Governor DeSantis Signs Declaration That ‘The Last Jedi’ Sucked
(babylonbee.com)
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To show how naive I was, I was actually excited when Disney retconned the EU. I grew up loving the Star Wars novels, games and comic books, but by the time Disney bought Star Wars, the EU had already been completely ruined for me by the Yuuzhan Vong bullshit. I was silly enough to think Disney couldn't possibly do worse than that.
I was right with you. I thought it'd be something like Marvel's Ultimate line. I imagined original movies loosely based on the Thrawn trilogy.
I remember thinking after Rise of Skywalker if that is all they had they should’ve loosely adapted Thrawn trilogy. Or taken the NJO concept of an enemy from outside the galaxy.
You didn’t like any of NJO? I thought the outside threat aspect was cool. What did you like best about the old EU?
I grew up on the Young Jedi Knights books, and when I was older, I think I read the Thrawn trilogy all the way through maybe a dozen times as a teenager. That was the best of the EU, as far as I'm concerned.
NJO was awful. I've never been as invested in Star Wars since I put down the ninth NJO book and decided I just couldn't do it anymore. The stages of grief that most Star Wars fans went through with Disney Star Wars, from denial through anger through bargaining to the end result of not giving a shit: I went through all of that already with the NJO. I was already pretty much alienated and disengaged years before The Force Awakens came out.
The way they treated the deaths of major characters, including characters who'd been built up as the sort of "next generation" of Star Wars heroes that would fill Luke's shoes, only to be snuffed out like they never meant anything, pissed me off to no end.
On top of that, the Yuuzhan Vong had no place in the Star Wars universe. Up to that point, Star Wars was the perfect blend of sci-fi and fantasy: a futuristic, high-tech universe centered around a fundamental, mystical Force that holds the whole thing together. To introduce a species of James Cameron-inspired BDSM fetishists who weren't affected by the Force didn't just disrupt that integrity: it demolished it.
And for what? What audience were the Vong supposed to appeal to? Adults? No, too childish. Kids? Well, if that was the target, that's a little suspicious. Warhammer fans? 40k does the whole grimdark thing a hell of a lot better.
The only people the Vong were designed to appeal to were the resentful, impotent, angsty teenaged Millennial edgelords who were already burgeoning sexual fetishists, and who eventually grew up to be exactly the sort of nihilistic wokists who are now on a crusade to subvert every cultural phenomenon that used to provide people with a sense of inspiration and moral direction. I would argue that Star Wars isn't just another victim of that phenomenon: it was the first.
I get that. You make a great point. I hated the death of Chewie but then Mara has to die?! I didn’t get around to NJO til after I was disgusted with Disney Star Wars. So by comparison it wasn’t as bad. I also recently bought some X-wing series, tales from the Jedi comics, and Jedi academy to get through.
Some of the short story compilations are pretty good. Tales from Jabba's Palace and a couple of the others. A lot of those stories don't tie into the greater narrative: they're just sort of slice-of-life snapshots of the Star Wars universe.
Another thing to look into is Brian Daley's Han Solo trilogy, telling some one-off stories about Han and Chewie in the years right before he meets Luke. Those were written back in the early 80s, right after the first film came out, and they were great.
"Clive Barker Presents: Star Wars"
I never read any of the Vong stuff despite reading around 15 EU novels. Vision of the Future was the last novel I read in terms of in universe chronology (and I think IRL time as well).
NJO felt like a bunch of Naruto filler episodes that were written just to sell books rather than extend the Star Wars storyline.
That's why I stopped up to that Yuuzhan Vong shit.