I’ve been clicking around Wookiepedia and Wikipedia out of a mild interest in seeing what became of the characters from the original movies in this thing called the “extended universe,” and it just looks bad to me, honestly. The character plot summaries sound worse than the prequels, the names are hokey even by Lucas standards, and it just smacks of cheesy fanfiction. Is there anything worthwhile here? Or can you judge a book by it’s cover?
The Knights of the Old Republic games are better and more Star Wars than the last three and a half actual movies.
Man, it really depends. The EU covers a ton of stuff. To a sufficient volume that you can apply Sturgeon’s Law to it, and still come up with a fair amount of good material.
The Old Republic stuff, for example, comes from the line of computer RPGs made by BioWare, and they’re really first rate. The most recent title, a World of Warcraft style online game, does a really neat job of executing a complex, character-driven storyline in an MMO format, which I’d have sworn wasn’t even possible.
I’ve also heard really good things about the animated Clone Wars TV series, but I haven’t seen more than one episode myself. Unfortunately, that episode focused on Jar Jar pretending to be a Jedi, so I haven’t seen any episodes since then. My friends assure me that the episode I saw was not representative of the series, but I’m uncertain how far I can trust them.
I’ve also read some comics that were pretty good, but the names escape me now.
I stopped reading the novels back in high school when they got too stupid, and from what I’ve heard of them since then, that was probably the right call.
It varies widely in quality. There are some gems, some average stories, and some total dreck.
As Beastly Rotter mentioned, the KOTOR games are excellent. The KOTOR comic was pretty good too. I’m a fan of the Crimson Empire comics, though they might be a little bit fanfictiony for people’s tastes. Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy is good. (I wasn’t a fan of the duology that followed, but others liked it).
Are you talking about the hand-drawn one or the CGI one? The hand-drawn one was good (though very action-heavy). The CGI one is… well, it’s for kids, so it may be hit or miss for everyone.
Check out the Umbara arc of Clone Wars, highpoint of the show IMHO.
http://clonewars.wikia.com/wiki/Umbara_Arc
Recently the show after improving leaps and bounds over its early episodes(the mentioned Jar Jar Bink appearance) has recently been going off the rails a bit, like a lot of the EU they are obsessed with making force users overpowered(a force user on the show was able to animate an army of dead bodies:smack::rolleyes:)
There’s a lot of in-the-middle stuff as well. Like the X-Wing Series, which follows two very, very minor characters from the original trilogy in the military campaign against the Empire after Return of the Jedi. (Wedge Antilles and Tycho Celchu, two of the few pilots who also survive the Death Star run.) They’re well written, entertaining and manage to carve out a niche of their own likeable characters and conflicts. Some of the main characters make cameos every now and then (Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia Organa, Chewbacca) but it’s mostly about these other guys fighting on a smaller scale.
But yeah, there is a significant amount of trash. I was stuck in bed with a broken leg, an e-reader and a bad sci-fi hankering for a month some years back. Urgh. I’d pretty much avoid anything with one of the old, main characters headlining.
It’s full of ups and downs, the very best novels essentially amount to decent or unremarkable sci-fi when compared to the genre proper. Most of it’s mediocre, a chunk of it’s bad, a small amount is terrible, and a smaller amount is great. IMHO there has only been a few truly awful novels, most of them are fun action Sci-Fi romps if nothing more.
As has been noted, EU is essentially an umbrella term for “Anything licensed by Lucasfilm that isn’t one of the six film Episodes.” There’s the good, and the bad, and the so bad it’s good, and the so bad that it drags you kicking and screaming away in the night to a place beyond good and evil and abandons you there naked shivering and alone.
Don’t read anything by Kevin J. Anderson (because his ideas are stupid) or Karen Traviss except maybe her first book (because her ideas are stupid and offensive).
But there are good books in the EU - as you might expect when you’ve got so many different authors working in a setting that doesn’t completely suck. Timothy Zahn’s books are all good, for starters, and the first ones can be read right after Return of the Jedi without any difficulties.
This is why I’m glad the Tolkien estate protected Middle Earth. All the LOTR “EU” stuff remains unpublished fanfic, thank God.
Tossing my support behind the Zahn books and the X-Wing series. Well, some of them.
In addition to the Thrawn books, which are great, Zahn has also given us the story behind the “Outward Bound” project and what happened to it.
What? No love for the Gandalf/Merry slashfic?
Zahn, as noted, is awesome.
I read a few more books as a kid and remember most of them being fairly unimpressive.
Thanks for the replies!
Books, yes. Comics and video games have a better track record.
ETA: I think Zahn had the advantage of being the first. His books were the first new Star Wars in over a decade which gave him a bit of a pass because it gave us new adventures for characters we were desperate to see again. They aren’t terrible like some others but they really aren’t that good (IMO of course).
I’m probably not a very reliable opinion on these matters, since I find something to like about even the dumbest and most pointless piece of EU trash, but I genuinely think there’s some good stuff to be found there.
One thing I really love are the Dark Horse Star Wars Tales books. A bunch of short stories from all over the Star Wars Universe by all kinds of creators in all kinds of genres. There are some real gems in there.
I’ll also second the recommendations for the Zahn and X-Wing books. I’m not saying they’re great literature, but they’re a lot of fun.
I’m also a big fan of both sets of Clone Wars cartoons. I like the first set better than the series, because the animation is gorgeous, but the CGI cartoon is surprisingly good; certainly much better than its source material.
Overall, I have a harder time getting into any EU material produced after the prequels started up, but a number of creators have managed to do some cool stuff with some awful characters.
First thought: Star Wars has joined the European Union? Lucas MUST BE STOPPED.
NSFW … I’ll say! Darth … Undeadu?
This far in and nobody’s brought up Splinter In the Mind’s Eye?
That one’s worth a read if for no other reason than where it falls in the timeline. Written after A New Hope but before ESB was even really fleshed out, much less released.