Did EU jump the shark with the Yuuzhan Vong?

[jollyreaper]

This is a subjective thing but for me, the first movie to beat Star Wars in terms of artistic, cultural, and financial impact was truly the Matrix. If everybody's riffing on your movie, from people directly ripping off your ideas to pop culture jokes and parodies, you know you've made an impact. Matrix was groundbreaking. I thought it was astounding good luck that Lord of the Rings followed so closely on its heels. That whole project was astoundingly good. There was no reason for it to not suck -- it should have. A Hollywood take on Tolkein? It should have been Battlefield Middle-Earth.

Avatar really looks like it'll be the next big thing. I think a lot Matrix's thunder was stolen by how awful the sequels were. If Avatar toasts it in the sequels, it could suffer the same way.

[Havok]

Uh, how was the Matrix groundbreaking? 'Bullet time' has been around for ages. Blade used the effect at least a year before the Matrix came out. Hell I think a commercial in the 80's used it. I don't think I even need to make a case for wire-fu.

Visually, the Matrix is only 'groundbreaking' if you have never seen Akira, or other similar Japanese animation movies.

I mean, yeah it is good and all, but it is just post apocalyptic sci-fi with machines controlling humans. (THX1138 anybody?) With a budget and kung fu. Not much new there, but like Star Wars and now, Avatar, it is just repackaged old stories. What it got right was that it repackaged foreign stories like Lucas did with Star Wars that western audiences didn't recognize and not Kevin Costner movies.

However, the fact that it's sequels could steal it's thunder at all, speaks volumes of it's real impact. Four far inferior sequels have done nothing to tarnish Star Wars.

[jollyreaper]

Ok, point of clarification. Are you saying Star Wars is a big deal or not? Because the whole lack of originality and ripping off foreign movies thing is the exact same deal. What Mattix did, like Star Wars, was repackage and popularize for a new audience. Most Americans hadn't seen Akira or Ghost In the Shell, didn't know wirefu or even remember where they'd seen bullet time before. Matrix did it so well that it now becomes the original in everyone's mind.

I maintain Star Wars and Matrix are quite similar in hugeness and impact on our culture and the prequels do hurt the originals because you cannot escape them. Shitty cgi is inserted into the originals, Whineakin's blue ghost is inserted at the end of Jedi. You have to look hard to obtain a copy that looks as it did before Lucas started munging it up.

[Sarevok]

The Matrix had the chance to become another Star Wars but blew it. Star Wars was followed up by immensely successful ESB and somewhat mediocre ROTH that still gave a satisfying closure to the saga. The Matrix sequels blew the originals chances at greatness and left a bitter taste in minds of many fans of the first movie. The Matrix was prematurely shot in the foot while it was still developing into a mass cultural phenomena.

This is why Star Wars is still Star Wars. Not to use a crass commercial example but you cant escape Star Wars merchandise no matter where you live. How many Matrix video games, toys and novels do you see when you walk around the malls of your city ?

[jollyreaper]

The Matrix had the chance to become another Star Wars but blew it. Star Wars was followed up by immensely successful ESB and somewhat mediocre ROTH that still gave a satisfying closure to the saga. The Matrix sequels blew the originals chances at greatness and left a bitter taste in minds of many fans of the first movie. The Matrix was prematurely shot in the foot while it was still developing into a mass cultural phenomena.

This is why Star Wars is still Star Wars. Not to use a crass commercial example but you cant escape Star Wars merchandise no matter where you live. How many Matrix video games, toys and novels do you see when you walk around the malls of your city ?

The Matrix was never marketed in quite the same fashion as Star Wars. Frankly, the only things I've seen with as much toy and spin-off marketing impact as Star Wars weren't movies first, toys second but toys first, movies/cartoons second. Transformers, GI Joe, Star Wars. Those were the big three when I was a sprout. And the Joe comic everyone remembers with fondness came after the start of the toy line for additional promotion.

I'll amend that when I'm talking about "the next generation's Star Wars" I'm thinking more in terms of the movie itself and the box office, DVD sales, etc. The moichandizing! of Star Wars is really a whole other animal. I'm sure executives are still pulling their hair out trying to figure out why it caught fire when so many other efforts failed.

Wiki has the box office and DVD performance for movies but does any site mention the take for all of the spin-off and licensed products? Including novels, games, comics, games and so forth. The general impression is LucasFilm must be making more than all the others but I'd be interested to know what the actual numbers are. The last time I saw the numbers it had the prequels together at below a billion between box office and DVD's. I'm sure that figure's outdated by now.

Of course, it can be difficult to measure impact by dollars alone. RedLetterMedia's reviews have generated a whole bunch of drama in the fandom -- always the sign of a big impact -- but as something freely given away it hasn't made a dime.

[Metahive]

The Matrix was never marketed in quite the same fashion as Star Wars.

Matrix inspired commercials for energy drinks and cellphones, plastic figurines, model kits, shades, several tie-in games, even an MMORPG, merchandise up the ass. No, you can't say they weren't trying to groom the Matrix brand into a cultural phenomenon. That it wasn't as successful as Star Wars and the effort eventually abandoned isn't quite relevant here.

[AMT]

Christ. Do you people know what 'Jumping the shark' actually means? Where it came from?

It is when The Fonz, jumps a literal fucking shark on water skies in a speedo and his leather jacket.

Think about that for a moment, and then please, point to the specific moment when the EU overdosed on ridiculous.

Dark Empire. Force Storms attack via hyperspace wormhole is ridiculous

[Havok]

Christ. Do you people know what 'Jumping the shark' actually means? Where it came from?

It is when The Fonz, jumps a literal fucking shark on water skies in a speedo and his leather jacket.

Think about that for a moment, and then please, point to the specific moment when the EU overdosed on ridiculous.

Dark Empire. Force Storms attack via hyperspace wormhole is ridiculous

Is that more ridiculous than the Death Star? Or is it just not as cool?

[jollyreaper]

The Death Star is ridiculous on several levels but you can just accept it because the rest of the story is great.

Reasons why it's ridiculous:
1. You can sterilize a planet for a lot less money. Just smash a large starship into it at a high fraction of lightspeed.
2. I don't care if there's millions of inhabitable worlds, trashing them like that is incredibly wasteful.
3. For the amount of money that went into building a Death Star, and given how great the "weak" super-laser from Jedi was, why not build scaled down Death Stars? Size the laser to be big enough to pop powerful starships, scale the rest of the mini-star to match, conquer galaxy.

I could buy Hitleresque military insanity to go along with trashing planets, fine. It's no crazier than Warhammer Exterminatus. But blowing the whole planet up is overkill and also makes the Death Star seem a little outsized for the rest of the universe.

But the real problem is the endless rehashing of imperial superweapons. You can tell some good stories about the Imperial Remnant trying to pick off Republic systems without superweapons. The whole cheering people on Coruscant thing in the revision of ROTJ, not happening. These are the Imperial elite. Their meal ticket just exploded. You think they're going to be happy about that? There's going to be a lot of people with a vested interest in keeping the Empire going. Plenty of drama to have from that.

[Sarevok]

The Death Star is not merely a one trick pony that kills planet. It is a superweapon that can not be stopped. It serves as a remainder to everyone who would seceede that resistance is futile. A mere superlaser platform is just another ship that can be defeated in battle. If you were a Corellian politician a planet sized fleet killing machine has no answer if you ask your admirals...even if you drive out Star Destroyers from Corellian space you are ultimately doomed when Death Star arrives.

[Metahive]

Is that more ridiculous than the Death Star? Or is it just not as cool?

I would say there's a massive difference between a gigantic space station blasting a planet apart and a single, scrawny little guy achieving the same all by himself with the wave of a hand. Makes one also wonder why Palpatine bothered with the Death Stars in the first place when he didn't really need them.

But the real problem is the endless rehashing of imperial superweapons. You can tell some good stories about the Imperial Remnant trying to pick off Republic systems without superweapons. The whole cheering people on Coruscant thing in the revision of ROTJ, not happening. These are the Imperial elite. Their meal ticket just exploded. You think they're going to be happy about that? There's going to be a lot of people with a vested interest in keeping the Empire going. Plenty of drama to have from that.

That's just another fairy tale conceit, the oppressed minions celebrating once the evil witch goes down. People who wish to punt Star Wars into a more gritty, "realistic" direction ought to remember that Star Wars is in fact a fairy tale in space at heart.

[jollyreaper]

I understand it's A fairy tale but how lame would the classics be if the same damned evil queen kept resurrecting in cloned bodies? Lame, but there's always room for a trusted lieutenant to take the reins or for someone else unrelated to plunder the evil one's archives and learn the secrets. Morgoth to Sauron is a good development. And yes, Sauron came back but it was established as part of the story and why the ring needed destroyed.

Anyway, there's plenty of room for post-ROTJ adventure. I'd love to see someone with actual talent tell the tale of the refitting of the Jedi order.

[Sarevok]

If you want SW world building done correctly then perhaps the only good example you will find is KoToR. It is a good example of how post ROTJ era storytelling should have been. Instead of rehashing the plot elements of the original movies for quick cash in opportunities.

[jollyreaper]

If you want SW world building done correctly then perhaps the only good example you will find is KoToR. It is a good example of how post ROTJ era storytelling should have been. Instead of rehashing the plot elements of the original movies for quick cash in opportunities.

Yup. Treat it like a genre instead of a franchise. New characters, new plots, new things, some common elements like the Force and lightsabers and various races.

[Darth Hoth]

But the real problem is the endless rehashing of imperial superweapons. You can tell some good stories about the Imperial Remnant trying to pick off Republic systems without superweapons. The whole cheering people on Coruscant thing in the revision of ROTJ, not happening. These are the Imperial elite. Their meal ticket just exploded. You think they're going to be happy about that? There's going to be a lot of people with a vested interest in keeping the Empire going. Plenty of drama to have from that.

That's just another fairy tale conceit, the oppressed minions celebrating once the evil witch goes down. People who wish to punt Star Wars into a more gritty, "realistic" direction ought to remember that Star Wars is in fact a fairy tale in space at heart.

Old-time fairytales may not have been realistic, but they generally were "gritty" and contained quite mature content. Do not confuse Disney with the source material.

Oh, and as for Coruscant: How many people did we see in that two-second sequence, again? Maybe ten thousand? Out of a planetary population that counts trillions at the very least. How representative are they necessarily of that population?

In the EU, it is made abundantly clear that they were a small minority and were promptly rounded up by the Imperial police (and at least some of them were executed by firing squad; ref Mara Jade: By The Emperor's Hand). The vast majority of Imperial citizens were loyal; the very novelisation of RotJ mentions the galaxywide grieving that would come about on Palpatine's death.

Yet another reason to love the EU, when it fixes Lucas brainbugs like that.

[Crazedwraith]

X-Wing: Iron Fist also provides some explanation; rebel hackers transmitted the information around quickly as the Imperials were trying to keep it under wraps. One of Wraith Squadrons new members was one of the hackers on Coruscant who got the word out. He was in that square we see in the SE with the statue of Palpatine being torn down and he was there when the Stormtrooper 'restored order' by opening up on the ground full auto. Their blasters were not set to stun.

Guilt about that is one of the character's defining traits. The other being xenophobia.

[Metahive]

Old-time fairytales may not have been realistic, but they generally were "gritty" and contained quite mature content. Do not confuse Disney with the source material.

I think I expressed myself poorly. With "gritty and realistic" I didn't mean "blood+sex+rock'n'roll", I was thinking more of something like complex moral choices that the protagonists are burdened with.

There's actually something like that found in the EU, take the hypothesis that Palpatine build the Death Stars among other things also as a possible defense against the impending invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong. If the Rebel Alliance had known this ahead of time, would they still have decided to destroy them? Would it have been a viable alternative to leave a madman like Palpatine in possession of such superweapons if it meant that they could later help to stem the tide of murderous invaders?

[Darth Hoth]

Heh. They did essentially the same thing, though inadvertently, by making the Rebels/New Republic epic incompetents at running the galaxy. One might wonder how many would want stable Imperial rule back, rather than Crisis of the Month . . .

But, yes, this is something I would agree with, the point you raise.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It would be interesting I think to see a fanfic AU wherein the Emperor does show the galaxy the approaching Vong. And then what happens when they arrive.

X-Wing: Iron Fist also provides some explanation; rebel hackers transmitted the information around quickly as the Imperials were trying to keep it under wraps. One of Wraith Squadrons new members was one of the hackers on Coruscant who got the word out. He was in that square we see in the SE with the statue of Palpatine being torn down and he was there when the Stormtrooper 'restored order' by opening up on the ground full auto. Their blasters were not set to stun.

[annoying trivia-memory semi-rant]
To expand the reference, the guy's name was Castin Donn and he described the plaza as being "one of the smaller ones, couldn't have held more than a couple thousand people." Holoprojectors were displaying the DS2 going boom-boom, and apparently Rebels or Rebel sympathisers were cheering wildly whilst loyalists were "turning white."

He then describes pulling down a Palpy statue and that they had to get cables and airspeeders to do it. Then the Stormies turn up. He describes that a woman next to him holding a infant is shot in the head and he rabs the infant to stop it getting trampled.

[/annoying trivia-memory semi-rant]

[jollyreaper]

Heh. They did essentially the same thing, though inadvertently, by making the Rebels/New Republic epic incompetents at running the galaxy. One might wonder how many would want stable Imperial rule back, rather than Crisis of the Month . . .

But, yes, this is something I would agree with, the point you raise.

That's actually been brought up quite a few times in discussions. It surely wasn't intentional but yeah, when you look at the New Republic's track record across all these various books and comics, WTF?

But that actually is along the lines of something I'd thought years back when I was dissatisfied with the whole Luke turning dark thing. It didn't sit right, Dark Empire. But what I thought might be interesting is if people are concerned because he's acting mysterious and doing plotting and scheming and the assumption is he's turning to the Dark Side and pulling a Saruman but it turns out he's preparing the galaxy to counter a huge invasion. This is years before the Vong thing happened and I realize now how vastly bad what seems to be a good idea can be when executed poorly. The original thought was along the lines of a recast German rearmament situation in WWII. You have your military power that got beat in a big war, now they're rearming and everyone assumes it's to fight the last war again like WWII followed WWI but wouldn't it be a surprise if they were rearming for a good reason. And you find out the Allies from the first war don't believe the warnings and now the former enemies are the only ones in a position to hold back the big new enemy while the Allies desperately retool for war.

[Havok]

Is that more ridiculous than the Death Star? Or is it just not as cool?

I would say there's a massive difference between a gigantic space station blasting a planet apart and a single, scrawny little guy achieving the same all by himself with the wave of a hand. Makes one also wonder why Palpatine bothered with the Death Stars in the first place when he didn't really need them.

Did you just refer to the most powerful Force user to ever live as a scrawny little guy? And IIRC, Palpatine hadn't perfected the control before DE. I don't think he had mastered it all the way in DE.

But the real problem is the endless rehashing of imperial superweapons. You can tell some good stories about the Imperial Remnant trying to pick off Republic systems without superweapons. The whole cheering people on Coruscant thing in the revision of ROTJ, not happening. These are the Imperial elite. Their meal ticket just exploded. You think they're going to be happy about that? There's going to be a lot of people with a vested interest in keeping the Empire going. Plenty of drama to have from that.

That's just another fairy tale conceit, the oppressed minions celebrating once the evil witch goes down. People who wish to punt Star Wars into a more gritty, "realistic" direction ought to remember that Star Wars is in fact a fairy tale in space at heart.

I like that the people on Coruscant were celebrating the Empire's defeat. It goes to show that the people of the Republic/Empire were good and that they were indeed under the oppression of a tyrant they could not themselves throw off.

However, I am all for the Empire wanting to maintain power and using their vast might to carve out a massive stronghold. I mean, no one that amassed as much power as the Empire did, in such a short time, is just going to give it up.

[Metahive]

Well, Palpatine certainly is no tall, muscle-bound and healthy looking Adonis, is he?

[Coyote]

One thing about the Yuuzhan Vong is that it is not as much they who "jumped the shark", but rather are a mirror to the real problem at the core of the Star Wars stories from the beginning-- the Vong were tough because even their footsoldier mooks were invincible to Jedi. And therein lies the problem: in order to bring some shake-and-bake change to Star Wars, you have to remove the Jedi as a problem.

The Jedi have access to superworldly powers that elevates them above and beyond normal people. Even with strict codes of conduct they do, even if unintentionally, become the ruling class. Everything in society will depend on what direction the Force-wielders take things. It took another Force-wielder, a Sith, to alter the balance, and more Force-wielders to correct it. In Star Wars, there are two groups of people: Jedi, and those who support the Jedi. What they do determines policy and direction, everyone else just lines up behind them regardless of whether they are aware of it or not, as in the case with the Emperor.

In the EU, the whole spirals to absurd extremes. To combat the Jedi, you have to allow an ordinary person to have access to some advantage. It mostly came in the form of super-weapons, each new one lessening the importance of the Death Star by that much more. And each time, the Jedi get called in to deal with it. No skill, no initiative, no plucky stand against vast forces, just mortals serving as back-ups or diversions for Jedi. So again, the whole Star Wars setting comes down to "what the Jedi do this week". It's like a whole society of Superman/Captain Kirks, and the addition of some personal angst a la Peter Parker does little to really advance the overall character landscape.

Thrawn/Zahn stand out because Thrawn, at least, had the prop of "strategic & tactical cleverness" to make himself dangerous, rather than some stupid not-quite-a-Death-Star. He was cobbling together a new Empire and using what he felt were the more useful bits of the old one (he certainly found C'baaoth useful, but at the same time sought ways to keep him cornered and under control, and also did not rely on C'Baaoth as the sole key to his plan) while trying to excise what, in his perception, were the built-in failures. This is one of the few times that we see "cleverness" as a part of a villain's plan. He out-smarted the Jedi, to an extent, and didn't need to be Superman or have a Supergun to do it.

Vonda McIntyre wrote a loathsome pile of shit called "The Crystal Star", bringing us Centaurs and other garbage, but she did recognize one thing, and that was that in order to make any progress, you had to nullify the Jedi. Unfortunately, she did this by turning Luke into a total whining nebbish, getting him out of the way so she could make room for her story, which was not an adequate substitute.

Frankly, I think it is the supernatural elements of the Jedi that are a built-in flaw in an otherwise awesome setting. Obviously, this is totally subjective on my part and many will protest the point of view, but I think I have a point with the contention that the Jedi create a block to a lot of potentially significant story development that might otherwise advance the setting overall.

[Havok]

Ridiculous Coyote.

First, aside from some EU garbage, Jedi have never been shown as 'ruling class' if anything, they have been shown to be the servants of the ruling class. Big difference.

Second, this weeks Jedi killing super weapon doesn't diminish the Death Star in the slightest, because the Death Star was not a weapon designed even remotely with the Jedi in mind.

And please, don't kid yourself. Zahn had the same super weapon that every other EU hack has had, his was just a single guy, instead of a big laser. ("Hur hur I deduce military strategy from art!" That is as bad as any Star Trek type race generalizations and as bad as any Sun Crusher)
Thrawn is just a Death Star wanna be, as much as any Hutt super laser or whatever. He was the ultimate weapon, without him the Empire was vulnerable, he only had one weak spot, he dies and everything falls apart etc., etc.. And he didn't outsmart the Jedi, he outsmarted Luke. Not a huge feat for someone raised on a desert backwater with no military/strategic/tactical education or training that we are aware of.

I do agree that for the most part, the Jedi should be shunted out of the limelight for Star Wars to succeed in the EU, but simply because I don't think there are many people out there that understand the best way to use them. I don't view them as a problem, but as horribly misused and misunderstood.

And since I haven't addressed it, I actually like some aspects of the Vong, or I should say, I like some of the base ideas behind them. I like the idea of being Force resistant, but not their planet shutting them off from it. I also don't like the lightsaber proof-ness, but like the matching of the martial skills of the Jedi. I like some of the organic based tech, but not to the extreme it was taken. The whole pain thing, I can take of leave.

[Eleas]

Ridiculous Coyote.

First, aside from some EU garbage, Jedi have never been shown as 'ruling class' if anything, they have been shown to be the servants of the ruling class. Big difference.

I don't think that's Coyote's meaning. My interpretation of what he wrote is that in such a society, we would expect the Jedi to call the shots, to be the movers and shakers. And really, I'd contend that's how they generally end up depicted as.

Second, this weeks Jedi killing super weapon doesn't diminish the Death Star in the slightest, because the Death Star was not a weapon designed even remotely with the Jedi in mind.

Could be. I think the larger problem is the dependency on superweapons. It led to other stupidity beyond the obvious, too - we had EU authors believing that superweapons were the modus operandi of the bad guys, and thus that the Executor was a huge anomaly that "nearly bankrupted the Empire," for instance.

And please, don't kid yourself. Zahn had the same super weapon that every other EU hack has had, his was just a single guy, instead of a big laser. ("Hur hur I deduce military strategy from art!" That is as bad as any Star Trek type race generalizations and as bad as any Sun Crusher)

Here I have to disagree. I'm not claiming Thrawn is an awe-inspiring character or litmus test or anything, but he's a character, not a weapon. The issue of agency is a deciding factor, although you could fairly call him a deus ex machina.

I do agree that for the most part, the Jedi should be shunted out of the limelight for Star Wars to succeed in the EU, but simply because I don't think there are many people out there that understand the best way to use them. I don't view them as a problem, but as horribly misused and misunderstood.

I agree completely.

And since I haven't addressed it, I actually like some aspects of the Vong, or I should say, I like some of the base ideas behind them. I like the idea of being Force resistant, but not their planet shutting them off from it. I also don't like the lightsaber proof-ness, but like the matching of the martial skills of the Jedi. I like some of the organic based tech, but not to the extreme it was taken. The whole pain thing, I can take of leave.

Yes, and yes. I don't really like the idea of them being Force resistant in the way that was depicted. Nor do I like their lightsaber protection and the like. I think the reason is that such abilities and equipment don't serve to make the Vong stronger, better or more capable adversaries to the Jedi - they serve to make the Jedi less capable in a fight against the Vong. In other words, nearly everything about the Vong seems custom-designed to nerf Force-users in general and Jedi/Sith in particular.

As you say, matching the martial skills of the Jedi wasn't a bad idea in itself. Had the Vong been, say, fast enough or invulnerable enough to take down low-level Jedi without such tricks, they would have been horrific adversaries. One could even give them their own innate abilities of concealment, blinding, or whatever.

What doesn't work for me is this trek-like "the Force can't even penetrate our navigational shields" bullshit, of which that ridiculous crabstix-armour is merely a variation. There's nothing martially impressive about being able to shrug off a lightsaber blow. Nothing. Give me an enemy able to fight the Jedi despite the Jedi's advantages, and I'll not just be impressed with the severity of this threat, but I'll be satisfied that the kids of the new generation are earning their keep as Star Wars heroes.