Here's the place to discuss anything to do with the Star Wars phenomenon...Whether it's the films, tv, books or even the soundtrack record... ...


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As all Star Wars discussions always end up as a heated debate...I thought a couple of rules may be in order...Well, I say rules, I mean polite guidelines really...

1. No Blasters!!...

2. No Droids!! (Bots )...

3. The person posting above or below you has as much right to their opinion - and their own love of whichever part of Star Wars - as you do...Be respectful of that...

4. Pointless slagging off is discouraged...If you don't like something, fine, that's to be expected...But please try to qualify your not liking with a half-decent reason...Answers like "Because he/she/they suck/It sucks" or that something is completely pointless because it is...Are not really decent reasons...

5. Remember that joy you had the first time you watched some Star Wars thing?...Just remember that there's a generational thing going on here...I remember when the original one came out and loved it...My kids love the newer trilogy...Others love the Clone Wars cartoons...There will be people joining at some point that will have fallen in love the new J.J. Abrams ones, them being the first ones they see...

It's all about being respectful is all... ...

Ta...



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As you were...I think we were debating the changing of the EU by Disney... ...

What has the EU got to do with Star Wars..? Feels like I missed something here


Anyway I only recognize the original movies. No talk about meth clouride or whatever count in the blood, it was just The Force™. A universal power surrounding and penetrating everything, from a living person to the rocks and trees. The movies had personality and charisma, and they were done without CGI fests and they still look convincingly awesome!!!


Just my opinion, naturally...

[Ben Kenobi]
The Nerf Herder's Rest: You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
[/Ben Kenobi]

Oh, come on, like I was going to pass up that




Meh, these aren't the droids I'm looking for anyway

Or that

Anyways, with regards to EU and Disney: Disney and Lucas can go straight to Hel. Lucas can go on all he likes about the EU inhabiting a seperate universe or whatever, but the fact it given the choice between the EU and Lucas' Star Wars Universe, a lot of fans would pick the EU. Lucas spent too long ignoring Star Wars and profiting from all the licensed material to claim it's still his universe, when it's the dedicated fans buying all the EU material that kept the franchise alive.

The Star Wars Universe moved on, and Lucas' refusal to accept that is going to kill it. And selling out to Disney is the equivalent of Lucas building his own personal Death Star...

What has EU got to do with Star Wars????

The Expanded Universe. All the books, games, comics and stuff that have been produced.

The only good Star Wars related news lately was that Bioware can continue to make Star Wars games.

Everything else? Bantha poodoo.

Heehee, this thread now has it's own theme song




Considering what's happened to Bioware since it got bought by EA, I wouldn't call that good news...

*Does happy dance*...

The Admin™ said Bantha Poodoo!!... ...

I do not have any Star Wars games except the original Force Unleashed...I'd wanted the full version, but was bought the cheaper one for my birthday...I quite enjoyed it for the most part...

I never went near the second one though...

The novel to the first was good, too...

I bought a huge amount of the novels, down the years...It used to be a wonderful thing to go into W.H. Smiths and find a new one was out...Ahhhh*sighs happily*...

Then came the New Jedi Order and the Vong-war and I just turned off it...I still bought a goodly few, but with little interest, really...The Allston/Traviss/Denning Legacy novels were excellent, right up until the point that Denning ruined all the stuff that Traviss had been setting up with the Mandalorians through the series...

*Sigh*...

And then the Clone Wars cartoon retconned the whole of the recenly written history so far, out of existence...

Hey-ho...

I agree that a lot of other peoples' work made the Star Wars universe, and what it is today...

Oh, God bless Aaron Allston...He was my favourite SW novelist and he died the other month... ...Shame that...I must read his last one very soon...

I really like how THE FIRST MOVIE IN THE SERIES (heeeh... ) starts off with Vader storming in like that. It gives a sense of a story having been told for a long time and we have just entered it to tag along till the end. I like how we´re not seeing how it´s all being built up but rather it´s all there right from the start and the characters, some of them anyway, already know each other since many years.

It couldn´t have gotten a better start imo

I quite enjoyed SW:TOR, and I played lots of other Starwars games:

- KOTOR & KOTOR 2 are super duper RPGs
- X-Wing & TIE Fighter were the shit when it came to space combat sim
- Jedi Knight, JK: Outcast and JK: Academy were super light saber fighting games
- Dark Forces was a super shooter

There were others I played, like Pod Racer, Battlefront and Rebel Assault. They were fun for a while but not like the others mentioned.

I couldn't even play Force Unleashed, it would just crash right after starting. From what I read pretty much everywhere, this was a common problem and you belong to some 1% club if you ever get to run even once. Oh well, I got it for like 7 bucks, so...

The only Star Wars game I´ve played is Rebellion and I was soooo hooked on it around the early 2000s. I must have played it hundreds of times through...

Apparently it got bashed alot but I enjoyed the crap out of it and I really think it´s a good strategy game

Cartoons! Cartoons! They are Anime you Western barbarian!



Oh, well, so much for what I just said!


Wasn't the European Union founded by Jedi Knights?


I am a big fan of all the old Star Wars games like the Kotor and X-Wing/Tie Fighter games. I remember when Dark Forces first came out, and I loved it too. Same with the first couple of Jedi Knight games. Those were all really good games. They are dated now, but I still highly recommend them to anyone. Plus if you can find them, they are probably dirt cheap nowadays!

Could not agree more, if only they'd made a third.



Hell yes they were. Though some of those missins were just brutal



Again, could not agree more. I've still got Jedi Academy, though it doesn't run so well on the 360



Battlefront I loved, though I thought the second one was a real let-down. The Gamecube games, the Rogue Squadron ones, were pretty damn good. The second one, Rogue Leader, was fantastic. I don't think I played any of the other ones, I refused to go anywhere near The Force Unleashed or any of the games based off of the prequels.

Unfortunately overall Star Wars games tneded to be pretty hit and miss

I have no idea what you mean... ...

Barbarian?!...Moi?!...*Proceeds to excavate nose with point of dagger with one hand whilst scratching his crotch with the other*...


So yeah...Seeing all this stuff about the day 1 of shooting the new one...And that pic of Harrison Ford has actually got me somewhat excited y'know?...Sorry, I know...Heathen and all that...But I'm gonna be the excited one here, if you don't mind... ...

Just in the interest of balance, you understand... ...

Clone Wars aren't anime.

Uh-oh...

Respect darlings!...Respect!...

Why don't you think they're Anime, Impy?...

The entire Clone Wars saga is one long story told over four or five seasons, wasn't it?...That's basically qualified for an anime saga series thing right there... ...

I liked the design for that series, I just couldn't get into it...Maybe if I bought a complete boxed set, I might have better luck...I do so like me Kenobi stuff... ...

OOoooh, that's a novel I'll be getting soon...*Goes to search Amazon*...

I'm inclined to agree.

I must get around to watching the films again, I've got them on video though, so it's slightly inconvenient...

I can see where some people would consider it Western Animation (though aren't most Western Animation shows like the Simpsons actually made in Korea?). It is made for an American audience, the original spoken language is English rather than Japanese, and the characters do not have the big huge eyes and small mouths so common in anime.

I still think of it as anime because it is animated, and is chock full of ridiculously over the top anime-style action: gravity defying leaps, super speed, and the like. Plus of course the show is at least partly made in Asia. It is cgi-driven rather than hand-drawn, but a lot of anime these days is either partly or fully cgi as well, so I do not think that means much either way.

On the topic of the tone of the original 3 movies vs. the following stuff from the European Union, I can see McB's point. The original saga has a very simple story of good vs. evil, with very black and white morality, and of course the good guys win without having to compromise their beliefs along the way (though Yoda tries to get Luke to do that in the second movie of course, but it does not work and he goes into the trap anyway).

I think that simplicity is a big reason for the first movie's success. It came out a few years after Vietnam, and that moral simplicity was a welcome change after years of gut-wrenching ambiguity in RL. I am sure the EU writers are trying to interject more realism into the setting by creating moral ambiguity. After all Real Life is not so cut and dried as things are in the original Star Wars film. Is that better or worse? I suppose it is a matter of opinion. It depends on what you are looking for in Star Wars.

Good point...That is one thing I absolutely loved about the Bantam series of novels...These were the ones that I bought without even looking at the back cover sometimes... ...I knew that I was going to get a damned good action packed excellent story (in the majority of cases) in which the Heroes™ win and all is well...If a secondary character bought it, well...That is to be expected...But the Heroes™ will emerge unscathed to fight another day...

The X-Wing novels were the exception to this...Where the majority of characters - Wedge Antillies aside - could just be bumped off with no warning...And that was also fine...It was a shame in some cases...But they were fighter pilots, it happened...

But for the main sequence of novels it was Han. Luke, Leia, the kids, Chewie, Lando etc...And we could be happy in the knowledge that they may get their arses handed to them at some point, but we knew all would be well in the end...

Unfortunately...For some reason, it was decided that a little more gritty reality had to be injected into our escapist fantasies...And right from the very first novel I bought of the New Jedi Order storyline, I knew I was in trouble with SW...I had very little interest in the series at all...And it wasn't until the later novels that I actually got any real enjoyment...Sure, it had Aaron Allston's excellent pair that is 100% responsible for my obsession with -Boy names now...Michael Stackpole's were good and it was the books that introduced me to Greg Keyes...But, like I said on the Everything Thread...There was just far too much darkness in the storyline for me...

In the end even Lucasbooks had to admit they had gone too far with it...

I've never gotten back to the previous level of excitement about any of the later novels...As I always figured there'd be something else to bite me just around the corner...

Aaaand I got it with Jacen Solo...Megalomania?...Yup...Force manipulation of your cousin's (Ben Skywalker, Luke's son) brain?...Oh yeah...Killing Mara Jade, Ben's mother and Luke's wife, because she's figured you out?...Oh yeah...That was soooo great, right there...

And then one novelists complete disrespect of what another's been building to throughout the series?...Including two books you've already done, Denning?... ...

*Sigh*...

There is a place for Black & White in these novels...I am NOT opposed to shades of grey, despite what people think...I know I'm all for the good and all that...But I just think that when something is as obviously straightforward as Star Wars is on screen, in terms of Good™ Vs Evil™, then pushing it into adult pseudo-reality fiction is just too much...

It's a shame, I really did love them for a good while...

So now I obsessively buy novels about Space Marines shooting the crap out of each other and Daemons... ...Much more straightforward... ...You know what you're going to get, and they don't disappoint...



EDITIO!!!...



That's just weird...I never had any problem at all with it loading...Was the problem only the PC versions?...I'm PS3 is all...McBoy played it fairly recently - on the newer one we had to buy after the original one (the one I played it on) got the yellow ring of death - and did excellently himself...I'm pretty sure he was most of the way through before he got distracted...Which means it must have been half decent...He has a habit of jumping games... ...

Black and white morality?

You mean the films that culminate in Luke giving in to his anger and pretty much going darkside to beat Vader into the ground and chop off his hand(revenge!), and then goes on to show Vader wasn't actually completely evil, and chose to save his son and kill the Emperor?

Sure, the rebellion versus the Empire might be considered black and white, but the force oriented side of it wasn't.

Yeah, but also showed that in the end...Good wins through, and evil always gets beaten...The hero™ gets the girl...Everybody lives!!!...

Except in the pre-test-screening version that had Lando dying...That got changed...Hence Han's funny feeling about the Falcon, "Like I'm never gonna see her again..."...

I'm glad actually...The novels with Lando in are always excellent... ...


And yes, the whole "Certain point of view." thing does make everything...Wavery on the moral front I suppose...But broadly speaking... ...Black and white...Good-goodies and boo-hiss baddies...

The thing is, I don't think Jedi can be considered "white" in terms of morality in the films. We've got Kenobi and Yoda, doing nothing but hiding out on Tatooine and Dagobah, basically waiting for someone they can set against Vader, who's introduced as the indisputed baddie.

And who do they use? Vader's own son, not that they tell Luke that.

Then there's Yoda telling Luke not to go to Bespin, and pretty much let his friends die, Luke trying to mind control people in order to save Han, and the fact that Vader was never entirely evil.

It might have been lightside versus darkside, but it wasn't really white versus black...

Stop that... ...That's...

Bugger...

Yeah, okay...Charcoal & dark-socks-left-in-with-the-whites-wash-white then... ...

I think that's why the Jedi vs Sith thing never ended up being clear cut black versus white, just because while the Sith were always painted as black, the Jedi never really measured up to white.

Hel, even Luke Skywalker fell to the darkside, to try and save everyone. And the Jedi characters in games, always in the role of the hero, were always more grey than anything else...

But then Luke came back and all was good... ... ...

Stop trying to shake my argument...You can't win Thorny-Boy...If you strike it down I shall become more curmudgeonly than you can possibly imagine... ...

Nah, joking...Fair points all...

But...I still say that they should never have gone as far as they have/did with it...

Now there, I completely agree. I stopped reading once it hit the New Jedi Order, and the ones I did read in that sort of area just didn't grab me.

But I think making Jedi grey rather than white made them better, just because it made them actual characters, rather than paragon type deals, while in contrast the Sith were completely consumed by the darkside.

But I like paragon types... ...

Nah, it's true...One of my favourite Jedisises - Corran Horn, used to be an undercover operative...So his lying and whatever necessary to get the job done was pretty definitely in the grey area...

Plus, his main force "Talent" was said to be illusion based...All to do with the mind-tricks and everything...

But still, I hope these new ones manage to bring the whole thing up to date and all, but still manage to give that sense of wonder and adventure that the originals had for me anyways...

Corran Horn was awesome! Though strictly speaking his main talent was the ability to absorb energy when it struck him, a Halcyon family trait.

As for the new films, I'm expecting more prequel level stuff. Trampling the EU, overblown and underdeveloped, and generally just a Lucas circlejerk.

And the fact that it's J.J.Abrams directing just makes things worse

Very good points there. Someone has done some thinking, me reckon..

Well, I do love the whole Jedi vs Sith thing...

And yeah, maybe a little thought went into it

Well that's just over the top...Thinking...Pah...No good ever came from thinking...

Ah, see...Now I like J.J. Abrams stuff...I loved the redone pair of Star Treks...And, as the thing he maintained to Paramount or whoever it was made these last ones, the one thing you have to do with Star Trek to make it better...Is make it like Star Wars...

I'm very happy that he's making them...

No, I'm not happy with the EU stuff...But I can see their point...And it's not like that branch won't be carrying on or anything...There's too much out there now...

As for the Corran thing...Yes, I remember that absorption thing...But I also remember those bits in I, Jedi where he managed to fool most of the Jedi in that circle that he'd lifted the rock...And he hadn't...Then he made the giant figure appear over that city for some reason...I can't remember what...Though that may have had something to do with absorbing energy at the same time, thinking about it...

I refuse to watch the new Star Trek movies. Spock screwing with time? In violation of the Temporal Prime Directive? Destroying Vulcan?

Hel, no!

And the idea of one person having effective control over the portrayal of both Star Trek and Star Wars is a very worrying thought...



Yeah, he had a natural affinity for affect mind but I figure the Halcyon family trait is the main thing with him. Well, that and the accompanying lack of telekinetic ability. And the giant figure appearing over the city was powered by a firestorm set off when Corran took down that hutt boss, to show everyone that the Jedi survived and to burn off the energy that would otherwise have probably made him explode.

Oh aye...Ta...

I must read that again...Definitely my fave SW novel at the time...And, if I could remember it...It might still be... ...

Struggling to think what my favourite might now be, actually...

Likely something Allston wrote anyways... ...

Those Legacy of The Force novels were really pretty excellent...Up until Invincible...Damn you Denning!!!... ...

I'd probably say I, Jedi is my favourite of the bunch. Fighter pilot turned Jedi? Yes please

I never even bothered with the Legacy of the Force series, I figured that skipping The New Jedi Order would mean most of it just wouldn't make sense. That and yet another re-emergence of the Sith...

Wasn't there another galactic civil war in there too?

Er...That may have been the ones after them...I haven't done them, despite the Allston-ness of things...Was too pissed at the re-hiring of Denning (Damn you!! )...

The reviews sound like it was good though...

Couldn't tell you if you had to have read the NJO to enjoy Legacy though...Again...Memory being what it is and all... ...My feeling is that you don't...It would be too much for new readers to have to wade through...

Possibly the Correllian trilogy would need reading...There's an awful lot of Thracken Sal-Solo in them...

Thracken Sal-Solo?

Meh, I think they're just trying to keep it too much in the family at this point. We've already had a few lightside/darkside family feuds, they need to come up with something more original to get me back into the books.

I'll stick with the pre NJO books


Edit: Troy Denning... He wrote the Joiner King books...

I really didn't like them

Hasn´t anyone here but me played Rebellion?

Han's cousin...Basically took over and ran the Corellian system for many years until Han and Leia paid them a visit and sent everything to crap... ...Corellian Trilogy...

And then many years later he turns up somewhere else (although that may be Corellia again actually) and they have to stop him again in the Legacy ones...

Told you...It's totally ridiculous that they keep hiring Denning...I really can't see why they do it...He has, by the reviews they've got, totally ruined the sequences with both the ending novels he's done...*Shrug*...





Nope... ...Sorry, most of the games have passed me by...I wanted to do the Rogue Squadron ones when they were about...But they were X-Box...Pfft... ...




Watched Star Wars last night...Awesome!!!...I loved it!!!..

However...In the end I had to play the grumpy-dad card with McDaughter, cause all she kept doing through the early bits was sigh and complain that it was bad...

In the end I had to politely mention that people obsessed with reality tv have no leg to stand on when it comes to suggesting how good something is or isn't...And that without these early ones that she will shut up and watch properly there wouldn't be the Jar Jar ones that she loves so much...

...I did get quite cross actually...Not that I don't respect her, her opinion on stuff or the fact that she doesn't really like it...

No, I got annoyed 'cause she wouldn't shut up about it...As I said, what does she expect to happen?...I switch it off because she's whining?...

Grrrr...

But right there, there's the point I made earlier...Though McBoy was quite happy and did enjoy it, they both love the pre-sequel ones and sat through them with no complaint...This one...Urgh...Now, yes, McDaughter was overtired a bit from a sleep-over the night before...(I was up doing stuff here before she went to bed there, apparently)...But I really don't think she liked it anyways...*Shrug*...

I thought it was excellent though...And yeah, huge amount of continuity problems since George did the other ones...

Off the top of my head...Vader is my age, apparently...That makes Obi-Wan in his late fifties...Owen and Beru Lars should only be - maybe - slightly older than Vader...Damn that Tattooine triple sun thing's harsh on the skin... ...

Having hung around him loads in The Clone Wars, why didn't R2 just rush over to Obi-Wan and basically start to hump his leg?...

Dunno...

I loved all the practical sets in Star Wars so much...That's one thing I'm hoping J.J. will get back to for these new ones...He was very much arguing for that in Trek...Everything that could be built, was...

So there...Yeah...

I did try Rogue Squadron on the PC a few years back. It was just a demo but still quite fun

I think I've actually got those somewhere, but for some reason I never got around to reading them...



Rogue Squadron? They were Nintendo, not Xbox. N64 for the first, Gamecube for two and three. And of course there was Rogue Squadron for the PC. I've played both the Gamecube ones, still have the second, 'cos it's better



So true, the underlined, so very true



Wait, so this was the version where Greedo shot first?

But yeah, the prequels introduced a truckload of continuity problems, personally I find itrther funny that Lucas can't keep continuity in his own, rather small, Star Wars Universe

And he got way too carried away with R2D2 in the prequels, it was just ridiculous.

Apologies, I can't respond properly and do all the quote things...Faaaar too tired at this point... ...

I think I've actually got those somewhere, but for some reason I never got around to reading them...


They're very excellent books...I really enjoyed them a lot...But that's just me, isn't it?... ..


Rogue Squadron? They were Nintendo, not Xbox. N64 for the first, Gamecube for two and three. And of course there was Rogue Squadron for the PC. I've played both the Gamecube ones, still have the second, 'cos it's better


Oh aye, fair enough...I just remember &^%$-ing brother playing it/them on something...And he has a truly absurd collection of consoles...Even more so than Crow-Boy... ...


Wait, so this was the version where Greedo shot first?

Yes, yes it was...Urgh...I never had a problem with Han shooting first...Pre-emptive self-defence is completely fine with me... ...Besides, it's not like Greedo wasn't going to shoot, was it?...Okay, technically it is murder...But, whatever...Laws of the Jundland Wastes and all that... ...

Scum and villainy!!!...

I think I recall that R2 and 3P0 had their memory wiped at the end of Revenge of the Sith? That is when Captain Antilles became their master, on the Rebel Blockade Runner. Though it does not account for Obi-Wan not recognizing them. Though I suppose that could be put down to there being other droids that look and sound exactly the same. Not that I recall ever seeing them in any of the movies mind you...

Actually, Bail Organa says "Have the protocol droid's memory wiped..." and nothing about R2...We discussed this with McBoy and he remembers the same...

So R2 remembers it all...

Plus...That blasted Denning wrote a novel called Tatooine Ghost...Which, if I'm honest, was actually half decent...Dealt with Leia finding Shmi Skywalker's journal and going through it...And Luke managing to access some of R2s memories of Anakin...

And his discovering the bit where Anakin strangles Padme on Mustafar...

Anyways, yes...R2 still has his memories...

Oh, yeah!!...Another wossname...Continuity thing...

C-3PO was known to Owen and Beru...Okay, there was supposed to be many -3PO droids...But surely that one was tied to Anakin should have raised some sort of memory...He seems to remember enough about what happened to Skyguy...

Yeah, Lucas amusingly enough had no regard for even his own works as far as continuity is concerned. And the majority of the fans had no problem with Han shooting first, but Lucas didn't like that fans liked Han for doing so. So the idiot meddled, and did a piss poor job of it.

All this talk of Star Wars is going to get me back into reading the books and watching the films, once I'm done with Lord of the Rings, I think...

*Applauds*...Yeah, I was going to read the Captain Nemo novel I bought the other week...A new one from Kevin J. Anderson, writer of the Jedi Academy trilogy from very early on in the SW novel run...

But I think I'm going to do Allston's Mercy Kill instead...Can't beat the X-Wing novels...Absolutely loved the Wraith Squadron ones...So different from Stackpole's Rogue Squadron ones, in that the Wraiths are more like covert ops than fighter pilots, though they can do that too...

It was nice when the Wraiths turned up in the NJO briefly actually...That was cool...

I always preferred the Rogue Squadron X-Wing titles to the Wraith Squadron ones. I think Wraith Squadron would have worked better with someone other than Wedge Antilles in command. For a commando unit with a diverse skillset, he was easily the weak link in the unit, being only a fighter pilot.

I typically start a Star Wars novel run with the X-Wing series, then branch out from there. The Hand of Thrawn trilogy's on the list, as is The Jedi Academy, I, Jedi, The Thrawn duology that came later, the Correlin trilogy that I just rediscovered, and then I don't know what

Well, Wedge was never meant to be in the Wraiths in the first place...It was meant to be either Wes Janson's team from the off, or Hobbie Kilivan(sp?)...

Anyways, Hobbie's mentioned in the first one as taking over the running of Rogue Squadron while Wedge got on with the forming and running of Wraith Squadron...

But Allston's idea had nothing to do with Wedge...Lucasbooks and whichever the woman was...I forget...Put her foot down and insisted that Antilles was the hero of the X-Wing books so he had to lead the team...

I think he did alright, but yeah, he was a much better pilot than operative...Though Allston did excellently making him do both, I thought...

I sometimes wish I didn't have so many books that aren't SW to go through...Putting off a new one to go back to Children of The Jedi (another favourite) or the Black Fleet Crisis ones is very difficult to do...Sadly... ...

I always thought he was a little too passive in the Wraith Squadron books, which isn't really surprising. Personally I think they should have thrown Corran Horn in charge. Out of all the Rogues he was the most useful outside of an X-Wing.

I keep meaning to get hold of The Black Fleet Crisis trilogy, they're some of the only pre-NJO, and now post Old Republic, books that I haven't got. Never manage to get around to it though. Maybe this time I'll remember

I'm watching Star Wars!!!

Han just shot Greedo!

Greedo didn't get a shot off!!

@%#% you Lucas!!!

That´s how it´s done!!