How To Get Me To Read Star Wars Novels Again

[lazypadawan]

Del Rey has been asking fans for feedback on the Star Wars novel program, so I added in my .02 here:

http://www.facebook.com/starwarsbooks/posts/10150116427638713

I have to say that if Del Rey were to follow the advice of 60% of those replies, it would pretty much ensure I wouldn't even buy a SW novel to use as toilet paper or kindling. How ridiculous most EU fans have become. They're the ones polluting every Clone Wars discussion thread on TFN, wetting their diapers about "continuity."

But many of the responses seem to indicate what I've been unhappy with the EU for years, and that is its rather dark and dreary stories, especially post-ROTJ. There doesn't seem to be a lot of inspiration or love for the universe/characters in most of the novels over the past several years. Trash Karen Miller all you want for her fan fiction quirks, but at least you can tell she loves these characters (and is quite possibly the only Obi-Wan fangirl who can simultaneously do justice to Anakin). Whatever else I've read has been either boring or infuriating, i.e. killing off most of the Solo children and the Big 3 stupidly handing the Republic over to an enemy.

Life's too short and there are plenty of other things, fiction or non-fiction, that I can read. These books cost money, and since I haven't bought an iPad or Kindle yet, they take up space. If Del Rey wants my business back, it will have to consider the following:

1. End the post-ROTJ continuity and don't go back to it unless/until you do a reboot and start all over. Chewbacca lives, Anakin Solo lives, Jacen Solo never turns to the Dark Side, and Jaina gets to be part of the strong heroine tradition of Leia, Padmé, and Ahsoka. I might be willing to bring Mara back so long as she doesn't get to be Mary Sue Supreme. They completely wasted an opportunity for Luke and Leia to reconnect with their maternal roots.

2. I'm okay with books about the Sith; I liked the Darth Bane books. I'd be happy to read about Darth Plageuis or about Sidious/Palpatine's rise to power. I'd be happy to read about Dooku's fall. But no matter what, Del Rey has to remember the core values of the Star Wars saga. I'm sick of evil being good and good being dumb. I'm even more tired of "dark" being conflated with "quality."

3. They tried doing a couple of Clone Wars books but I actually would like to see more! I've always wanted to read a novel that focused on Ahsoka. I've seen some other ideas that suggested novels about Cad Bane. That would be cool. They have a hit show on their hands, and they're wasting an opportunity.

4. I'm looking forward to the upcoming Nomi Sunrider novel, who was one of my favorite comics characters from the '90s. I may not be interested in reading about every popular comics character or video game character, but it's not a bad idea.

5. I'm not really excited about original characters who have nothing to do with the movies or with Clone Wars. I may as well just read original sf instead.

6. There are still characters and eras from the films that have had little to no exploration in the expanded universe. What did Padmé do in the 10 years between TPM and AOTC? Why not a trilogy of books about Leia's pre-ANH adventures? How about another pre-ANH Vader novel like "Dark Lord?" There aren't a lot of books that take place between ANH and TESB for that matter. One series I liked were the "Tales From" anthologies back in the '90s. How about "Tales From The Clone Wars?" "Tales From The Jedi Temple?" "Tales From The Theed Palace?"

7. No matter what you decide to tackle, you have to pick the right authors. I want somebody who bleeds Star Wars when you cut him or her. Enthusiasm comes through on the page. The problem with a lot of these guys is that they are sf authors first and try to shoehorn Star Wars into hard sf and that doesn't always work. A fantasy author happened to have cranked out my favorite film novelization (TPM in case you're wondering). I'd be really excited to read a Star Wars novel by Neil Gaiman. And why not give fans a chance? I understand about maintaining quality and professionalism, but if the Trek publishing program gave a shot to former fan fic writers like Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg, I don't see why Del Rey can't give a shot to some SW fan fic writers. (And not exclusively to their budsies in Club Jade either.)

Comments

[darth-pipes.livejournal.com]

Good post. I agree with what you wrote.

Like you, I don't find stories that don't involve the original characters or the Clone Wars to be interesting. The video game stuff I just can't get into. If I wanted to read original fiction/characters, I wouldn't buy original fiction.

Padme's missing years between Ep 1 and 2 could make for a great story but sadly, I doubt that idea has EVER crossed the mind of Del Ray. They would just say there isn't a market for it. I find it hard to believe there wouldn't be a market for seeing Luke and Leia find out about Padme. I understand that they couldn't touch the the subject till after the prequels but it also leads to the problem that they don't find out anything until decades later, which is also ridiculous.

Like you pointed out, I've always hated the fact that in the EU, the victory at Endor meant absolutely nothing. Luke, Han, and Leia destroyed the Death Star and the Emperor only to engage in five decades plus of nonstop, constant warfare that was more horrific with each passing decade. It led to two failed governmenets, not the legacy that was supposed to be left behind after ROTJ. Then for good measure, they killed two of Han and Leia's children, made the other one a ***** and killed Luke's wife (Mara Jade, no lost there but still). This is the legacy that is left to the heroes of Star Wars?

Another book series I'd love to see...Tales of the Lost 20 Jedi. That seems like it would be fascinating. I realize that seems like a contradiction when I said I'm not interested with original characters but you could still end it with Dooku and Yoda could be involved with some of the Jedi. In the hands of good authors, I would love to see what made these Jedi leave the Order and what became of them.

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

Oooh, Tales of the Lost 20 would rock!

[ansketil-rose.livejournal.com]

Oh, so much yes!

Especially number 5! Dear god, number 5!

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

You have to write really well in order to make an OC interesting. Most of the good SW OCs were people hanging around the canon characters anyway or involved in some canon situation. Darth Bane was originally mentioned in the TPM novelization as the founder of the Rule of Two, for instance.

The only characters unconnected to Star Wars canon that were still really good were the ones created for the Tales of the Jedi comics series. That's the crew that included Ulic Qel Droma and Nomi Sunrider. Even Nomi turned out to be related to an ancient Jedi character that had a cameo in the Dark Empire comics.

[may-child.livejournal.com]

Great post! And I must say it pleases me a little bit that the EU fans are wetting their diapers about continuity re: the Clone Wars. Now they know what it feels like to see their precious EU get stomped all over, which is what the EU itself regularly does to the canon characters, storyline, and themes. The EU fans insist that their precious books are so much "better" than the canon, yet they desperately want their precious books to be PART of the canon and are insulted if anyone says otherwise.

I'd make a case for eliminating/rebooting the EU that takes place before the events of the OT, but was written before the prequels started coming out. To avoid confusion, I'm talking about books such as the Mary Sue fantasy fanfic known as the misnamed Han Solo Trilogy, which introduced a Mary Sue even more egregious than Mara Jade, if such is possible: Bria Tharen, aka the impossibly beautiful (even Boba Fett is weak-kneed in her presence) founder of the Rebellion, Han's First Loooooove who he pines over for 10 years, the one who got Alderaan involved in the Rebellion, and the one who transmitted the Death Star plans to Leia's ship before dying a martyr.

Get rid of THAT red-gold pest, and I might actually be able to tolerate the OTHER red-gold pest, Mara...as long as she wasn't Sue-ified and steadily given more and more importance to the Empire in general and to the Emperor personally, while STILL being painted as "totally pure" and "never dark" and all that nonsense. And don't pair her with Luke. PLEASE. It may be mean, but I'd much rather Luke be a solitary type than paired with the likes of HER...or anyone else, really. None of the EU "girlfriends" for Luke thrilled me, although Gaeriel Captison wasn't too bad. I suppose they could invent a decent girlfriend for him if they did a reboot, but I wouldn't count on it.

I would enjoy a book about Padmé set in the 10 years between TPM and AOTC, but darth_pipes is right, Del Rey would probably say there isn't a market for it. Luke and Leia finding out about their parents together would be a great thing. No stupid Mara mucking it up with her odious presence like in the EU...p-whipped Luke wants to call out to HER first (never mind that the shrew has no respect for his father, although she STILL uses his lightsaber) when he finds a recording of Anakin and Padmé, and Mara plunks her hateful hiney into the situation when Luke and Leia watch it, saying that "only C3PO could be that annoying." Pot, meet kettle.

Nah, I'm not annoyed with how the EU handled Luke and Leia finding out about their folks at all.

I think EU authors should be reminded that they are not the "gods" of SW, that it is Lucas's story and he invited THEM into HIS playground, not the other way around. If they consider themselves such superior writers to Lucas and would be insulted at the thought of him overriding what they put down, then they shouldn't take the assignment. And while I don't necessarily think they should be the biggest SW fans out there (that can lead to problems as well), they should at least have a genuine affection for the story...a story they want to stay true to, rather than remaking it according to their fantasies and philosophies. For better or for worse, the SW movies are the story, and that includes the movies' flaws, whatever you consider those flaws to be.

If Zahn was to write any more EU novels, they should put a leash on him, because of his arrogant tendency to write whole stories around his OCs, and to ignore the movies' continuity because he just likes HIS continuity better. What's remarkable is that Del Rey actually claims, with a collective straight face, that they DON'T let him do whatever he wants.

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

If Del Rey spent some time looking at how many hits a month your average Fan Fiction.net half-decent writer gets for stories that are focused on characters and on their relationships, they'd realize there most certainly is a market for this stuff. But they want to focus on male readers who are mostly interested in the tech and battles.

Maybe somebody needs to pitch to Del Rey they can appeal to the Twilight/YA female reader too.

[ladyaeryn.livejournal.com]

If anything fictional could cause my blood to boil, it would be that that hypocritical tramp wielded Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber for so long. If you think he was such an abysmal human being, make your own damn lightsaber.

[may-child.livejournal.com]

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[quidawn.livejournal.com]

What what *WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT*?! Okay, obviously this was a particular development I'd never gotten wind of before, what with me ne'er paying the slightest bit of heed to the post-Jedi EU and *very* well indeed and all the better for it, too, since even what little I'd come across of it and had one way or another gleaned of the likes of - aye, *that* one, for starters, suffice it to say maybe I had sense enough of what all that was about and plenty enough to not want anything at all to do with it, but....what, oh, just what the kriffin' *hell* is this about....*her*, of all beings, being allowed to wield....*Anakin's* lightsaber?! You're kidding me - *please* for the love of all things holy, tell me you're joking, because I swear to goodness even the mere thought of that being the case really makes me want to cry, right here and now. Or quite possibly break things....or some combination thereof, aye, definitely.

That....that pestilence, that *blight*, that affront to all sense of good and decency who should never, no, absolutely *never* have been allowed anywhere even remotely near the true and deserving Skywalker line in the first place....*she* somehow ends up....wielding - The Chosen One's lightsaber?!?! *sputters briefly, contemplates tearing at the hair a bit or even just screaming outright* I just....I don't even....I *can't* even comprehend something like that, I....I don't want to....no. Just....*no*. If *that's* what evidently passes so-called muster in the post-Jedi EU, then pardon my Sanskrit but - *fuck* no, indeed-!.... *breathing hard and fast, increasingly agitated, has to retreat to the likes of the TPM and AOTC novelizations and then the Young Adult ones into the bargain just to calm down again*

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it happened at the end of "The Last Command." What happened was the bad guys had long ago found Luke's severed hand on Bespin with lightsaber still attached. They cloned Luke from said hand, called him Luuke (seriously), and he wielded Anakin's/Luke's old lightsaber. Mara kills Luuke and the real Luke gets custody of the family heirloom lightsaber. Then, Luke decides to give Mara the lightsaber in case she felt like training to be a Jedi or something.

[ladyaeryn.livejournal.com]

Yes, the lightsaber was recovered in Timothy Zahn's first trilogy of books and Luke presented it to Mara as a peace offering/show of friendship/gratitude. I didn't particularly mind it at the time because I actually somewhat liked Mara in that first trilogy, but that was before she became such a vile Sue.

[designersdilemma.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

I know I'd like to see Lucas just move on from "Star Wars" in general, but at this point I'd support him writing and directing episodes 7, 8 and 9 just so we can trash all of the post-ROTJ EU entirely. I read "Shadows of the Empire", the "Dark Empire" comics that Cam Kennedy drew and a handful of other things, but really, I could care less about these books in general. I remember thinking it was slightly ridiculous how much people invested in that stupid "Chewbacca gets killed by a moon" novel, or whatnot. "Star Wars" is the movies, first and foremost, and now "The Clone Wars" after that. Anything else is just merchandise.

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with your last statement.

During the '90s, I was a bona fide member of the expanded universe booster club. It was pretty much all canon to me. A big part of it was because, besides fan fiction gleaned from the few pricey fanzines I could afford to buy or got for free as a contributor, that was the only new Star Wars I could get. The books and comics were the hors d'oeuvres while waiting for the prequels to come out of the kitchen.

Then a funny thing happened after TPM came out. Maybe it was being reminded anew of what Star Wars really was, maybe it was because the quality of the novels was juuust starting to wane a little, maybe it was because it was the year I turned 30. But my opinion shifted to "movies are canon, books and stuff are apocrypha." In other words, the novel and the comic became paid fan fiction to me. Much easier to deal with that way.

A lot of my friends stopped reading after Chewie croaked. They found that unforgivable. My opinion was 1) eh, it doesn't really "count" 2) I understood they wanted to make readers feel like no one was safe, upping the suspense factor and 3) if they could justify Chewie's sacrifice, I could live with it. Then a year later, they killed off the guy Chewie sacrificed himself to save :I.

[darth-pipes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the release of Heir to the Empire in 1991 (along with the Dark Empire comic) was big because it was the first life shown by Star Wars in about four years. It was nice. But I agree that the movies and Clone Wars are canon and the rest is licensed fanfic.

I understand the policy too regarding upping the suspense factor for sales, especially with some of the stinkers they had published before that. Now that the 24th Century shows and movies are done, Star Trek has gone this route too. Death, war, big changes are the norm in the Trek EU. They even reversed one of their worse deaths but believe me when I say no one objected to that one. ;)

But what I don't like is the tearing down of the characters, whether it's having a whipped Luke, Han and Leia losing their children, or everything they've fought for being wiped away and not mattering. I also resent this "reforming" of the Empire. Basically signing a treaty with them and legitimizing an evil regime. The worst offender had to be Timothy Zhan's book where he we "learn" Palpatine took over the Republic to save it from the Vong, the biggest race of Gary Stus imaginable. Not because Palpatine was an evil bastard who wanted unlimited power. Nope, Palpatine wanted to save the Republic. You know what that logic means? That the Rebellion was wrong to oppose him. Blah!

You know, another thing you mentioned lp is a young Princess Leia series. I have no idea why they havne't pursued that. It could be fascinating. Scholastic released a great series of "Life of" books involving Vader, Obi-Wan, and Luke. Why they haven't done one for Leia is beyond me.

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

They're sexist ;).

Like I said, evil is good, good is dumb seems to be the long-standing rule. At least Mike Stackpole knew who the heroes were. He made me care about all of the Rogues, even the guys he made up. Aaron Allston is supposedly writing a new Wraith Squadron book. The previous ones were amusing.

[designersdilemma.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

They're basically trying to turn "Star Wars" into the "everybody dies and/or lives miserably ever after" ending that Gary Kurtz keeps whining about.

[ladyaeryn.livejournal.com]

Palpatine took over the Republic to save it from the Vong

Seriously.

SERIOUSLY?

Oh, I guess in three entire movies hinging on Palpatine's machinations GL simply conveniently forgot to EVER mention that tidbit.

God, someone needs to just throw Heir to the Empire and everything that followed it into a massive bonfire and be done with it. I'll bring the s'mores fixins!

[metaraymek.livejournal.com]

One of the reasons why I love TCW so much is that, while Dave and co. do play it careful with the EU purists, they're not afraid to step on everyone else's toes while doing it.

I have to confess: I tried reading the novels. Mara Jade was okay in 'Heir to the Empire', but she quickly became a Possession Sue for every writer after that. Everyone else was just way too unlikeable and tbqh, I'm with you on point 5: If I wanted to read about an original character, I'd rather read original SF instead.

As for point 3, while I'm desperate for the EU to acknowledge Cad Bane's existence outside of a video game and one of the UK comics... I'm actually on the fence about a novel about him. While it would be a nice way to learn about his past that the show couldn't otherwise show (and I imagine that would be quite a lot), I just don't trust the current crop of EU writers to either "get" the character -as I have a feeling they'd probably overdo everything, though with Bane, that is easy to do- or do him justice. =/

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

I had to look up Possession Sue ;). Yeah, that's pretty much what happened to her.

Come to think of it, you have a point about Cad Bane and the kind of treatment he'd get from the EU.

[designersdilemma.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Your icon-- is that Doc Brown from the "Back to the Future" Saturday morning cartoon? Haven't thought about that show in a long while...

Asajj Ventress always bothered me because her presence always seemed a little tacked on, like Mara Jade.

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

Pipes used to call her Darth Mary Sue. I like her though.

[designersdilemma.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

I like what TCW has made of her. In the Tartakovsky cartoon, she was fun in a shallow way, but also smacked of a rather ignorant retcon of the "rule of two". Filoni and his team have made a much better use of her, expanding on her role and providing more of a justification for Dooku & Sidious to be using her. The Nightsister trilogy also made the wise choice of moving her character out of the "extra Sith Lord" dynamic. Who knows? Maybe they could eventually do decent animated adaptations of the post-ROTJ stuff, with Lucas changing things around as he sees fit.

[may-child.livejournal.com]

I kind of liked bare-chested, fuzzy-pitted Anakin dueling with Asajj in the 2-D cartoons, but the orgasmic praise that duel earned was not only extreme, but embarrassing to read. So was all the praise for the 2-D cartoons, which weren't bad but hardly worthy of the proclamations that they were what the prequels should have been, etc. Some little EUnik gushed over the dialogue and "acting" in the 2-D cartoons, and when I said how bad it was, sniffed, "I guess you just don't get stylized dialogue."

Then again, this EUnik was the same one who dismissed the description of the Empire as evil in the ANH opening scroll as "Rebel propaganda."

[designersdilemma.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Right, the Fabio-vs-Darth Sinead duel in the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" temple. It was interesting to me until the rain started hitting the lightsaber blade, and I just felt the scene was being milked. Part of why I didn't like the whole idea of the 2D series in general is that all that exageration was fine if you wanted to turn "Star Wars" into a cartoon in the American tradition, but that doesn't really fit for the series. Something more akin to the stylized postures and angles of anime might've worked more, but even that probably would carry too much of its own aesthetic baggage.

At the time, the only person I thought could've really done animated justice to the franchise was Peter Chung, after seeing how well he worked within anothers' series with his "Animatrix" short. I wondered if he would've fit within the less adult fare of "Star Wars"-- you can't really turn the Jedi and Sith into Aeon and Trevor surrogates as easily as the Wachowskis' universe. Mostly I just hoped to see him get some more work.

At any rate, CGI requires much less exageration with its animation, making it far more natural by any 2D series by default.

[may-child.livejournal.com]

Fabio vs. Darth Sinead!! Hehe, I'll have to remember that one.

I saw the "Animatrix" short. It was pretty good. I haven't seen any of Tartakovsky's other stuff, but aside from a couple of nice -- and dialogue-free, not surprisingly -- scenes like in the very first short, when Anakin flies his ship by Padmé's apartment and they bid each other goodbye...

(Bitcher 'n Moaner #1: "What, was he waving goodbye? So why did he just hold his hand still?" Me: "He wasn't waving, he was putting his hand up against the window in his ship, and Padmé did the same at her picture window."

Bitcher 'n Moaner #2: "That scene was better and more romantic than any of their stupid AOTC romantic scenes combined!" Me: "You need to get out more.")

...the series was pretty "eh."

[designersdilemma.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Ugh. The hands-against-the-glass scene. I'm not terribly fond of that cliche to begin with, and I thought it was corny as hell in the cartoon. The movies had drama. That moment was melodrama, and not even the good kind, either.

Peter Chung's "Animatrix" short is probably the closes thing we'll ever see to another dose of "Aeon Flux".

I tried watching Tartakovsky's "Sym-Bionic Titan" when it was TCW's lead-in (or was it the other way around?). I'll stick to genuine anime rather than his pale, strained imitation.

[may-child.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was a cliché, but I thought it was kinda cute. Oh well.

I remember "Aeon Flux" (and I don't mean the live-action movie, eeeggghh). I stumbled on it one day and was like, "What the hell is this?" It had me riveted.

[ladyaeryn.livejournal.com]

The Empire was never evil? Try telling the people on Alderaan that - oh, wait...

[may-child.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yeah, I'm sure "the Empire isn't really EVIL" was foremost on their minds when the Death Star planet-destroying-superlaser was coming straight at them.

It gets better, though. EUniks claimed that those dirty stinkin' Alderaanians deserved it because they were anarchists trying to overthrow a legitimately-elected government.

Or they claim that the Empire at large did not know or approve of the destruction of Alderaan (especially not that dear, sweet, innocent lamb Mara Jade), and believed the Emperor's propaganda that Alderaan "destroyed itself with its own superweapons."

Um...Alderaan had no weapons, "super" or otherwise.

"Well, the rank-and-file Imperials didn't know that!"

Er...YEAH.

These are the same people who complain nonstop about "plot holes" in the movies and scoff at any explanations as "far-fetched."

[ladyaeryn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, because obliterating an entire planet and civilization is a TOTALLY proportionate response to a civil uprising. ;)

Even assuming the "Empire at large" or "rank-and-files" had no clue what was going on, the Empire's leadership certainly did. A population itself may not be evil, but that doesn't mean its leaders can't be evil. Or, would I be out of line in assuming there's not actually an argument out there that Palpatine wasn't evil either?

[may-child.livejournal.com]

I told the EUnik I mentioned above (the genius who claimed that the description of the Empire as evil in the opening scroll to ANH was "Rebel propaganda") that Imperials served evil even if they weren't necessarily evil themselves. The EUnik, who equated Imperials to American soldiers who fought in Vietnam (really), called me a "heartless bitch."

[darth-pipes.livejournal.com]

I like Asajj too. I think The Clone Wars cartoon toned her down a little. Plus her relationship with Obi-Wan can be a source of offbeat humor. ;)

[may-child.livejournal.com]

The Clone Wars cartoons have corrected a lot of what the Tartakovsky cartoons blew out of proportion and/or just did badly. And to think that SOME people said that the Tartakovsky cartoons were "so much better" than the prequels and that they should have comprised Episodes I and II.

[designersdilemma.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

They were fun, but riotously stupid. As I always say, they weren't really "Star Wars", but "Samurai Jack" in "Star Wars" drag. Frankly I'm less and less impressed by Tartakovsky's work in general. All of it's just too self-conscious and showy, in its angular way. It's all more or less been downhill since the early "Dexter's Lab" shorts.

[may-child.livejournal.com]

Tell me about it. I cringed at the incessantly self-referential dialogue, like the description of Anakin as "our best star pilot and most cunning warrior." UGH. And the hyper-exaggerated Jedi powers owed way more to the EUwwwwwwwwwwww than the movies.

[designersdilemma.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Yeah. Odd that so many thought the the writing of Tartakovsky's series was so good. Most of its dialogue is simply strung together out of OT quotes. It reminds me of the Bond fans who were pissed off that "Casino Royale" didn't have Daniel Craig actually saying "shaken, not stirred", and actually more or less flipped the bird to the audience on it. I prefer an sequel/prequel experience that doesn't simply spoonfeed me a recycled version of what came before.

[may-child.livejournal.com]

Likewise.

I liked Casino Royale, in part because it didn't have all those cutesy winks at the audience.

[darth-pipes.livejournal.com]

I liked Casino Royale too. It set a different tone while still feeling like a Bond film. Quantum of Suckatude...not so much. It felt like they sucked every ounce of fun out of the movie to make a second-rate clone of the Bourne films.

[ladyaeryn.livejournal.com]

Anakin as "our best star pilot and most cunning warrior."

Yeah, people gritch incessantly over Anakin's "sand" line in AOTC, but that line is sparkling dialogue?

[may-child.livejournal.com]

Bite your keyboard. Of course it's "sparkling." It's from the OT, which stands for Original Two: ANH and ESB.

And ANH's dialogue is "sparkling" not because of Luca$, who is "the worst thing that ever happened to SW" (funny, here was me thinking he created it), but because of the "secret screenwriter," Brian DePalma (funny, here was me thinking all he wrote was the opening scroll -- excuse me, "Rebel propaganda" -- as a favor to his friend Lucas).

[darth-pipes.livejournal.com]

I liked the Tartakovsky series, even if the powers were out of control. I always found the fanboy complaints about the Jedi not being powerful enough to be silly. If the Jedi were supermen, they wouldn't need to block blaster bolts. They block them because blaster bolts can kill them.

[designersdilemma.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

That's why I love when the Droidekas show up in TPM. At first, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are slicing and dicing the battle-droids into confetti, which is fun as hell to watch but doesn't provide a whole lot of danger. Introducing an advanced kind of droid that even Jedi have to run away from establishes the fact that even their powers have limits.

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like Mace Windu taking out that giant thing with his bare hands.

[designersdilemma.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Yeah. And then being thrown a bottle of water by the kid from the Mean Joe Green commercial.

[quidawn.livejournal.com]

And, well, hey, no matter whatever else can be said of the Tartakovsky iteration of CW, loooooooong far-and-the-hell-away greatly and epically-awesomely surpassed, natchies (though I seem to remember hearing something a long while back, like maybe around the time the CG-animated CW series was first announced - apparently Gennedy was gritching about it somewheres or other, complaining that *he* supposedly didn't see the "need" for it since they'd already done these two seasons of the mini-series, and....yeah....I'll admit as hearing that did have me rather revisin' my opinion of the man very distinctly downwards, it just sounded like bitching for the sake of bitching comin' from him then, honestly....) - I do suppose, then, that maybe even this much could be favourably spoken of it....that it *did*, after all, give us....gloriously and broadly bare-chested and Nelvaan tribal-tattooed warrior Anakin. Hoo boy, but did it *ever*.... ;) :D *insatiable nom nom*

And, well, hey, I did meet Mat Lucas back at CIV, had a lovely chat with 'im and got his autograph and all, and he surely was such a sweetie....so if nothin' else, well, hey, fond enough memories had at least in those respects, as I figure it - but apart from even that much, though, I'd have to say as thinkin' back on it now I am quite well in agreement with all the above-stated sentiments about the show....and, well, hey, if I ever do find myself goin' back over it, giving it another watch on occasion, realistically it *is* only ever for the Anakinly stuff anyway - that in general, and of course, the certain chested-ness in particular. Hey, evidently I'm nothing if not predictable. :D Still, though, yeah, 'tis of course quite the sure thing that CW as we have it and love it right here and *now*, it's just sheerly and Epically Awesome in ways that the ol' mini-series of shorts really couldn't....aaaaaaahhhhhh, heck, there's just *never* any comparison, really! Never could be, and all the better for it! :D

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

I liked the CW shorts, especially for shirtlessness, but the current show is way, way more awesome.