Flying Beastie Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 I just finished NJO: The Unifying Force last week, and have instituted a new sig in honor of the incredible coolness of NJO, and of my new favourite SW race. Say what you will of the Yuuzhan Vong, they sure know how to throw a party. We need some Vong smilies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebel Loyaltist Posted January 15, 2004 Share Posted January 15, 2004 I wasn't really interested in NJO, went to away from what Star Wars was. To me atleast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flying Beastie Posted January 15, 2004 Author Share Posted January 15, 2004 Yeah, it was a departure, but IMHO, a new look is exactly what the GFFA needed. I mean, the only other alternative right now is the Clone War era, which I just can't get into ('cause I know all the Jedi are gonna die except Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Yoda). NJO, OTOH, was exciting precisely because we don't know who's gonna buy it. All the old rules are gone, classic and EU characters/planets alike were being mowed down left and right. Plus the final battle over Coruscant/Yuuzhan'tar and Zonama Sekot was more epic than anything yet seen (yes, even the battle of Geonosis). Admittedly though, NJO didn't really rock until it was already well under way, when they started getting into the Yuuzhan Vong internecine fighting and philosophy, and when they undid the complete retconning of Kyp Durron's character. And I maintain that Nen Yim was hot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyan Farlander Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 NJO totally lost it for me. I have all the Bantam-era books, but the NJO just didn't cut it. Granted, some of the Bantam books were the absolute definition of suck (Children of the Jedi, I'm looking in your direction). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rogue Nine Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 Bleh. They killed Chewie. NJO bastards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edlib Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 I haven't read any of the EU stuff, except for the very early stuff, like "Splinter of the Minds Eye" that I just wasn't that impressed with. I might someday, but I'll probably avoid the NJO stuff if I do, since most people say that it just doesn't feel very "Star Wars-ey." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebel Loyaltist Posted January 17, 2004 Share Posted January 17, 2004 Originally posted by Rogue Nine Bleh. They killed Chewie. NJO bastards. Just one of many problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flying Beastie Posted January 22, 2004 Author Share Posted January 22, 2004 Who would you rather have they killed off? Or would you prefer a story in which no one is ever in any serious danger, 'cause you know everybody's gonna make it out all right? The whole point of NJO is that no one is safe. Classic and EU characters (and whole planets and species) are getting mowed down left and right, and the entire GFFA is being changed irrevocably. They needed someone to die to show that the Vong were a serious threat. Otherwise the whole NJO series would've been just another "oh no, new bad guys. *yawn* However will we defeat them?" story. Personally, I like being worried about characters and not knowing what's gonna happen. It's called "drama!" It's like playing a video game with "god mode" versus playing it without cheats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyan Farlander Posted January 24, 2004 Share Posted January 24, 2004 There were better ways to deal with it. Like how the X-Wing series did it. They had deaths of main characters all over the place. Ton Phanan's death was a thousand times more touching than Chewie's death. Chewie's death was just stupid. The reason? It was OBVIOUS they were trying to get you to think "anything's possible." It was equally obvious that nothing more would ever come it, and nothing did. Therefore, the whole thing was pointless. Not all main characters should be invincible, but Luke, Han, Leia, and Chewie should be (3PO and R2 as well). You want to create a new main character and kill him off? Great. You want to kill Anakin Solo? Wonderful. In fact, make a thousand clones of him and kill them all. But leave the characters we all fell in love with from the movies alone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VanLingo Posted January 26, 2004 Share Posted January 26, 2004 Four words: New Jedi Order sucks. Sorry, but they killed too many people and turned a variety of races into two: Vong and everyone else. -- Lingo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebel Loyaltist Posted January 26, 2004 Share Posted January 26, 2004 I'll agree with Keyan here, Ton Phanon's death was incredibly deep, he was one of the few characters that I didn't want to die. Keyan almost makes a good point with NJO trying to create and atmosphere of "no bodies safe" and such. EU started getting weird when they started blowing up more planets with the Sun Crusher and such (such being ysalmari and other things). The New Rebellion found a new way to desimate whole planets without blowing it up I also don't like what they made the force out to be, they way they changed the whole Jedi Order's thinking. I also didn't like the destruction of Coruscant or the fact that the Vong came from another galaxy supposedly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K_Kinnison Posted January 26, 2004 Share Posted January 26, 2004 the problem is that some authoers took liberties with the creative process without really paying attention to what has been accepted with SW-Cannon. Corran horn turned too much inot a peggy sue type character, and that is mainly the fault of the author trying to make one of his characters match the scope the "big 4" had Remember, when SW first chast the characters, they wanted the 'big 4" (Luke, liea, han, chewie) and that synergy carried thru to the EU novels. That was changed in NJO when they started pointing guns at everyone. My big beef with NJO is that they had a fantesy writer doing space opera, WHICH DOES NOT WORK. And the succesive authors attempted to follow his style. Also the fact that I fail to see how a race that honors suicide and death, could ever develop spaceflight, unless there was a patron type race who raised them as warriors and left them on thier own. I own every star wars novel EXCEPT ones printed after NJO came out. I jsut cannot bring myself to read such poorly written trash that tries to re-create soemthing that has been proven to work. That is the classic good versus bad stroyline. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmarti01 Posted January 27, 2004 Share Posted January 27, 2004 Hey everyone ! I haven't posted here in a while. I just wanted to drop a line. I hope all is well with you and such. I think GL should just drop Ep3 completely and just do a movie based on Knights of the Old Republic. Now I obviously love SW as much as the next guy in here, but I just beat that game this weekend and I am not kidding you, that game had a better storyline and more plot twists than most movies that come out these days, and certainly better that Ep1 and 2. Just my opinion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rogue9 Posted January 29, 2004 Share Posted January 29, 2004 I like it. since it killed off a main characters it was the first series where you had to wonder if one might die when they were injured. in the others you always new it was jsut a plain plot twist. I own all of the expanded universe books and all in all I'm pretty happy with the njo series (in part because I'm hoping it was a sneaky lead in to new movies which won't be plot raped...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flying Beastie Posted January 29, 2004 Author Share Posted January 29, 2004 Just FYI: the whole NJO series was (loosely) plotted out before Salvatore sat down to write Vector Prime. He didn't have a choice. If you're going to blame anybody for Chewie's death (and Anakin's, and Vergere's), blame the whole LucasWhatever creative team --including Lucas himself, 'cause he authorized it. In fact, the CD-Rom interview (that comes with The Unifying Force) makes it pretty clear that Lucas was involved throughout the process. He's the one who made the Vong into extragalactic non-Force Users. The original NJO team wanted them to ba a Sith-like race of Darksiders. As for the "problem" of hiring a fantasy writer to do Star Wars. . . Huh? Star Wars has always been fantasy. You have knights and magical powers, and swordfights, an evil Emperor, the nature of Good and Evil. . . Star Wars is about so much more than just the tech and the aliens and the fact of being in space. (Sorry; as a writer myself, I tend to get defensive of people who want to cross genres. The only people who really care about genres tend to be publishers and editors. Writers just write what they want to.) And NJO doesn't change anything about the Force. All it does is question how the Jedi perceive the Force. Heck, it goes a long way toward undoing the crap in the prequels (midichlorians, anyone?). Okay, I'll admit that Kyp Durron was out of character for most of the first half of the series, but I can still see the dramatic necessity that drove it (personally, I would just have put Kyle Katarn in that role instead). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Angelus Posted February 23, 2004 Share Posted February 23, 2004 Originally posted by Flying Beastie In fact, the CD-Rom interview (that comes with The Unifying Force) makes it pretty clear that Lucas was involved throughout the process. I wish I had that, the book was sold without the cd in the UK...grr. Anyway, I enjoyed the series and it was what sw books needed because they were started to feel like a "a new badguy threatens the Republic, Han, Luke and Leia split up to do whatever, then meet up near the end and defeat the badguy, the end." Currently I am reading the new Timothy Zahn book and that is different too, it reminds me of another book he wrote called The Icarus Hunt. It will be interesting to see what they do with the time period after the NJO. Lord Angelus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flying Beastie Posted February 26, 2004 Author Share Posted February 26, 2004 Angelus, you should pick up Star Wars Insider #74 if you can find it, it goes into some of what the interview explained. I'll see about extracting a copy of the interview, but it's stored in the same pdf as the Vector Prime Ebook, so it may take some creativity (there're some pics too that I want for my own purposes without having to load the CD each time. Insider also has images of the Japanese covers for the NJO books, and as usual, Japan gets the coolest stuff. Seriously, the Yuuzhan Vong on their covers are actually recognizable --and I now have what may be the most canonical image of voduun armour possible. It has eyes! And I don't know if they are planning to do anything after NJO. It was kinda implied elsewhere that NJO would mark the end of the EU chronology, with the retirement of Luke, Mara, Han, Leia, and just about all the remaining adults. Anything else would have to rely on the younger Jedi. Personally, I'd love to see a newly Force-sensitive Yuuzhan Vong training to be a Jedi, but that's just me. I have the new Zahn book, but I haven't started it yet. Is it post or pre-NJO? The little icon on the cover says it's New Republic-Era, but that may just be 'cause there is no post-NJO icon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Angelus Posted February 27, 2004 Share Posted February 27, 2004 They don't sell the Star Wars Insider here either, which is annoying because all accounts iv heard make it seem far superior to the Star Wars magazine we get. I remember reading somewhere there will be a post NJO trilogy, I think that was on theforce.net. Finally Survivor's Quest, takes place about a year before the NJO starts. Lord Angelus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flying Beastie Posted February 28, 2004 Author Share Posted February 28, 2004 Man, I've heard that Europe sucks when it comes to imports, but that is bad. Okay, I've extracted the interview in a somewhat readable format, however I don't want to be the one to post it online and bring the LucasLawyers down around my head, so I'll Email it direct (your profile Email addy is current?). I'll assume that Insider is public, now that it's actually hit all the newsstands it's going to. Besides, these scans suck. If the pics don't work, just cut'n'past the URL. If that doesn't work, just wait an hour or so for Geocities to regain consciousness. My fave of the JP covers: Force Heretic 1: Remnant. From left to right: Tekli, Luke (note the new look), Mara, Jacen, Jaina, Han (looking kinda like an older Starbuck ), Leia, and Grand Admiral Pellaeon. The Yuuzhan Vong is apparently Nom Anor, judging by the forehead tattoos. This must be what he looked like while he was at Shimrra's court; the shoulder-spikes are too recognizable for undercover work. Star by Star (most of the books were split in two in Japan, with both covers making a single image), showing a pair of voxyn on the left, and a generic vonduun-armoured Yuuzhan Vong (framed by a yammosk, two coralskips, and what may be Nas Choka) on the right. Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand, showing Luke in his vonduun disguise for infiltrating Yuuzhan'tar (note the little red "eyes" around the armour's chest and collar). A Yuuzhan'tar cityscape is visible on the right, under the Falcon, and whoever was commanding Borleias' invasion (one of the Lahs; not Tsavong: the other guy). A cropped image from Traitor, showing the triad of Nom Anor, Vergere, and Jacen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Angelus Posted February 28, 2004 Share Posted February 28, 2004 Oh, I forgot to change my email address in my profile. I had to abandon that one due to spam. I've updated it now and I've also made it visible. Those pictures are great, I've seen some of the early NJO japanese covers and I think they are very lucky to have those covers. I wish the books released here had artwork like that (not that I don't like the covers we get...I just like those ones better ) Lord Angelus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted February 28, 2004 Share Posted February 28, 2004 NJO is the Star Wars equivelant to a Star Trek series... I'd rather the X-Wing series... why? Cause none of the main characters from the movies were in it... that and Wedge is a champion lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thrawn Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 I'm currently reading The Unifying Force. I have mixed feelings about the series, although I generally like it. I understand the idea behind bumping off Chewie and it does have a ripple effect, as it really disrupts Han and Leia's relationship. I don't care for the way the series is trying to reshape the idea of the force, although since I haven't finished the book I'll have to wait and see on that. I liked being able to see what happens to so many EU characters that I've read about in all the other books and even Kyle Katarn gets a line to say:) The series also makes me appreciate the movie characters and the early EU characters even more, because it's all up to them to save the galaxy since the admirals and intelligence officers in charge now are mostly idiots. Just my two cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flying Beastie Posted March 1, 2004 Author Share Posted March 1, 2004 Uh, LA, it's still giving me the "this user has opted not to reveal their Email address" page. Looks like you left a button unclicked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Angelus Posted March 2, 2004 Share Posted March 2, 2004 Hmm, it should be visible, I just checked it. Oh well, its darth_angelus@newrepublic.de Lord Angelus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flying Beastie Posted March 3, 2004 Author Share Posted March 3, 2004 Noted. Signed. Sealed. Delivered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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