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Obviously Traitor is great, but I also really like Destiny's Way. For that being the one book Walter Jon Williams wrote in Star Wars, and it being set in the middle not only of a big series but one that was really only tangentially linked to the movies, he did a great job. I'll also do a (maybe?) hot take and say that I think Vector Prime is really solid too as an intro to not only the NJO, but also the first book of both the new publisher and the new movie era. I think my big problem with Disney dumping the EU is twofold (and I acknowledge up front that of course they were going to do it and there's no way movie viewers should be expected to have followed the NJO or whatever): First, they could keep the old EU going as a separate continuity. The exact same way they do with Marvel comics vs. movies. I understand the argument that "it will confuse people to have two continuities" but, by keeping the old EU stuff in print anyways, they're effectively still putting out the "competing" stuff regardless. Second... for dropping the old continuity to make room for the movies, the new movies are completely unoriginal. "Oh, what if Han and Leia had a son... and Luke trained him... but he turned to the dark side! And then there were Imperials who kept fighting after ROTJ... and they made a bunch of superweapons! And everything went back to the status quo of ANH! And what if Palpatine returned from the dead and had a secret Jedi grandchild!" I think it's really telling that for years, movie purists slammed the EU for having terrible ideas like a reliance on recycling movie stuff, superweapons of the week, grimdark heroes failing or tangling with the dark side, negating the end of ROTJ by bringing back the Emperor and dark siders and having the Empire survive and all that... and then those same movie purists all love the sequels for doing those exact same things. I mean, probably the most maligned works of the EU were Dark Empire and Glove of Darth Vader and those are the works the sequel movies have the most parallels with.
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Dec 17, 2020 18:09
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Cross-Section posted:Also known for reasserting bathroom over refresher as the preferred terminology Which did not last, either.
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Dec 17, 2020 18:31
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On the other hand, there are all of those menu items at Galaxy's Edge that originally had Star Warsy names but then had to be replaced with their Earthly equivalents because no one knew what they were ordering. I have to say that while I have no desire to go to Galaxy's Edge, I do really want to drink blue milk.
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Dec 17, 2020 18:44
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Van Dis posted:My review of Thrawn 2017, which is okay at best: The first new-canon Thrawn novel is one of the few books where I think the comic adaptation is superior. Condenses the plot in a good way, and the art is fairly good. Van Dis posted:And also of Aftermath, which is the worst book I've never finished: Speaking of Aftermath, there have been a few references to it in this season of The Mandalorian, which really stuck out for me because before this, the only reference to the new-canon EU in the live action productions was the valachord mention in Solo. I think it speaks a lot that even after the continuity reboot, the new EU just hasn't made an impact on people writing the actual scripts. Especially stuff like both Mandalorian and Episode IX explicitly stating that the civil war ended with Endor. General Battuta posted:You should read my OFFICIALLY CANON star wars story "The Final Order" which is all about the fascism of the Empire and how there's no 'clean Starfleet' (to echo the noxious 'clean Wehrmacht' myth). Except we're not allowed to call it the Imperial Starfleet, despite that being the term from the Empire Strikes Back opening crawl, because it's too Star Trek. Battuta, I thought of you mentioning this when they used the term "Starfleet" in the Ahsoka episode of The Mandalorian. Guess the official policy of "everything is equally canon" has a big asterisk next to it when Filoni wanders in.
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Dec 17, 2020 21:41
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Aaron Allston then did a really confusing thing in one of his late-EU books where he brought back Stele as a close friend of Lando, which made no sense.
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Dec 19, 2020 20:00
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Haven't they done a few exclusive Japanese stuff before too?
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Dec 19, 2020 22:59
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The 90s X-wing comic storyline "In the Empire's Service" is kind of like that. There is clearly a lot of the X-wing comic DNA in both the TIE Fighter comic and Squadrons.
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Dec 22, 2020 01:55
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Arcsquad12 posted:Traviss did not get on well with fans and coined the term "Talifans" to refer to her detractors, so for a while there was a big flame war on the Jedi Council Forums until Traviss quit posting there. She also wrote these little fanfic stories where fans were angry at her because her characters were having so much sex. I wonder if she watches The Mandalorian. She did invent the term beskar. Also she used to be really thirsty for Temeura Morrison.
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Dec 23, 2020 03:26
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VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE posted:I'd say that, but the same people under whose watch this poo poo happened, are still in charge of books. Yeah, that's what really gets me when I see people give takes to the effect of "I'm so glad Disney ditched the dumb EU, now the people in charge really get the franchise!" It's the same people. I guess the Dark Horse people aren't there any more, but the book staff and the people at Lucasfilm in charge of looking everything over and giving passes on things are all the same.
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Dec 23, 2020 16:51
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For a long time, the debate over whether Vergere was dark or not was one of the big controversies on the Jedi Council Forums and other places where the books were discussed. Probably only second to the Traviss shitshow around the same time.
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Dec 24, 2020 18:49
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Jazerus posted:halo lore is uniquely impenetrable because the names are all loving terrible and don't convey any narrative weight. everything has a really portentious sounding name even if it's totally inconsequential Bungie then doubled down on this for Destiny. Arcsquad12 posted:I'm wondering if there should be a general thread for franchise tie-in fiction. Beyond Star Wars or 40K theres a lot of tie in novels and comics that probably couldn't support a thread on their own but might be decent as part of a general discussion zone I would definitely be down for a thread like this.
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Dec 26, 2020 22:49
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cptn_dr posted:Someone can do a Let's Read of the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri novels, and we can debate the theological implications of the Doom books. I actually read the first SMAC novel and remember thinking it wasn't as good as the Journey to Centauri novella. I also remember really enjoying the novelization of the Sierra strategy game Outpost 2: Divided Destiny, a game which I loved but which I have to imagine no one else remembers.
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Dec 26, 2020 23:25
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Jazerus posted:i must have read that novella a million times as a kid. i've always wanted a spiritual sequel to outpost 2 since it was pretty unique among RTS for its focus on building a functional colony first and fighting second if at all Did you ever play the original Outpost? It's buggy as hell but it's entirely about building a functioning colony. Though also really difficult and there's no ability to win or even end the game outside of eventually dying, as the game was rushed so the promised endgame conditions weren't implemented. I do remember being really upset that Outpost 3 was promised but never ended up being made. Same with Space Quest VII.
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Dec 26, 2020 23:53
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Maybe that was a later version than what I played. I think I had the game before I had internet so if there was ever a way to update it I definitely never got it. Or also maybe I just never got as far in the game as I thought. On a completely separate note given the response to Wonder Woman 84 I'm guessing it's just a matter of time before Lucasfilm announces that Patty Jenkins develops "schedule conflicts" and leaves Rogue Squadron.
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Dec 27, 2020 03:55
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On the topic of Star Wars books, I just read Alan Dean Foster's fan outline for Episode IX that he wrote after watching and hating The Last Jedi, and... yikes: (You have to go down manually to the 1 May 2018 entry): https://www.alandeanfoster.com/version2.0/updatesframe.htm To be fair, there are a few things in it I like. Even Foster recognized that the logical thing to do was end it with a citizens' uprising on Coruscant. Also had some clear Dark Empire vibes, funnily enough. Having Snoke initially reveal himself as a clone to punk on Kylo thinking he was the poo poo for slicing him in half was also good, the Agent Smith-like Snoke clone army not so much. But the Rey storyline is so bad it's almost parody.
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Dec 27, 2020 16:43
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The problem is we know it would be pronounced Snooke.
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Dec 27, 2020 17:17
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Gripweed posted:Did Avatar get any tie-in novels? There was a video game that I think was billed at the time as a canonical prequel and had some of the actors from the movie return. Though I'm guessing by now James Cameron probably doesn't remember it exists. And while not a novel, the art book for the movie is pretty good.
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Dec 28, 2020 20:50
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Dooku is in like less than five minutes at the very start of Episode III so you're not missing much with him there. Dapper_Swindler posted:i always assumed she left the jedi because they were way to narrow and than spent too much time with the vong and the "big picture of the force"/force navel gazing and Vong politics and forgot perspective or something. It's been years so I forget a lot of this but I remember a big problem with Vergere and her true motivations is that a lot of authors wrote a lot of contradictory stuff about her. Like it was never clear whether she knew about the Potentium before going to Zonama Sekot, or whether she was a Sith apprentice secretly or whether she went with the Vong because she tried and failed to assassinate Palpatine and wanted to GTFO, or whether the Potentium was canonically a secret dark side plot or not or whether Qui-Gon was even a Potentium advocate.... I think it was a mix of a lot of people at Lucasfilm having strong opinions and trying to write them into canon, while also not reading (and/or caring) what other authors interpreted about it.
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Jan 2, 2021 00:56
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Gripweed posted:Dooku "aced lightsaber class". That's an exact quote, he aced lightsaber class. loving hell the prequels really sucked all the mystery and magic out of the Jedi. Lightsaber class, Jesus Christ. What was Jedi homework like? If anything I'm guessing this was included because it's supposed to get readers hyped to pay for going to real lightsaber class at Galaxy's Edge. Dapper_Swindler posted:i think its more that i liked christopher lee and the old canon books including the weirdly very good episode 3 novel, paints him as upper class sociopath who hides behind vague idealism and upper class decorum but is basically just a space racist with money who thought that palpatine would put him in some giant place of power after he surrendered and would blame the gleep glops and grievous for the crimes. one of the few things that i agreed with Lucas about that he ended up cutting was dooku begging for his life when he got dehanded. which honestly fits the picture they paint of him. "Truly, treachery is the way of the Sith" was a great final thought for Dooku to have in the ROTS novel. Baron Fuzzlewhack posted:Did Dooku ever get more than a mononym? Or is he just... Dooku? It's one of those things where we know he has a first name but we don't know what it is. Like Palpatine pre-2014.
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Jan 2, 2021 06:15
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The next senator of Georgia is one of us: https://twitter.com/ossoff/status/263439891399057408
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Jan 6, 2021 06:07
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The High Republic stuff makes me feel old, because this is the first big "EU event" that's happened that I just don't have time for and it already feels too overwhelming to get into. This must have been what old-school OT fans felt when the NJO came out. Drone posted:The whole "we're all the Republic" thing is a bit weird to me and feels really ideologically out-of-place in Star Wars, but hey it's supposed to be a new era where everything is different, so I'll give it a chance. Can you (or someone else) explain this a bit more?
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Jan 8, 2021 16:39
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In the end of Rogue One, a Rebel ship also jumps into lightspeed before then hitting Vader's star destroyer as it leaves hyperspace.
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Jan 12, 2021 00:52
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Robot Style posted:Something kind of interesting I found recently - it turns out Rise of Skywalker had concept work done for World Devastators, in case anyone thought that the idea of Palpatine's clone wasn't directly lifted from Dark Empire: Thematically I think this works great with the early ideas to have Palpatine in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and the climactic battle being Finn rallying the Coruscant citizens to rise up. Plus Palpatine building his new empire by literally eating up the remnants of the old works great (as well as tying in with the Scrapper Guild concept from Fallen Order, which actually, now I wonder if that was kind of a spinoff from this ditched IX idea.) I know the guy who wrote Dark Empire, Tom Veitch, is writing a book on the history and influence of the comic, and said that after TROS came out, he's delaying the book so he can work stuff from the movie into it.
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Jan 12, 2021 20:57
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On the other hand if they delayed six months maybe they could have actually written a script. The Rise of Skywalker is the best thing that ever happened to Treverrow.
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Jan 13, 2021 00:08
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Speaking of Old Republic, the Old Republic game and Squadrons just recently had cross-promotional tie ins to each other.
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Jan 18, 2021 01:33
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Arcsquad12 posted:If they wanted space Republicans they could have just used the Ripoblus from Tie Fighter. Bloodline already gave us Space Democrats and Space Republicans, they're just called Populists and Centrists. That's how you know it was written before 2016, when all good liberals realized that centrists are good and populists are evil.
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Jan 19, 2021 22:56
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I think the Ruusan Reformation is still canonical. If not by name, then the fact there was a big war against the Sith leading to their "destruction" (but really Bane) a thousand years ago, the "Old" Republic was crippled, and then changed into the OT-era Republic by Valorum's ancestor. Luceno's Tarkin novel has a lot of that general backstory in it. Speaking of, I was looking through my bookshelf the other day, and came across my old copy of the Phantom Menace novelization. I have a confession to make: I have a big soft spot for that book. I know everyone loves the ROTS novelization, but the TPM one will always have a spot in my heart. Lot of fond memories of avidly reading it before the movie itself came out, and loving that Coruscant was going to be in the movies. Not to mention it's one of those things where all my friends had a copy too, but I was the only one who had the one with Maul's face on the cover, which is still the best version.
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Jan 26, 2021 20:48
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There actually have been a lot of references to KOTOR and The Old Republic in the new canon already, back from the very start of the reboot. Darth Bane's "Moraband" temple from the (original) ending of The Clone Wars was a direct use of the Sith Academy design from The Old Republic, for example. The TOR Jedi symbol has shown up a few times, too. And obviously Malachor has played a big role. While not exactly the same I also liked the fact the krayt dragon episode of The Mandalorian was pretty clearly inspired by the krayt dragon side quest in KOTOR.
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Jan 27, 2021 17:55
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Life Day anthology book has been announced for this fall: https://www.starwars.com/news/life-day-treasury-exclusive-reveal
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Jan 28, 2021 22:46
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Drone posted:I had a flatmate in college who used to do this to me randomly in public. As a complete aside, I recently watched the HBO documentary on Heaven's Gate and the leader saw the Borg as the heroes and a role model for the cult and had the members watch TNG so they could emulate the Borg. I knew they loved Star Trek and that Nichelle Nichols' brother was one of the leaders but that was pretty crazy new knowledge even so.
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Feb 1, 2021 01:57
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The Sunrider Jeep thing definitely isn't a myth. It was repeated forever on fan sites but eventually Lucasfilm people did comment on it. Some of the people involved in TOR have also talked about it, I think. The thing that's one of those long-repeated myths I want to know the source of is that Lucas gave out Dark Empire as a Christmas gift in the early 90s. That's one of those urban legends that's been around probably since the first Star Wars fan sites went up, and it seems just-possible enough to be true, but I've never heard the actual source for it. Tom Veitch has mentioned it in interviews since but again it seems like something he himself might have just picked up secondhand. The other big EU-related fan lore that I remember is that RA Salvatore got sent death threats for writing Vector Prime, which still gets circulated around today, even though on his own website he says he never received any and that he only knows about the claims secondhand. Baron Fuzzlewhack posted:I recently rehashed the old Nomi Sunrider comics with my partner and man, the Jedi were way more interesting when they were decentralized (before we knew what a Jedi Council was) and still had connections to their original homes. Tott Doneeta eschewing galaxy-wide problems to help out his people on the hellscape that was old Ryloth while nearly being sabotaged by another well-meaning but misguided Jedi was neat. TOTJ: Redemption is a really good story. Also in retrospect kind of funny in that it foreshadows the Rey/Luke storyline of the sequel movies.
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Feb 5, 2021 17:30
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T___A posted:To be fair to Vector Prime, Chewbacca was not their first choice on who to kill off. IIRC it was Lando. There was an interview a while ago with Salvatore about this and from what I recall, he said when he was brought on to Vector Prime (he was a late replacement author) he was under the assumption that it had been settled on Chewbacca, but later learned that Chewie was just the suggestion of Randy Stradley from Dark Horse Comics, and it could have been anyone, and Salvatore said if he had known that at the time he would have gone with Lando.
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Feb 5, 2021 17:51
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Yeah, that conclusion was kind of hard to escape. Plus, I think killing Chewie was probably the best option if they were going to kill one of the core movie characters, in terms of difficulty of writing dialogue. Even R2 is a bit easier given he can be a hacker type character, use holograms, etc. That being said, it is kind of weird how the EU completely pigeonholed Lando as "failed businessman" given that's not really how he is in any of the movies. Of course, now in the Disneyverse we know he spends thirty years living in space-RV on that desert planet hoping his kidnapped daughter will show up. So that's kind of exciting and innovative, I guess.
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Feb 5, 2021 18:04
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Speaking of the Salvatore interview, I found it - it was from a 2015 episode of Full of Sith, where they recorded a convention discussion with him and Stackpole on the development of the NJO: https://play.acast.com/s/fullofsithstarwarsnewsdiscussionsandinterviews/episode-cxxxv-why-we-killed-chewie And speaking of this, what the hell happened to Full of Sith. I remember it used to be a really great weekly update on the state of Star Wars fandom and projects under development, but now when I was looking through their site it looks like they're down to one single host (who wasn't even one of the original group) and their archives have some kind of bug that redirected me to some sketchy cheap meds site. (The above is not a link to their buggy archives, FYI) I stopped listening to them regularly a while ago but I think TLJ was what started their decline of both original hosts leaving and the remainder converting to a Disney Brand Loyalty mindset... and then when Rise of Skywalker came out they were trapped into defending something they clearly didn't like.
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Feb 5, 2021 19:45
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The Xizor thing was originally meant to be a straight-up seduction of Leia; the pheromone date rape aspect actually came from one of the editors of Lucasfilm (Sue Rostoni, I think). T___A posted:So what were the behind the scene reasons the Fel Empire became the dominant power in the end? It seems weird that at the end of the day a reformed Empire won. I think the idea was that the end of NJO (which was the latest thing when the Legacy comic was being developed) made it pretty clear that Jaina Solo was going to end up with Jag Fel, and Fel eventually leading the Empire made some kind of sense and having his wife establish its own version of Jedi Knights was something which tied into the early story drafts of Star Wars with the Empire having Sith Knights. The big stumbling block was Troy Denning really hating this, and not only refusing to follow that outline but actively sabotaging it and rejecting the idea that the Legacy comic was canonical. Baron Fuzzlewhack posted:I read the Legacy comic a long time ago (and actually really liked it, at the time anyway), and so I had a passing familiarity with the Fel Empire. What I did not know, until I went poking around just now, was that Baron Soontir Fel was married to... Wedge Antilles' sister. I mean, this is from literally the original appearance of Soontir Fel and tied into his entire character arc and intention to defect to Rogue Squadron, I feel like it's not a huge groaner to the extent of like half of the Mos Eisley patrons being involved in stealing the Death Star plans.
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Feb 6, 2021 23:30
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jivjov posted:If Traviss had just made more Republic Commando books, or the "Mandos in the New Republic era"/"Boba becomes Lord Mandalore" plot had been a separate side series I would have been so much happier. I honestly really liked the characters, and the perspective of groups that hated the Jedi but weren't just dark side users of various stripes, but forcing all that into an ongoing plot just didn't work I really liked Hard Contact, but in retrospect looking it back over it's clear that a lot of the seeds for her insanity were there from the start. Has she ever commented on The Mandalorian? I have to imagine she's at least glad that the word "beskar" is a lasting contribution of hers. Dapper_Swindler posted:do they ever actually like rescue his sister or whatever. because i had the comics and they never really go anywhere outside i think rescuing fel's sister and someone shoots some rear end in a top hat through the head while he is holding a kid MJ style over a balcony and the brawny butch coded lady pilot (who is a secret princess who killed her brother after he got brainwashed by vader) catches said kid. If I remember right, this was supposed to be shown in the comic but the series was canceled early (in what feels now like a kind of soft-reset that Dark Horse did in 1998/99 to pave the way for the prequel tie-ins). The idea was that going to be part of a tie-in miniseries to Zahn's later Thrawn books that would show how Baron Fel was recruited by Thrawn, but that also never came about.
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Feb 7, 2021 21:04
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Arcsquad12 posted:I dont know if they actually did have their poo poo together. The New Essential Chronology has more than its share of errors in it but it mostly succeeded in the monumental task of charting the in-universe history of the galaxy in a way that made logical sense. But if you look at individual stories you have to wonder if anyone knew what the overall plan was. That's probably true of the general EU but if T___A was referring to the original Clone Wars series of works from 2002-05 then I think that was pretty closely coordinated, at least in terms of getting people from LucasArts, Dark Horse, Del Rey, and a general Lucasfilm continuity staff all together to have a general overarching idea and develop shared original characters like Ventress.
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Feb 8, 2021 17:38
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Episode 2 of the Dark Empire fan animation adaptation has been released: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIM76LKh6zs I like how he uses the Rise of Skywalker look/cyborg frame for Palpatine in a nice bit of turnabout.
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Feb 9, 2021 04:57
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cptn_dr posted:Does he have stairs in his Jedi temple? Is R2-D2 the pusher robot or the shover robot?
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Feb 9, 2021 15:19
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Baron Fel himself is kind of odd in that outside of the last few volumes of the X-Wing comic, he doesn't really appear in any stories. He has a cameo in one of the Crispin Solo books, and I think one or two of the NJO books. So the character casts this long shadow that's basically bolstered by references and sourcebook stuff but his actual appearances are almost nil. Kind of like Thrawn in that way, actually, at least before the endless Thrawn prequel appearances. Actually looking it up now on Wookieepedia, the 181st Squadron itself is not really in a lot of stories, which surprises me. I feel like I remembered them showing up everywhere in the old EU.
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Feb 12, 2021 23:01
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