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The Vong thing was trying too hard to be "changes the face of Star Wars FOREVER." We killed Chewbacca, motherfucker, this isn't your daddy's Star Wars! Most of the design elements came from the same perspective of trying to feel dramatic and un-Star-Wars and it became laughable pretty quick,.
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Mar 10, 2014 02:16
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Ensign_Ricky posted:Oh. Well I guess I'm glad I convinced you to give Lowtax Vader's redemption and especially Luke's faith in him are what makes RoTJ my favorite movie, even though it doesn't have much technical merit as ESB. (Also, the Ewoks don't bother me because I see them for the evil little bastards they are.) The negation of Vader's sacrifice is exactly the reason I hate Dark Empire with a burning passion.
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Mar 10, 2014 02:39
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Although the Battle for Endor can suck a bag of dicks.) But there's one thing I've never heard anyone complain about : Vader's sacrifice to save Luke. It's the moment of his redemption; all the evil, horrible stuff he'd done since being complicit in Mace's death can't entirely be forgiven, but he chose the light side for long enough to do away with the greatest evil in the galaxy.
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ImpAtom posted:The Vong thing was trying too hard to be "changes the face of Star Wars FOREVER." We killed Chewbacca, motherfucker, this isn't your daddy's Star Wars! Most of the design elements came from the same perspective of trying to feel dramatic and un-Star-Wars and it became laughable pretty quick,. I think that the biggest problem with the Vong was that they were introduced to powerful (OMG They don't use shields! They have black holes instead! And they're able to shrug off blasters!) so within three or four books they were just "Imperials with a different coat of paint" And it didn't help that the Jedi were initally worthless but soon became uber commandos... somehow.
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Mar 10, 2014 02:53
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I agree that they weren't handled very well and were also laughably un-Star Wars, but as far as fictional alien races go they're in my top five. Their technology and history was fun to read about and I enjoyed considering the implications of a masochistic race of body-modifiers who accomplished the same things other races did but by using animals and genetic modification instead of machines and computers. Remove the Star Wars aspect and, to me at least, their concept is one of the most interesting and original alien races to ever grace science fiction. I'd be down for a Vong novel with no references whatsoever to Star Wars.
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Mar 10, 2014 03:25
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One of the things I find so annoying about Dark Empire is that the events that lead up to it are supposed to take place days after Thrawn dies, which is ridiculous and crunches up the timeline too much. The Empire is supposed to be a complete shitshow by the time Thrawn takes over, but you're supposed to believe a bunch of warlords got their poo poo in order long enough after his defeat to take back Coruscant. Dark Empire does make an admirable effort to try and inject some more space-opera'y stuff but most of it comes off as dumb and out of place. Lets talk Honor Among Thieves for a second. It's alright but suffers from the same kind of poo poo Razor's Edge does because it's a main 3 story stuck in between ANH and ESB which is only getting more crowded all the time, so the authors can't really do anything all that interesting with the story. At one point Han runs into a Noghri and recognizes it is such which is a pretty blaring continuity error, I don't know that it will have much impact on the story but it's pointlessly annoying. Casimir Radon fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Mar 10, 2014 |
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Mar 10, 2014 03:33
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Esroc posted:I agree that they weren't handled very well and were also laughably un-Star Wars, but as far as fictional alien races go they're in my top five. Their technology and history was fun to read about and I enjoyed considering the implications of a masochistic race of body-modifiers who accomplished the same things other races did but by using animals and genetic modification instead of machines and computers. Remove the Star Wars aspect and, to me at least, their concept is one of the most interesting and original alien races to ever grace science fiction. They're really not original. Their basic concept is just taking a 'evil savage race" like are a dime-a-dozen in lovely fantasy novels and transplanting them to Star Wars. They basically hit all the same notes right down to conveniently having animals that match up with technology. Considering R. A. Salvatore, a noted lovely Fantasy Writer, came up with their concept, I don't think that is a coincidence.
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Mar 10, 2014 03:34
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ImpAtom posted:They're really not original. Their basic concept is just taking a 'evil savage race" like are a dime-a-dozen in lovely fantasy novels and transplanting them to Star Wars. They basically hit all the same notes right down to conveniently having animals that match up with technology. Considering R. A. Salvatore, a noted lovely Fantasy Writer, came up with them, I don't think that is a coincidence. That's probably true. I don't read fantasy so don't have a reference point. But insofar as vaguely scientific alien races go, you rarely see anything like them.
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Mar 10, 2014 03:35
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Casimir Radon posted:Lets talk Honor Among Thieves for a second. It's alright but suffers from the same kind of poo poo Razor's Edge does because it's a main 3 story stuck in between ANH and ESB which is only getting more crowded all the time, so the authors can't really do anything all that interesting with the story. At one point Han runs into a Noghri and recognizes it is such which is a pretty blaring continuity error, I don't know that it will have much impact on the story but it's pointlessly annoying. It's especially dumb because that's like the only EU reference in the entire book. Why go out of the way to make that your sole reference if you're not even going to do it right? And on the topic of the other big release this week, Clone Wars season 6, which I thought was pretty bleh at best, but I did genuinely enjoy the one big EU-related voice cast (spoiled just because I really did get a kick out of it): Mark Hamill as Darth Bane
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Mar 10, 2014 03:50
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Chairman Capone posted:It's especially dumb because that's like the only EU reference in the entire book. Why go out of the way to make that your sole reference if you're not even going to do it right?
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Mar 10, 2014 04:24
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What the poo poo is "un-Star-Wars", anyway? It sounds like it's code for something, let me in on the secret.Calax posted:I think that the biggest problem with the Vong was that they were introduced too powerful (OMG They don't use shields! They have black holes instead! And they're able to shrug off blasters!) so within three or four books they were just "Imperials with a different coat of paint" And I'm convinced the Jedi became uber-commandos because Star by Star had to be padded out and having the kids kill a million Vong was the laziest possible way to do that.
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Mar 10, 2014 04:42
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From what I recall, the extreme masochism was going to be a trait solely of the 'family' of Vong behind that first advance attack. The whole society would be into bio-tech and body mods, but ritual scarring and the like was going to be that particular group's brand of crazy. Then the rest of the authors just kind of ran with the idea as a species-wide thing.
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Mar 10, 2014 04:46
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Siivola posted:And I'm convinced the Jedi became uber-commandos because Star by Star had to be padded out and having the kids kill a million Vong was the laziest possible way to do that. Not just that, but didn't Star by Star also introduce the Jedi ability to disrupt the yammosks, the Force-guided super-torpedoes, and the Jedi space battle coordination thing? The last two of which also kept popping up in basically ever subsequent Denning book, too.
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Mar 10, 2014 04:49
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Probably, yes. I try to forget that book.jivjov posted:From what I recall, the extreme masochism was going to be a trait solely of the 'family' of Vong behind that first advance attack. The whole society would be into bio-tech and body mods, but ritual scarring and the like was going to be that particular group's brand of crazy. Then the rest of the authors just kind of ran with the idea as a species-wide thing.
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Mar 10, 2014 04:49
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After reading all that stuff, my god, I'm glad I never read beyond Salvatore's book. Holy gently caress, I'll stick to my pre-Vong Star Wars please. All New Republic, Old Republic, and Imperial Era only. gently caress. (Also, the Warhammer 40K Tyranids did bioweapons first.) Also, this means I'm gonna have to start doing Vong stuff as Let's Reads, huh?  Chairman Capone posted:And on the topic of the other big release this week, Clone Wars season 6, which I thought was pretty bleh at best, but I did genuinely enjoy the one big EU-related voice cast (spoiled just because I really did get a kick out of it): Mark Hamill as Darth Bane I've only started watching the series with my kid, but holy poo poo I'm looking forward to that.
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Mar 10, 2014 05:02
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Ensign_Ricky posted:After reading all that stuff, my god, I'm glad I never read beyond Salvatore's book. Holy gently caress, I'll stick to my pre-Vong Star Wars please. All New Republic, Old Republic, and Imperial Era only. gently caress. I stopped reading after the first book of the Corellian trilogy. (Evil twin ahoy!) A long time later out of curiosity (I had heard a lot about the Vong) I bought Vector Prime and never read further beyond that. trying to hard.txt. I did buy and enjoy some of the Zahn books later.
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Mar 10, 2014 09:13
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Siivola posted:What the poo poo is "un-Star-Wars", anyway? It sounds like it's code for something, let me in on the secret. I'd say that "Star Wars" as a genre would be defined by as space fantasy action with space magic with little reliance on actual science. It also places a bigger focus on larger-than-life characters, ideology and situations than other scifi. I felt the Vong also felt very un-Star Wars because there wasn't any ideology behind them (at least at first). They were just this weird Force-immune, bioengineered super alien race from outside the galaxy. They've got supertechnology that's wiping out whole worlds with blackholes or something. To be a villain in Star Wars, you have to be a bit mustache-twirling. Also, you've got to have an ethos that's loveably evil. You gotta love Imperials for having over-the-top superiority complexes. The Vong were just spiteful and hateful of everything and not in a loveable way (again, at first. I never got past Vector Prime and it pretty much killed my involvement in the EU).
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Mar 10, 2014 15:33
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Thwomp posted:I'd say that "Star Wars" as a genre would be defined by as space fantasy action with space magic with little reliance on actual science. It also places a bigger focus on larger-than-life characters, ideology and situations than other scifi. I think the Vong touch all those points to be honest, which isn't to say one way or another whether I felt they were a good nemesis.
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Mar 10, 2014 15:41
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I thought the Vong as an ideology worked well, at least in concept. They're religious zealots which isn't something that's typically in Star Wars, but they also come from completely outside the framework of the Force. Most of the Star Wars galaxy operates in that framework even when they aren't able to use the Force themselves - the Jedi are good, Sith are bad, lightside/darkside is understood as metaphors, even 'May the Force be with you' is used by everyone. Having the Vong be completely alien to that made them, I thought, a good counter to the existing Star Wars Galaxy way of looking at the universe.
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Mar 10, 2014 15:55
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Thwomp posted:I'd say that "Star Wars" as a genre would be defined by as space fantasy action with space magic with little reliance on actual science. It also places a bigger focus on larger-than-life characters, ideology and situations than other scifi. drat you, you make such good points than I agree and heavily disagree with. You have a handle on the situation much better than half the people writing the EU too. I quite like the Vong, It is just a shame they got dicked around half the time depending on who was writing and them and the simple fact that Legacy more or less hit the general reset button and that Galaxy Wide invasion just became another Star Wars EU conflict. Instead of trying to change things.
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Mar 10, 2014 16:32
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I feel like SW is full of religious zealots though?
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Mar 10, 2014 16:39
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The Vong fell really flat for me mostly because there's such a concerted effort to brand them as ~spooky~ and totally different from anything else in the galaxy in the first few NJO books, then they become basically normal mooks later on. Space opera in general doesn't pull off disgusting, horrifying alien-ness very well in my experience anyway. The Imperials work because fascism and colonialism are well within human experience and the Imperial aesthetic serves as a visual shorthand for that kind of familiar evil but in space. That lets the focus rest on the characters of the story rather than world details, which is part of what distinguishes space opera from other sci fi. The Vong are impossible to immediately comprehend (I know I was constantly tripped up by all of the biological technology jargon, though I'm sure if the writing had been better my brain wouldn't have been so apathetic to memorizing all of that) and the threat they pose is apocalyptic rather than personal. They're much more like Star Trek villains, where the point of the story is typically to focus on the interaction between civilizations. I also feel like they could have been quite compelling in a film/TV series with decent visual design because then nobody would have to remember what the gently caress a gnulith is.Conquistador posted:I feel like SW is full of religious zealots though? Other than the Vong I can only think of the Yevetha (Vong beta version) and Ssi-Ruuk (Vong alpha version) in the post-OT stories. Xenophobic religious zealot species had already proven themselves awful and boring villains in SW long before the Vong were introduced.
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Mar 10, 2014 17:42
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The strength of the Vong invasion was also highly bipolar (probably because of too many cooks in the kitchen). Oh no they are so strong there is nothing we can do to stop them they keep coming... Oh wait that's getting kind of boring. Let's make them a bit beatable but since they have so many warriors and ships and are ruthless they still overwhelm everyone... Oh wait that makes no sense an initial beachhead and surge makes sense but once the galaxy switches over to war machine manufacturing mode then they can start pushing back on the equivalent of intergalactic nomads with no home and ridiculous supply chains... No that's stupid everything goes to stalemate NOW only the stupid Deus Ex planet can end things...also this invading force which was apparently large enough to overwhelm an entire galaxy can go chill out in some system somewhere. ImpAtom posted:The Vong thing was trying too hard to be "changes the face of Star Wars FOREVER." We killed Chewbacca, motherfucker, this isn't your daddy's Star Wars! Yeah, and then they go right back to the same old wacky adventures of Han, Luke, and Leia cheating death with special guest apperance by Lando with no one else dying except for other minor EU characters (with on obvious exception later on).
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Mar 10, 2014 20:28
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Yeah, the instant they killed Chewie, I lost interest. Yeah, he went out like a motherfucking boss, but I was still so disappointed that Salvatore had gone lowest common denominator on that. I mean, I'll out myself as a fan of his Drizzt books, but.....ecccch.
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Mar 10, 2014 21:03
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It was actually Randy Stradley's idea to kill Chewie. Salvatore didn't know about it until he'd already signed on, so he figured he might as well drop a moon on him.
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Mar 10, 2014 21:22
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Jazerus posted:
I feel like those random enclaves of Jedi were zealots to an extent, also the Sith, also, often the normal Jedi themselves E: Also I really thought it was stupid how Chewie died. Not that he died, just how he died. It was also stupid that he died, however.
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Mar 10, 2014 21:40
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Conquistador posted:I feel like those random enclaves of Jedi were zealots to an extent, also the Sith, also, often the normal Jedi themselves To be fair Chewbacca dying was not a major thing. His entire contribution throughout the EU up to that point was being Hans muscle/pet dog and being to babysitting what Leia was to diplomacy. So him dying was no big deal. The problem was then they did nothing with his death. Han had just seen his best friend die to save his kids so what does he do? go into seclusion for a month to mourn his friend? Show the Vong how he earned the title General Solo by leading a vicious and well thought out military campaign? call in a couple of his old smuggler buddies to organise a guerilla war? Nah nothing that interesting he goes straight down to the pound to pick up a replacement for chewie who is so bland and forgettable I can't remember his name or even any details of him and then he spends the entire time moping not doing something constructive not even being around to back up Leia or his kids but moping.
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Mar 10, 2014 22:20
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WhyteRyce posted:The strength of the Vong invasion was also highly bipolar (probably because of too many cooks in the kitchen). I remember it also went back on forth between various books on why the Vong invaded where they did, with some saying it was a hyperspace vortex or something that let them enter the galaxy, and other books saying it was because it was the weakest point in the New Republic to attack.
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Mar 10, 2014 22:25
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Siivola posted:It was actually Randy Stradley's idea to kill Chewie. Salvatore didn't know about it until he'd already signed on, so he figured he might as well drop a moon on him. The popular rumour is that they originally wanted to kill Luke until Lucas nixed it personally. Ferrosol posted:Nah nothing that interesting he goes straight down to the pound to pick up a replacement for chewie who is so bland and forgettable I can't remember his name or even any details of him and then he spends the entire time moping not doing something constructive not even being around to back up Leia or his kids but moping. I think they obliquely referenced him developing a drinking problem then getting into an argument which ended with him hitting Leia and running off out of shame, but as far as I can recall it was maybe mentioned by one of the Solo kids in one book and ignored after that. Anyway, as for the Vong, they seemed kinda like Star Trek villains to me. I hadn't watched much Trek when I read the NJO, but in retrospect I think there's a bit of the Borg, a bit of the Jem'Hadar and maybe a bit of the Hirogen in them.
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Mar 10, 2014 22:28
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Conquistador posted:I feel like those random enclaves of Jedi were zealots to an extent, also the Sith, also, often the normal Jedi themselves Sure, Force users are often religious zealots, but they are holy orders, not whole species. Religion in space can be interesting but the xenophobic "KILL ALL INFIDELS" species are universally awful.
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Mar 11, 2014 00:22
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Jazerus posted:Sure, Force users are often religious zealots, but they are holy orders, not whole species. Religion in space can be interesting but the xenophobic "KILL ALL INFIDELS" species are universally awful. Pfft, the empire was xenophobic as poo poo
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Mar 11, 2014 00:25
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Metal Loaf posted:The popular rumour is that they originally wanted to kill Luke until Lucas nixed it personally.
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Mar 11, 2014 00:27
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I think I remember that, but back when I owned a copy of The Unifying Force I wouldn't have been interested enough to read it (as opposed to my current attitude, where I'm dead keen on all kinds of behind-the-scenes writing stuff like that).
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Mar 11, 2014 01:14
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The Essential Reader's Guide from a few years ago also has some information on the conception and original ideas of the NJO.
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Mar 11, 2014 01:45
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It will never not be stupid that the Vong came to be named such due to lunch at the Yuunan Wong chinese restaurant 
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Mar 11, 2014 05:13
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Ceebees posted:It will never not be stupid that the Vong came to be named such due to lunch at the Yuunan Wong chinese restaurant  is this real
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Mar 11, 2014 05:15
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Conquistador posted:
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Mar 11, 2014 05:15
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Not quite: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Yuuzhan_Vong#Origins_of_.22Yuuzhan_Vong.22 quote:The name "Yuuzhan Vong" was developed at a French-Thai restaurant in New York City, called Vong, which several Del Rey employees were patronizing. The Yunnan region was mentioned in a list of teas on a menu that Shelly Shapiro—who was present—was reading, and the first draft of the name that would eventually be given to the intergalactic invaders was born of "Yunnan Vong."
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Mar 11, 2014 05:17
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Pththya-lyi posted:Not quite: That still qualifies as a yup, and is actually even worse than if they'd just changed a couple of letters. They actively went out of their way to steal two the names of two different things to make their lovely species name. E: Though I will say it seemed pretty original, as did some of their other things. Like an ooglith. Which I now assume was some variety of peking ravioli.
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Mar 11, 2014 05:22
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Also here's the full text of the round-robin interview at the back of The Unifying Force. Highlights: Yunan→Yuuzhan, Jacen was originally going to die instead of Anakin but Lucas said they had to switch it around because he thought people would be confused over having two Anakins, Salvatore got literal death threats for killing Chewie.
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Mar 11, 2014 05:27
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I can only hope that, to preserve balance, somewhere in China someone's working on their science fiction epic about invading aliens called the Texas Mcdonalds...
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Mar 11, 2014 05:30
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