldn't be clonable. If Force-sensitivity is clonable, why didn't Sheev ever clone Vader? And what's with the Sith Empire going from looking like ancient Egypt to looking like the Galactic Empire the second that they land on Dromund Kaas? Why would the Republic before and during the Clone Wars use a symbol that the Sith Empire used? Why would Palpatine use titles from the Sith Empire while presenting himself as a secular dictator?

 

yes.

 

There were a few things I like in the EU, but not many. I like WEG, Matthew Stover, and James Luceno. I don't care for Zahn, Kevin J. Anderson (unless it's his old republic stuff), or Denning.

 

Matthew Stover and James Luceno were pretty much the only redeeming qualities of the EU to me but they made it all worth it. I was a middle schooler at the time but I also really loved KJA's Young Jedi Knights series just because it was the first time I had Star Wars characters who I could actually relate with, and some of the adventures were pretty cool. Even if they seem silly now, they had some great ideas....excellent exploration of Mon Calamari culture and underwater tech that predated TPM, and the fantastic idea of the Cloud City amusement park ride skydive that I still love to this day. Plus those novels basically set up the New Jedi Order series by creating a starting point for the characters and relationships of the new generation Jedi, even if the characterizations were subsequently butchered by....certain authors...

 

I agree with you that the EU definitely had its problems. I disagree with throwing out the whole KOTOR series because of KOTOR II however, the first and second games were handled by different game studios. The first KOTOR is one of the highlights of all of the old EU imo. Even the second one wasn't bad if you ignore the undead Sith Lords. It even set up a great potential sequel, sadly that was squandered with the choice to make it an MMO in the form of The Old Republic.

As a matter of fact, apparently the folks at Lucasfilm look back fondly at the that aspect of the EU as well, including Rakata Prime in new star charts as well as saying that Kylo Ren's Lightsaber crystal came from the Scourge of Malachor that took place thousands of years ago. We also got the Selkath species in TCW. George himself even wanted to add Darth Revan into the show but thought better of it when Filoni mentioned the potential problems with Sith spirits. There is even unused concept art for some stained glass windows that showed the story of Nomi Sunrider and Ulic Qel-Droma. That's really just scratching the surface. The fact is, probably because of the fact that their stories are so far removed from the timeline of the films and because they are often some of the better written and received stories of the EU, I think we will continue to see more and more things drawn from that period in the EU.

I would personally love to see Revan re canonized, but leave him mysterious, no need to ever see what he looked like, what gender he/she was or how good or evil he was, best to leave him as an ambiguous legendary figure lost to the sands of time. The treatment of Revan and revealing everything about him in The Old Republic is one of its biggest failings.

Sith Force Ghosts, which never bothered me greatly in the past, do definitely seem somewhat out of step with Star Wars for sure. Going one step farther, I like how TCW established that even becoming a Force Ghost is an incredibly rare feat for a Jedi, making it much more special. Also, I thought Starkiller was way overpowered the first time I played The Force Unleashed. That's all well and good inside of a video game that's all about wish fulfillment, but canonizing that, nope, no way. Especially hate how he is able to defeat Vader and give the Emperor a good thrashing as well. Then we get the reveal that the Rebel symbol is his family crest, seriously... Starkiller to me felt like when to kids are playing with their action figures and one decides that his action figure is more powerful than the other kids x infinity. I can't speak to Abeloth as I never read that book series.

I do remember that Darth Talon was portrayed as not really being a real Sith in the comic, being rejected by the Sith of old, but I was never all that attached to that series anyhow. As for Thrawn, maybe the art thing was a little hokey, but I still feel he was a great manipulative villain with real potential if they ever decided to canonize him again at some point. There were other issues with that series to be sure, like Joruus C'Baoth, and Luuke Skywalker. I agree with Darth Sidious, the consecutive vowel thing was dumb, I thought that even the first time I read the series years ago.

Glad you are enjoying the X-Wing series, that is one of my personal favorite series from the EU, if you like what you're reading there, I highly recommend I,Jedi, which follows Corran Horn's path to becoming a Jedi Knight.

The fact is, there were both good and bad stories and characters in the EU, and in fact there are already good and bad stories and characters in the new Canon material as well. A major difference now however is that we actually have a story group monitoring consistency going forward, so things will be less all over the map which is a good thing. One downside of that though is that the books and comics these days probably wont get to tell grand stories on the scale that the authors were allowed in the old days, for fear of stepping on the toes of the films.

Edit

I forgot to add, the absolute worst thing in the EU imo is the clone Emperor that we got in the Dark Empire series, effectively nullifying Vader's sacrifice at the end of RotJ. Even Zahn stated that he thought that was a terrible idea.

 

I dislike the EU as well because I think it's just horrible writing but if it wasn't for the EU and also fan fiction, Star Wars would have vanished. Remember SW was nearly dead in the late 80s and fans and the EU kept it alive. So I'm forever greatful for that and the title should be "why I hate Disney for killing the old EU" because they would most likely not have a cash cow without it, we wouldn't have SW at all maybe.

 

The EU is the backbone of starwars

 

Though there are some treatments I miss from the EU - as the coming-to-terms process of Leia with her Skywalker inheritance from "Tatooine Ghost" - there are some other titles I am really glad they are gone, as "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" and "Shadows of the Empire". I haven't read the KOTOR series but I have heard they are quite good.

 

I loved a couple of the comic series - i.e. Empire.

Other than that I'm kinda glad it's gone. It was very hard to get my head around some of it... some of the EU didn't even feel like Star Wars. The whole Yuuzhan Vong was shockingly awful.

Yet I somewhat agree that the EU kept Star Wars alive during the late 80's and 90's. But I think it definitely has its time.

 

Luke f*cked a body-snatching ghost living in a computer in the EU. There was a clone created by his hand who went by the name Luuke.

These are not outliers.

 

The worst for me was the thrawn trilogy and this incredibly stupid idea of palpatine cloning himself and everybody! (luuke etc..)

 

Somehow I feel the issues between the Legends and the new canon is in someway like the stuff from the A Song of Ice and Fire books and the Game of Thrones series - not the same, but somehow similar.

 

I have only had good experiences with Legends novels, I really loved the Dawn of The Jedi and Darth Plagueis novel.
I think from looking at the legends timeline in that book that the stuff after RoJ looked really convoluted and far fetched. I think they probably were right in getting rid of that stuff.

 

There was much to dislike about the old "Legends" material, but there was also much to love as well. My favorite part of the post-RotJ EU was the NJO and beyond (Del Rey-era), but I definitely like many of the characters, species, and planets that came out of the previous Bantam-era. It was a given that with the new canon that the post-RotJ Legends stuff was getting tossed. For those who were more fans of the Bantam-era, they get a treat in that Thrawn is now being canonized. It's possible that means he does not suffer the same fate in the canon EU as he did in the Legends-EU. As for the pre-ANH and pre-PT era stuff, that was mostly good. Darth Plagueis being the crown jewel of those books. If ever there was a book that deserved canonization for its ability to tie the pre-PT, PT, and OT-eras together this is that book. I highly doubt TPTB can top that book in whatever they decide to do with the new canon and its criminal toward the story of the saga to see that one rendered "Legends" material.

 

There is dumb and there is Jaxxon.


http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jaxxon
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I hated that the date of the Sith's foundation was moved from 24,500 BBY to 7000 BBY. It's anti-climactic for the Sith to be so new.