But have they gone too far?

[myrsosoth]

The various EU writers by necessity have had to expand on Lucas' original writings. A lot of it is really creative and well done. But leaving aside all canon vs. non-canon questions, I couldn't help thinking they'd went way over the top with some of their ideas. Referencing Kotor 2 and Drew Karpyshyn's Revan novel, I was considering 3 incidents in particular:

 

1. Traya's trying to kill the Force thing.

2. What Nihilus did at Katarr.

3. What the Emperor did at Nathema.

 

I wanted to know what the crowd thinks. Do people think that the writers went overboard with these ideas, and whether yay or nay, was it necessary to go this far to make the stories work?

 

For the record I loved Kotor 2 even with all the issues it had, Traya is one of my favorite NPCs of all time, and I do appreciate Drew's writing.

[Blackholeskipper]

The three things listed above, nah. The Emperor wanting to kill every living thing in the galaxy so he can fly around in space and see what else there is, yea.

[Trentest]

I don't think they went too far. Star Wars is a fantasy, after all, and those sure are big threats that we as players or readers want to be prevented.

 

I loved the idea of the Emperor being almost godlike. It made his character: this mysterious, intelligent, hidden figure that considers this entire galaxy, his own Empire, and everyone in it, a mean to his own ends. That's cool.

[ShadowMudkip]

Personally, I think its ok. Star Wars, by nature, always seems to have an endless amount lore that can be written. No writer has expanded upon the Celestials, or where the force actually came from. We don't know why the western half of the galaxy has a high level of force anomalies. Point is, is that there is a lot we still don't know, that can be written and explained.

[Pietrastor]

Nihilus' overpowered ability was the to add to Kreia's point. It went too far when Emperor Vitiate was given the same level of power without losing his mind at all. Nihilus ability was accidental and more of a natural-phenomenon kind of a side effect of Force "overusage". Vitiate was written to be just "that uber powerful". Which is much worse.

 

As for Kreia, it was an absolutely brilliant idea for a character, "how to kill/disobey the God" theme hasn't been done nor analyzed in SW prior to that and it's also very relatable for modern audience (if they get the idea of course lol).

Edited December 6, 2013 by Pietrastor

[Darth-Obvious]

Going too far is the EU as a whole. There's alot of it and it's really convoluted. It's also nearly impossible for someone new to jump into it or get a grasp of it. There are so many cases where something has been retconed or where an existing story is expanded upon in another story that's expanded upon in yet another story that it makes it difficult to find a starting point to recommend to people.

[Pietrastor]

Going too far is the EU as a whole. There's alot of it and it's really convoluted. It's also nearly impossible for someone new to jump into it or get a grasp of it. There are so many cases where something has been retconed or where an existing story is expanded upon in another story that's expanded upon in yet another story that it makes it difficult to find a starting point to recommend to people.

 

Well the Old Republic lore still isn't too expansive. It's the original Tales of the Jedi comic series, 3 games and 1 book, (the companion comics for KOTOR 1/2 ain't essential at all unlike Revan novel is). Still very easy to jump in compared to the complete mess the post-Original-Trilogy timeframe is.

Edited December 6, 2013 by Pietrastor

[Darth-Obvious]

Well the Old Republic lore still isn't too expansive. It's the original Tales of the Jedi comic series, 3 games and 1 book, (the companion comics for KOTOR 1/2 ain't essential at all unlike Revan novel is). Still very easy to jump in compared to the complete mess the post-Original-Trilogy timeframe is.

 

True, I wasn't really thinking of the Old Republic time frame but rather everything else, more specifically the post trilogy stuff.

 

Having said that though the Old Republic era does create some difficulty or barrier to entry in that it's all over the place, ie spread across so many different mediums (games, novels, comics)

[jovianus]

The various EU writers by necessity have had to expand on Lucas' original writings. A lot of it is really creative and well done. But leaving aside all canon vs. non-canon questions, I couldn't help thinking they'd went way over the top with some of their ideas. Referencing Kotor 2 and Drew Karpyshyn's Revan novel, I was considering 3 incidents in particular:

 

1. Traya's trying to kill the Force thing.

2. What Nihilus did at Katarr.

3. What the Emperor did at Nathema.

 

I wanted to know what the crowd thinks. Do people think that the writers went overboard with these ideas, and whether yay or nay, was it necessary to go this far to make the stories work?

 

For the record I loved Kotor 2 even with all the issues it had, Traya is one of my favorite NPCs of all time, and I do appreciate Drew's writing.

 

Yes, it is in fact one of the things I dislike about the EU, is that in lieue of good characterizations and storytelling there is a whole lot of falling back on "Just throw out a bunch of uberweapons of doom and crazy Force powers!!".

 

The Death Star being able to pop a planet was like, a huge deal in the movie and exactly why it was built as the ultimate icon of Imperial Strength. In the EU it's more like, "Oh, you've got a planet killing superweapon? Big deal, I keep 3 in my garage and I have a Jedi friend who can destroy two at a time."

 

Regarding KotOR (1 and 2) in particular, much as I liked the games that whole theme always struck me as incredibly stupid. Outside of the movies I'm pretty sure the EU has had Jedi being the defenders of the Republic/peacekeepers whatever forever...except apparently for that period covering the KotOR games, where they became such extreme pacifists that any violence instantly drove them insane/turned them to the Dark Side/made them 'wounds' in the Force'.

Edited December 7, 2013 by jovianus

[DAWUSS]

It's one thing I like about the pre-PT era. It focuses on different things and different people. The post-OT era is nothing but the Skywalkers and it contains rehashed content that for the most part is either "meh" or sucks.

 

That said, I wouldn't mind seeing some of the fantasy toned down, but that's just me. Some of it can get way OTT IMO. I wouldn't mind seeing more SW stuff that's a bit more "normal" and not "weird mystical crap".

[Seireeni]

So I find the idea of destroying the whole Force and things like that ridiculous? Yes, I do. However, the best thing about EU is that if I don't like something, EU is big enough for me to ignore that and focus on things I do like. (Like everything Timothy Zahn has written.) You like doomsday powers/weapons that just get bigger and bigger? Good for you. You can have fun reading about them while I'm having fun reading about failed intergalactic spaceproject.

[Karkais]

The three things listed above, nah. The Emperor wanting to kill every living thing in the galaxy so he can fly around in space and see what else there is, yea.

 

Since this didn't actually happen, we can file it under 'delusions of grandeur' and doesn't really count.

 

But yeah, I sort of agree. The one-upmanship of successive authors is getting bit stupid. Even if yoda said "size matters not". Yoda lifts an x-wing in the movie. Ok, lets have Luke pull down an AT-AT in a comic. Big deal, I'll make Galen Marek pull down a star destroyer! And so on. Someone needs to wind it back at some point.

Edited December 8, 2013 by Karkais

[NyxNoxNothing]

Since this didn't actually happen, we can file it under 'delusions of grandeur' and doesn't really count.

 

But yeah, I sort of agree. The one-upmanship of successive authors is getting bit stupid. Even if yoda said "size matters not". Yoda lifts an x-wing in the movie. Ok, lets have Luke pull down an AT-AT in a comic. Big deal, I'll make Galen Marek pull down a star destroyer! And so on. Someone needs to wind it back at some point.

 

It's the Dragonball Z/GT/OP/WTFBBQ school of "drama" and "storytelling". Although i would make the argument that very similar examples from before Star Wars would be E.E. "Doc" Smith's Skylark series and Lensman series of books. Characters start off with small ships barely capable of interstellar travel and by the end they're tossing around attacks that can annihilate suns and devastate galaxies in ships that occasionally reach a scale where the Death Star is a lightly armed shuttle in comparison.

 

The thing is that a good storyteller has a sense of scale and doesn't need to use a geometric progression of escalation to maintain tension or drama. A really good storyteller can tell a story with stakes no greater than the protagonist's friends or family and make it a gripping, compelling story. Although the argument could be made that in stories involving entire populations it's even more difficult to make a reader care about numbers too large to really grasp on an emotional level. If a million deaths is a statistic then 500 trillion is an abstraction without any real meaning. Most writers that feel the need for that sort of escalation one-upmanship are also incapable of making it work. For me at least i usually get annoyed and stop reading or watching when every new antagonist has to be ten times as powerful as the previous. "Darth Volentmal may have been defeated, but Darth Armageddonissus-suss-suss-suss-badoud is on his way to get the Delta Oblivion Orbital Megalith Celestial Omega Catastrophe Knife, an ancient weapon capable of erasing the whole Supercluster from existence!"

[copperjack]

But yeah, I sort of agree. The one-upmanship of successive authors is getting bit stupid. Even if yoda said "size matters not". Yoda lifts an x-wing in the movie. Ok, lets have Luke pull down an AT-AT in a comic. Big deal, I'll make Galen Marek pull down a star destroyer! And so on. Someone needs to wind it back at some point.

 

It's like a lot of writers think the audience won't pay attention if they're not bigger and shinier than what came before, and it gets incredibly ridiculous sometimes. I like the stories that are on a slightly more relatable scale better. It's easier to feel involved in what's going on and those stories are better about not making the canon even weirder.

[Aeneas_Falco]

The biggest example to me of the EU going too far was The Force Unleashed. That game took as big of a dump on the original trilogy as the prequels did, and Galen Malek is the most ridiculously overpowered Mary Sue in the entire saga.

 

On the bright side since it is EU I can ignore it and pretend it never happened, unlike the prequels.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Aeneas_Falco

[TalkingDinosaur]

I don't think they went too far. Star Wars is a fantasy, after all, and those sure are big threats that we as players or readers want to be prevented.

 

I loved the idea of the Emperor being almost godlike. It made his character: this mysterious, intelligent, hidden figure that considers this entire galaxy, his own Empire, and everyone in it, a mean to his own ends. That's cool.

And this is why I love Vitiate over Palpatine.

[Karkais]

but Darth Armageddonissus-suss-suss-suss-badoud is on his way to get the Delta Oblivion Orbital Megalith Celestial Omega Catastrophe Knife, an ancient weapon capable of erasing the whole Supercluster from existence!"

 

Well here we are, discussing Vitiate's plans for the galaxy..

 

That said, I prefer Vitiate's character over Palpatine, since a mysterious figure whos power is only hinted at indirectly is more interesting than an over-the-top cackling madman. Taking nothing away from McDiarmid's performance of course.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Karkais

[Foxtrotmikelima]

Its funny because in the movies. Yes Yoda lifts a Starfighter but in Episode II where we see him in action for the first time against Dooku..He seems to struggle with smaller not so heavy objects like rocks the size of him.

 

Every other character seems to experience the same sort of 'strains' in the movies in regards to heavy objects. But reading any of the books, comics..Youd expect these guys to tear something with the level of things they destroy/rip apart with the force.

 

If Anakin Skywalker was the embodiment of the Force and stronger in the Force then anyone that had ever come a long. He seems to be mediocre compared to a lot of the characters in the EU. And its sad to be honest. Because it makes the EU hard to stick by.

[Fidelicatessen]

Besides the stuff Timothy Zahn wrote (Zahn is excellent), the EU is a bunch of hackneyed cliché, imo. Star Wars is bad fantasy in space.

 

I'm a huge fan of real sci-fi (Kim Stanley Robinson, Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, David Brin, etc.), though, so take that opinion with a grain of salt.

[JeffrenBrek]

Most of the EU stuff isn't too bad, really. It's stuff like Fate of the Jedi (while a good read, it was utterly ridiculous), Dark Empire (yay, more super weapons..), Legacy (Needless beyond belief) and of course the king of bad, The Force Unleashed (let's pull down a Star Destroyer and jump and fly all over the place like it's Dragonballz Z!11) that needs banishing.

 

....

 

If Anakin Skywalker was the embodiment of the Force and stronger in the Force then anyone that had ever come a long. He seems to be mediocre compared to a lot of the characters in the EU. And its sad to be honest. Because it makes the EU hard to stick by.

 

You realize he never fulfilled that, because he was kind of cut to pieces and crippled by a suit of armor, yes?

Edited December 9, 2013 by JeffrenBrek

[Cawyden]

I think it is too far when people don't get the meaning of it anymore because it is too complicated or abstract so that you cannot really comprehend what the story is about. I personally think that they have to be careful with the emperor as villain - he is so powerful that you can't really imagine having someone more evil in a future story. The same problem is when a player character becomes too powerful - it is hard to top that for the player. For me personally I found KOTOR2 a little to abstract with the wound in the force and so on, but nevertheless it was a great game.

[Jheissu]

It's one thing I like about the pre-PT era. It focuses on different things and different people. The post-OT era is nothing but the Skywalkers and it contains rehashed content that for the most part is either "meh" or sucks.

 

That said, I wouldn't mind seeing some of the fantasy toned down, but that's just me. Some of it can get way OTT IMO. I wouldn't mind seeing more SW stuff that's a bit more "normal" and not "weird mystical crap".

 

"weird mystical crap"... oh say... like the Force? When did aliens carrying energy swords become normal?

[OldVengeance]

Yeah frankly those three examples are exactly like the EU going too far. Kreia's insane theory being so central to the Kotor 2 story just doesn't work in this franchise. It's like she is aware she's in a Star Wars game resents that she was forced to be in one. It just makes the game's story just feel broken to me because It doesn't mesh with the larger universe of games and novels and so forth.

 

And I also felt Darth Nihilus being so power was kinda ridiculous at the time. But I guess I was sort of able to rationalise it by imagining that Trayus Academy itself was a sith superweapon and he was the manifestation of that weapon.

 

I thought The Sith Emperor being so powerful was kinda stupid but I didn't mind it as much because it sooort of fit in with the precedent of the other two. He comes across as kind of Nihilus lite. He's not able to devour planets at will like Nihilus was, but the price he pays wasn't as steep. And since Malachor V was supposed to be teachings of "The True Sith" it makes sense that he'd have a similar type of power.

[Darth_Wicked]

Not sure if people have brought it up but Kreia does mention this, during dialogue which was cut from KOTOR2...

 

[ImmortalLowlife]

I haven't read any of the comics (can't find em where I live), but I own EVERY book from rogue planet to crucible. Some were GREAT (anything by Tim Zahn) some got read once & haven't left my bookshelf again (The Crystal star lol). But these are the characters I want to read about. Overall I love everything about the post RotJ EU. I like the fact that Luke is usually portrayed as Uber Super Jedi, Han has the luck of someone walking around with a suit made of 4leaf clovers & rabbit feet, And even tho there are 28 super star destroyers & 150 squadrons of tie fighters escorted by 4 death stars & 16 suncrushers Rogue squadron can handle em. It's SW.... it's supposed to be over the top. If it was "more grounded & not so far fetched" it wouldn't hold my attention. If I wanted realistic, I'd read John Grisham (which I don't) . I thought starkiller and the stories of TFU 1&2 were awesome. I didn't like Revan, because the Revan I envisioned/remembered was beyond badazz And would have NEVER done something so monumentally stupid as travel to a planet full of Sith without HK lol. But thats just my 2cents Edited December 11, 2013 by ImmortalLowlife