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How would you have done post-ROTJ Star Wars?

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jollyreaper
PostPosted: 2012-03-20 12:28am 

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Joined: 2010-06-28 10:19pm
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The presupposition here is that the Star Wars Expanded Universe is pretty disappointing and is a poor continuation of the spirit of the original movies. The question of whether or not this is the case if of course worthy of an entire thread all on its own. This thread assumes the statement to be true.

The EU material I find tends to strike the wrong tone. It's either ridiculously G-rated fluff or ponderously self-important with unsympathetic characters one-upping themselves in supposed badassery.

The tone struck by the original trilogy walked along that really difficult edge of being good for all ages, like a Pixar movie. Whenever someone says "family entertainment," that usually means you have to be in pre-school to be entertained and the rest of the family suffers along with it. Pixar does layers and nuance. Little kids like the bright colors, shapes and motion, can enjoy it on a physical levle without even comprehending the words. Older kids can enjoy the simple physical comedy, maybe get the jokes. But the adults can catch the deeper themes, the nuances. For anyone who saw a given film for the first time as a little kid, each subsequent viewing can reveal new layers that escaped perception before.

The original trilogy was a lot like that. I think a lot of the depth was unintentional on Lucas' part. Because the original movies were more of a collaborative process, he had to accept more input and it worked on layers that were unintentional. Hemingway on symbolism: "Then there is the other secret. There isn't any symbolysm [sic]. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know." You can't really tell an author he's wrong about his own work! But at the same time, the reader is free to project his own significance onto what he reads in a work, the same as he can find significance in real events he sees every day. Life isn't scripted but one can still find meaning in events and circumstances.

Star Wars and Indiana Jones are quite similar in a lot of ways and understandably so given when the originals were made and who were involved. At their hearts they were homages to the favorite childhood entertainments of the directors. Their primary purpose was to be solid, fun entertainment and not let self-importance get in the way of telling a good story. I think part of the reason why the new trilogy was such a failure was because Lucas took himself too seriously as an Artist. Star Wars was now this mythic tale of Skywalker's fall and redemption and a work of Homeric scope and import. This self-importance sucked all the fun and emotion out of the material and thus left it far weaker in impact than the original material which was just supposed to be good, popcorn-chewing entertainment.

Having said all that, here's a few specific thoughts. In terms the prequel films, not really a fan of the idea. Prequels leave you too locked in to a predetermined future. I like the idea of post-ROTJ continuations.

I don't like the idea of Palpy clones. I intensely dislike any kind of future plot development that undercuts something that's already happened with great emotional significance. If Fredo gets shot out on the lake, he better not come back in Godfather Part III with a scar on his head and be the villain trying to take down the Corleone family. A villain dies, I don't want to hear any crap about secret clones or twin brothers or any of that crap. He better not die and have four different dudes coming back claiming to be him. Palpatine is dead.

I like the idea of the New Republic struggling to establish legitimacy. Palpy wasn't planning on dying any time soon, probably not ever, and he also didn't believe in having strong subordinates. The Empire would be in complete chaos after his death. Some warlords would try to carve out little empires of their own, some planets would try to throw in with the new legitimate government. It would be messy. Messy is good for drama. I would imagine there to be a honeymoon period as everyone catches a breather from the war and people are looking to see what this new government decides to do. I think it would take some time for the military commanders and planetary governors to get a sense that the new government is not going to be doing the iron fist thing and realize they could break away without getting their planet blown up.

But all of that would be background stuff, the same way that the details turning the old republic into the empire were background details in the originals. Put that stuff too far in the forefront and you get stupid trade disputes and needless pod races.

I think the forefront story would be Luke trying to reestablish the Jedi but gawd, the EU stuff that tried doing this was just awful. I like the idea of Luke resigning his commission, returning to civilian life and making this his purpose. It's all the political tension that would bring the Jedi back to the forefront. The Jedi were considered a symbol of the Old Republic. Palpatine wiping them out became symbolic for wiping out all the other democratic institutions. Therefore the New Republic wants, needs Jedis to become a symbol of legitimacy.

And this here is how the pre-trilogy stuff could be covered. In reestablishing the order, Luke learns of the mistakes made that led to the fall in the first place. Who was Palpatine? Where did he receive his training? How could the Jedi have missed him? How was his father, a good man, seduced by the Dark Side when it is so obviously Bad Stuff(tm)? And as he sees the stupidity and corruption in the New Republic, the cowardice and scheming of politicians and their cronies, he can come to understand how his father could see the Dark Side as an answer, forcing reason upon those too stupid to see it for themselves.

As for the Sith thing, I never really liked the EU explanations. I like the idea of the Sith being dark Jedi from the past, long since extinct. Dabblers in the Force would have happened upon some Sith sacred texts and tried to discover their secrets. They would take the name Sith the same way rulers would appropriate Caesar's name as Tsar or Kaiser. I could see Palpy seeing an opponent with access to the Force as his greatest weakness thus killing off his fellow Siths during his rise to power, taking out the Jedi next and only keeping Vader because, in his weakened state with all those prosthetics, he could never truly be a threat.

Therefore any Dark Side users encountered subsequently should be dabblers, even though they may prove powerful. It would be nice for Luke's first recruit to the new order to be a self-styled Darth Badass. He's taught himself a few Force tricks and can beat up on the locals. Luke ends up fighting him, letting him think he's making some effective attacks and then beats him into the dirt without even breathing hard. He calls Luke a master and begs to become his apprentice.

I think that many key figures of the original trilogy would be tied up in higher offices with important work which would mean that the bulk of the adventuring would happen with new characters in the junior ranks but the old guard can still do some fancy footwork. When the New Republic is ready to go broke, Lando negotiates a line of credit with the Hutts using the kind of strong-arm tactics and blackmail that earns their respect. The breaking out of peace is killing business for the smugglers even as there's not enough legitimate shipping to carry the Republic's commerce. Han uses his old smuggler contacts to broker deals and bring them back to the side of the angels.

Stuff like the Vong seem totally out of place for Star Wars. All the stuff with dying Skywalkers, going Sith, it's just too grimdark for Star Wars. Yes, planets get blown up from time to time but it's not meant to be relentlessly depressing.
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Bakustra
PostPosted: 2012-03-20 08:28am 

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What would I do?

I would put together a set of ground rules, a sort of writer's bible. These would be generally my own thoughts on Star Wars. Some examples: anyone can be a Jedi, the Clone Wars took place X years ago, think of them as being like a mix between Vietnam and WWII, the Empire lasted for about X-Y years. These would probably be codified in the RPG that I would commission (probably from West End Games again, unless I wanted to do it in-house for some crazy-ass reason) and sell. I would hire Timothy Zahn again, since he deliberately wrote his Star Wars novels to be essentially pastiches of the films. I would hire Brian Daley and L. Neil Smith again, because they took the alternate route of exploring the galaxy with characters who have an indefinite backstory. I think both of those are essentially the best ways to write licensed fiction. And then I would let people go hog wild, because any Star Wars novel is going to hit the New York Times Bestseller List for a while, and it really, really doesn't hurt the brand to let people go a little crazy, since the majority of people will not be reading these books. And if you have massive amounts of writing freedom, you have a better chance of attracting higher-quality writers who might ordinarily disdain writing licensed fiction as writing hamstrung. Of course, you're probably never going to get the absolute best, but on the other hand, Isaac Asimov did write the novel for Fantastic Voyage, so...
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fordlltwm
PostPosted: 2012-03-20 01:55pm 

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Standardise Luke Skywalker's force powers so we don't end up with Courtship of Princess Leia Luke being super Jedi, and in Children of the Jedi being pretty weak and useless.
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jollyreaper
PostPosted: 2012-03-20 09:59pm 

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Excellent point on the bible. Also spot on for standardizing Luke. But not just him. All the scale and scope stuff.

I think that there should be a universe editor or editors. It's not to shackle writers, just to standardize stuff. Heroes was really good at that in the first season. There were multiple writers working with different character arcs but the head writer kept them all on the same page. He could keep the portrayals accurate and arcing towards mutually supporting developments.

Along that line, I think that the editor should demark eras and general info about the particulars in those eras and start a new era every ten years. Otherwise you end up with too much story bloat. This is the post-ROTJ era. Here are the big events. We tell the big stories. That sets the large events as canon. The best writers are given the epic stories. Subsequent to that, lesser writers can tell smaller stories in those eras but we can avoid the crazy wank that usually takes place. There's vong wars and swarm wars and all this other crap that overly clutters the timeline. Makes it a mess to get a proper account of what happened to everyone.

As a rule, the creator of a character runs the arc. Zahn invented Mara Jade and she was killed off by another writer in a way he hated. No. Don't do that.

Reading the behind the scenes stuff explains just how so many stupid story decisions were made. It's not like a normal novel where you can just yell at the author, it's more like a tv show or comic books with writing by committee and executive decrees.

The bit about ending eras is trying to get around comic book back stories. You run a book for 40 years and there's just stupid amounts of backstory to keep straight. You end up doing silly reboots to clear things up.

Better to declare a new era and introduce new characters. The old books can still be enjoyed and their legacy won't be diluted.
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Bakustra
PostPosted: 2012-03-21 07:40pm 

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I really don't see any particular need to force consistency- honestly, I think that allowing authors to do whatever they want only helps to reinforce the mythic nature of Star Wars by treating it as a set of myths. Furthermore, anything to break neckbeards of their love of canon and continuity is a good thing.
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jollyreaper
PostPosted: 2012-03-21 09:26pm 

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So you would prefer each author to take and leave whatever they enjoy from other works the way the Greeks and Romans did it. Well, it is true that it was very difficult to establish any kind of canon and as far as comics go, you see reboots where people want it lighter or more serious by turns.

Still, I don't think it's the fans enforcing the continuity all the way. Seems like Lucas loves the control.
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Havok
PostPosted: 2012-03-22 01:47am 

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No more Luke as a main character. No one gets him right anyway.
Jedi that are created from the Old Republic are strictly monitored and vetted so as not to over expose and contradict the movies.
Leia becomes a Jedi, not a leader, and is also strictly controlled. Not quite to the extent of Luke.
No more Sith connected to anything done before. The line is completely severed in every way. That doesn't preclude a new Sith at some point, but nothing connected to Palpatine or Vader or whatever has come before.
No more Boba Fett. No Manalorians at all.
The Empire falls and returns on it's own to a Republic.
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jollyreaper
PostPosted: 2012-03-22 10:36pm 

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I'd like to see Luke's development but agree that I've never really seen an EU depiction of him I've enjoyed.

What's your take on other Jedi? The EU just loves the idea of hundreds of Jedi surviving the purges, the Emperor and Vader having dozens of force users at their disposal.

Personally, that never really sat right with me. Granted, just because we don't see something on-screen doesn't preclude it from existing. We never saw landing barges for the AT-AT's but it stands to figure they had to get down from the Star Destroyers somehow. So if someone depicts a landing barge in the EU there's not really much to complain about. Logically, there has to be something like that.

Where are the other force ghosts? If there was a whole Jedi Order that got slaughtered, Yoda and Obi-Wan should have them coming out of their ears. That they don't makes me wonder if there aren't any left or if they can only persist for a short time.

Some could argue that secret force user agents are like landing barges, an obvious idea. They strike me a bit more like force clones, unlikely and unsupported by the movies.
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Guardsman Bass
PostPosted: 2012-03-23 03:00am 

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1. The Empire begins reverting to a Republic once the Imperial Senate re-convenes (it's only been out for four years), but you get a ton of resistance and civil war as some of the Sector Governors and military leaders carve out their own territories, which the Republic struggles to bring under control. There are a lot of stories you could fit in there, at both the grand and small scale as the galaxy changes.

2. Luke basically becomes a wandering Jedi, training Leia but then striking out on his own. You could have successive stories involving him stopping conflicts and training potential pupils that come across his path. He doesn't get married or have kids. Over time, he starts to weave together a new Jedi Order, different from the Old Republic Jedi who were almost destroyed in the face of change.

3. I don't mind Leia becoming a leader, since she was involved in the politics in the movies. Maybe make her more of a diplomat, trying to pull the Republic back together.

4. Remnants of the Sith exist, but they're basically a bunch of amateurs compared to the "Rule of Two" Sith Lords - think acolytes and fallen Jedi who managed to survive the purges. You could have a few who are dangerous, but aren't really true Sith.

5. I liked Han and Lando being drawn more into leadership roles, like what happened in ROTJ. Give them some pretty cool fleet actions, as in the EU.

jollyreaper wrote:
Where are the other force ghosts? If there was a whole Jedi Order that got slaughtered, Yoda and Obi-Wan should have them coming out of their ears. That they don't makes me wonder if there aren't any left or if they can only persist for a short time.


The EU ran with "force ghosts for everyone", but the movies were never entirely clear on how that worked. ROTS implied that becoming a force ghost was something only a few people had managed to do, like Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin in his last moments of life.
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FedRebel
PostPosted: 2012-03-23 09:35am 

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I'd break post ROTJ into eras

The Dark Era (4ABY-15ABY): The Empire is in a berserk self destructive phase, the Rebellion is near extinction and their only hope is to bring order to the chaos, before the fragments of the Empire wipe it all out.

The New Republic Era (15ABY-77ABY): The Empire is gone, a few warlords remain but they call themselves something else entirely. The New Republic faces the birth pains of a new government, the Emperor literally wiped-out all vestiges of the Old Republic. Luke is also struggling to stand up a new Jedi Order, the birth pains of which beget a new evil, not Sith...but something potentially worse.

The Great War Era (77ABY-102ABY): Invaders from another galaxy have arrived (not Vong, something more lethal and logical, no bio-tech) and the New Republic faces it's true test in the 25 years of warfare. The war is a slugging match as the invaders inch their way to the core, eventually the NR turns the tide (by outlasting the enemy fleet.)

The Great Schism Era (102ABY-157ABY): The Republic was victorious in the war, but it is a bitter triumph. Over a quarter of the Galaxy has been strip-mined, much of the fleet is destroyed as well as shipyards and many industrial centers. Trillions in number, now displaced invader colonists are an issue as well. The Jedi also face a bloody separation, and the Galaxy divides.
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Darth Yan
PostPosted: 2012-03-23 12:58pm 

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I largely agree with that assessment but I did like how the sith used the vong as a lightning rod to weaken the heroes without them being retards (the jedi could not in good conscious hang them out to die when they were innocent) and many people could conceivably hold grudges. I mean the vong killed 33% of all life in the galaxy. Those wounds take time to heal.

With the vong the internal religious struggles were actually fairly cool. I also liked Vergere pre retcon horsecrap, and feel that even if there was a with past it might have been better. I liked the world brain (a living organism that helps to manage terraforming.) Bio tech is only retarded when done stupidly.
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jollyreaper
PostPosted: 2012-03-23 11:16pm 

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The whole rule of two thing basically struck me as unworkable. Why would a sith lord want to take on an apprentice knowing that the guy's going to try and kill him the moment he gets a chance? Having an ambitious apprentice who needs brought to heel, that makes sense. Baron Harkonnen knew that Feyd was ambitious, cunning but unseasoned. He saw the crude assassination attempt coming and knew that he had the boy's number and would get him going along with the plan. He knew that Feyd would go along out of a sense of enlightened self-interest. There's plenty to gain in cooperation and more to lose with conflict.

I can see this motivation working with a Sith plot but not so much with the rule of two since it means one is always undercutting the other and sheer chance argues against it. People die in accidents, a would-be kiler succeeds but is himself mortally wounded. The odds against Sith preservation seem too great.

I liked the idea of the Sith playing out like pragmatic evil. Cult of the self, desire justifies everything. Cooperate with fellow Sith because it strengthens the common cause. But it's the madness of giving into passion and lust that could see stupid, emotional mistakes made. Paranoia, jealousy, greed can tear a Sith down, destroy him. You look at the smartest crimes every pulled off, the great heists and robberies, they may have gone off without a hitch, a testament to perfect, meticulous planning but they tend to fall apart due to human factors later on.

I like them being powerful and cunning and Force powers would give them some precognition but there need to be some limits to their manipulations.

I really, really have to agree with the criticism about trying too hard to one-up things that have already occurred. By doing so you end up trying to steal the thunder of the earlier events. Death Star? No, that's the most powerful superweapon in the galaxy. You don't need anything bigger. What else are you going to blow up, a sun? Damn you, Kevin J. Anderson.

The galaxy is big enough, there should be a generation or two worth of good stories talking about how peace and order is reestablished through the New Republic and the border systems.
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fordlltwm
PostPosted: 2012-03-24 01:22am 

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Guardsman Bass wrote:
2. Luke basically becomes a wandering Jedi, training Leia but then striking out on his own. You could have successive stories involving him stopping conflicts and training potential pupils that come across his path. He doesn't get married or have kids. Over time, he starts to weave together a new Jedi Order, different from the Old Republic Jedi who were almost destroyed in the face of change.


I quite liked Luke as a really powerful individual in Courtship, it was the later (chronological) where he began to get really emo about using the force, I have the power but can I use it, was a bit shit IMHO. The Dark fleet Trilogy where he becomes a slightly mad recluse, showing up at Leia's to probe her mind then disappearing to his "fortress of solitude" to think matters over, followed by an insane quest to find his mother based on the ramblings of someone he doesn't trust from the beginning.

Whatever else happened, the Crystal Star would be banished, a travesty never to be repeated, but with a decent writers bible I might allow Vonda McIntyre to have another go, she did write 3 decent trek films after all.
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jollyreaper
PostPosted: 2012-03-24 09:00am 

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I think we get so much emo, whiny Luke because that's an easier character to write than a proper master and sage.
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jollyreaper
PostPosted: 2012-03-24 04:52pm 

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One other thought. If you were to describe Firefly in one sentence to anyone who'd never heard of the show, you'd likely say "Imagine a show about Han Solo and Chewie set before the first Star Wars." Yeah, that's not really accurate and the whole 'verse setting really doesn't seem a bit like Star Wars with the serial numbers filed off but going by pure gut feel, yeah, this is a Han Solo project and it rocks. All boils down to a tramp freighter and crew trying to scratch out a living on the outskirts of civilization. Characters you gorram care about.

The Star Wars setting is a pastiche of pulp scifi, westerns, and Chinese wuxia tales as reinterpreted by western authors. It's so broad in scope you could pretty much tell any kind of tale you want in this setting but the EU usually defaults to tedious rehashes of existing stories.

Really, you could change just a few things and throw Firefly into the Star Wars setting. It could be before A New Hope and Mal was an officer in an independent system that was crushed by the Imperials. Book could be one of the few Jedi who escaped Palpy's purge. Pretty much all of the other storylines remain perfectly intact.

The new season of Game of Thrones is fixing to start and I'm completely stoked for it. It's all complicated, snarly politics, war, heroes and villains, lots of drama. By comparison, the EU stuff all feels like "What kind of bullshit are we in for now?"

It does seem like a good approach would be to get really talented authors, let them create original characters to use in their own stories set in the Star Wars universe and then have the practice of loaning the characters to other authors working in the same era. Have a beginning, middle and end for the story arcs and make sure that nothing gets run into the ground.
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Skywalker_T-65
PostPosted: 2012-03-26 04:25pm 

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I can agree on later EU Luke...that ticked me off to no end. Luke was the most powerful Jedi ever (supposedly). Not Anakin 'I'm a wimp' Skywalker, despite what Lucas may say...and certainly not Darth 'I'm a Sith...no wait I'm a Jedi...or am I a Sith?' Revan.
(disregard the rant against Anakin/Revan fans...main point is below)

Taking that into account...what does the EU do? Turn Luke into a Superman who never left the Fortress of Solitude unless someone dragged him out kicking and screaming. To be fair, that went away to a certain extent in Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi...but the less said about those series' the better. Like how Luke almost lost to Jacen (excuse me...Caedus...). Which is why in my only current SW fanfic, Luke will never go through that phase (assuming it gets that far).
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jollyreaper
PostPosted: 2012-04-06 01:07pm 

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I'm not even sure how well the Zahn books will hold up to a read now. Loved them as a kid. I fear for the rest of the EU tainting them.
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Darth Yan
PostPosted: 2012-04-06 01:16pm 

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I felt that fate of the jedi had some potential.
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Skywalker_T-65
PostPosted: 2012-04-07 11:18am 

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Yes, it had potential...that got dragged down by being tied to Legacy and the NJO. Though that being said, if they had gotten rid of Abeloth it might have worked better.
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Guardsman Bass
PostPosted: 2012-04-07 05:53pm 

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It would be a good idea to minimize Point-of-View chapters from Luke's perspective, since he's more or less "figured it out" (become a Jedi, found internal serenity, etc). Instead, show him from the perspectives of the people he interacts with, ranging from enemies to potential apprentices. Have him grow in reputation until he's a living legend by later books, the enigmatic Jedi Master.

That's also a way to prevent over-exposure and use of the Movie Characters, and make EU stories about the EU characters.
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Gunhead
PostPosted: 2012-04-08 04:25am 

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Kill off Luke Skywalker. No one will miss him as he is written in EU crap. Him gone you can reinvent the whole Jedi order thing, but with little or no links to the previous eras. Have the Imperial remnant re-establish itself and have that act as the counterpoint to the rise of the New Republic. Do not invent any more shitty super weapons.

-Gunhead
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Solauren
PostPosted: 2012-04-08 01:01pm 

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Initiallity (as in after the Zahn Trilogy)

I would have set up a timeline from the Day after Return of the Jedi, up until Luke's death, or mayber further.
This includes character development, introduction, death, jobs, etc.
And make the authors damn well stick with the timeline, in order. You don't want to write for it, find, there's the door, GTFO.

Also, a franchise bible as mentioned for consistent portrayal.

I would not have allowed any stories set prior to 'A New Hope', until after the Prequels were released, and then created a timeline from the birth of Palpatine to the star of 'A New Hope'. Same rules as above.

The timeline can be tweeked based on fan reaction/desire, as well as franchise need, but the new material would also be tweeked to meet the timeline. The same with material that came up prior to the timeline being put down.

i.e Force Unleashed and the founding of the Rebellion. Vader was aware of the three rebel leaders meeting, and knew Kota had a connection to Organa. Vader ordered Leia being taken prisoner to set Starkiller up to rescue her.
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The Romulan Republic
PostPosted: 2012-04-09 04:37pm 

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Gunhead wrote:
Kill off Luke Skywalker. No one will miss him as he is written in EU crap. Him gone you can reinvent the whole Jedi order thing, but with little or no links to the previous eras. Have the Imperial remnant re-establish itself and have that act as the counterpoint to the rise of the New Republic. Do not invent any more shitty super weapons.

-Gunhead


You can rewrite Luke as something better than how he is in the existing EU.

As for the Imperial remnant, that sounds like using the same villain over and over. Sounds boring and lazy.
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Gunhead
PostPosted: 2012-04-10 12:09am 

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The Romulan Republic wrote:
You can rewrite Luke as something better than how he is in the existing EU.


Sure, but I think he served his purpose by the end of RoTJ and killing him off is easy. It cuts out all the extra baggage associated with a movie character too. If he is rewritten he might come out as an ok character, but to be honest I never really thought he was that great to begin with and any rewrite would be mediocre at best.

The Romulan Republic wrote:
As for the Imperial remnant, that sounds like using the same villain over and over. Sounds boring and lazy.


Maybe, depends on the slant you give them. Might not be the single most creative idea, but last time I checked it's not like SW EU is bristling with great over arcing villains. Since this is the EU, you don't need to make them out as mustache twirling, puppy killing evil either. Beats Palpatine Mkxxxyyz or the Vong any day of the week if you ask me.

-Gunhead
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The Romulan Republic
PostPosted: 2012-04-10 01:11am 

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Yes, killing Luke off is easy. Its also lazy, and removes one of the most important characters in the films. As for "baggage", by that reasoning you should kill off every character who was in the movies. And your personal dislike is hardly a compelling argument.

And while the Imperial remnant might be better than those alternatives you've mentioned, and you could write some good stories with them, I'd like to see some other villains as well. A bit of diversity never hurt.
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