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I'm gone for a day and we go from discussing EU/Movies to sexual assaults and Windu's feelings....

 

At this point in our "argument," I propose we agree to disagree, and go back to discussing Galactic Battlegrounds before DMUK closes this thread and temp bans the whole lot of us.

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you haven't taken the effort to read some have you?
Yes I have actually. I've stated in the past I was once quite an EU fan. I still have at least twenty of the novels on my bookshelf, and have read probably twice that number.
The courtship of princess Leia is hardly purely Sci-Fi it's as cross genra as some of the films. it has sci fi reomance comedy and suspence with a lot of intruige.
It is not cross genre. Suspence and Intrigue are not genres. As for Romance and Comedy, those Genres are really too broad, and you'll find just about every sci-fi has at least some small amount of Romance or Comedy in them, so there inclusion in EU is expected rather than novel.

 

Here's a list of genres that are commonly combined with Sci-Fi nowadays:

- Fantasy

- Horror

- Romance

- Comedy

- War

- Adventure

- Action

 

The genre hybridisation that Star Wars performs is much less common, combining genres not normally associated with sci-fi like Westerns, Musicals and Greek Tragedies. So I invite you to point out any EU that includes genres not in my list above.

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Here's a list of film genres as defined by Wikipedia. See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_movie_genres for links to definitions. The ones I've italicised are commonly combined with science fiction, and as such are not viable retorts. If any non-italicised ones appear in any EU, I would very much like to know.

 

- Action-adventure film

- - Buddy Cop film (Two cops, usually of mismatched personalities, work together)

- Animated film

- Art film (Often little or no plot, focusses more on visuals than emotional content)

- Biographical film (Follows the story of a real-life person)

- Black comedy (Humerous yet morbid)

- Blaxploitation (Features an African American cast, aimed for the most part entirely at an African American audience. Mostly made in the 70s, but the definition can be extended to modern films too.)

- Chick Flick (Sappy, emotional movie, usually romance or drama)

- Cinema Verite (Focusses on the "real" - use of real people and settings rather than actors and sets)

- Comedy film

- Disaster film

- Documentary film ("Fly-on-the-wall" observations of real subjects or visuals compiled from archive footage, often with a narrative or to-camera interviews.)

- Drama film

- Exploitation film (Usually films made for the lowest common denominator, foregoing artistic merits for shock value)

- Expressionist film (Film that displays an external representation of the inner mind, usually centring on madness or crime)

- Family film

- Fantasy film

- Film fantastique

- Film noir (Stylistically lit and staged, it usually centres on a lonely character who comes to an unfortunate end. Usually features some sort of "femme fatale", a powerful female figure who brings about the main character's misery.)

- Gangster film (Explores the characters of the underworld and how they control the rest of society around them. Usually features betrayal or conflict within an organisation, or rivalry between one or more organisations.)

- Gothic film

- Historical drama film (Set in a notable time period of the past, often against the background of a notable historical event such as a war.)

- Horror film

- - Slasher film (Aimed at teen audiences, a killer will systematically kill cast members in gory detail until the central female character defeats them and reveals their true identity)

- Martial arts film (Features extensive fight scenes. The central character usually has a master who teaches them the way of their martial art. Vengeance is a common theme.)

- - Wu Xia film (Centres more on chivalry in martial arts, such as amongst Samurai.)

- Mockumentary film (a fake documentary done for comedic purposes.)

- Musical film (Characters spontaneously burst in to song to convey emotions and further the plot.)

- Mystery film

- Propaganda film (Usually made by governments at least partially, their purpose is to rally the morale of a population at war)

- Romance film

- Romantic comedy film (Two mismatched characters meet and through a series of "hilarious" events fall in love)

- Science fiction film (Duh)

- Sports film (Centres on characters playing a sport, who usually end up as professionals if they weren't already.)

- Spy film (A lone character, sometimes backed by a team, usues secret identities and special equipment to fight for a secret organisation against enemies of the state or even enemies within their midst)

- Surrealist film (Art film with bizarre or unusual visual aspects)

- Sword and sandal (Set in ancient times in Meditteranean nations. Usually deal with a central characters struggle against the harshness of their situation.)

- Teen film (Exploitation film targetted purely at teen or adolescent audiences.)

- Thriller film

- War film

- - Submarine film (Type of war film high in tension as the crew of a submarine must deal with enemy subs, problems with their own sub and issues of living in confined space)

- Western film (Set in the American frontier, with a lonely central character who selflessly defends the people of a settlement against crooks. Usually they ride of into the sunset at the end.)

 

Now I understand that because they're books and not films, EU can't combine genres as well as the movies. Yet there are several tropes in many of the above genres that could easily be combined in a novel, which would add to the StarWarsyness, yet they are not.

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Please bear in mind even though i am an EU guru my collection of these high quality epics extends only as far as the thrawn trilogy and it's subsequent duology and the NJO series I am however steadily expanding it on my meager pocket money of 5 pounds a week.

 

WOuld spy class as infiltration commando style? because if it does you need to examine the NJO Rebel stand and Rebel dream Duology.

 

and ganagster i'm sure would be tales from jaba's palace.

 

I'll have to get back to you when i've read some more

 

I would however reccomend examining that list and removing the ones obviuosly not in like pornographic and 3-d.

 

Lucas Literature would certainly never see any book with relation to star wars and pronographic see the light of day

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WOuld spy class as infiltration commando style?
No it would not, "infiltration commando style" would fall under War film. Spy films typically revolve around a solitary spy or small group of spies who take on secret identities and act on or against orders from secret government organisations. Think of the Bond films and the Bourne Identity/Supremecy.
gangster i'm sure would be tales from jaba's palace.
That's true though the only gangster elements in Tale from Jabba's Palace are those already included in Return of the Jedi. In fact most of the stories in TfJP bear no resemblence to the Gangster genre - the fact they include gangsters does not necessarily reference the Gangster genre explicitely, it also requires certain thematic influences and in the case of film, aesthetic considerations.

 

I'll remove 3-D film (since I personally don't consider it a genre) and pornographic film, though I just included them since it was a complete dump of the list from wikipedia.

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Obviously it doesn't have to be completely one genre, as that defeats the purpose of hybridisation.

 

I feel I should point out that just because a novel will have a spy or a gangster in it, it doesn't necessarily genre-hybridise with the Spy Genre or the Gangster Genre.

 

So I ask to what extent spies feature in these novels. Is there a single character, taking on a secret identity, usually well-dressed and mingling with high society, working to stop a terrorist plot against his/her government? Or are the spies working to gather intelligence against a powerful organisation for their own terrorist movement? If it is the former, it uses the Spy Genre, if it is the latter, it uses the War Genre.

 

It might be a bit hard for the untrained observer to tell the difference, but what I suggest you do is look at the list of films listed in Wikipedia by clicking on the Spy film hyperlink. Think of what each movie listed there has in common. If this is also evident in the EU, then it is successful genre hybridisation.

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This will however mean reading several thousand pages in the space of a week a doddle from someone who read the fifth harry potter book in the space of a day but not particularly pleasent when you know what most of it is about and are looking meticulously for genre's that are in their but usually need a second opinion.

 

When i do find them however I will scan them up and upload them.

 

weith that definition of spy though that brings Force heretic's 2 and 3 into that genre since Naagulah spies on shimraa under her guise as a high ranking preist of the decpetion cast while working for the heresy and aiding them by stifling attempts to stamp out the movement which is a sort of government for shamed ones.

 

and the rebel stand and dream books combine the two definitions. since in yuuzhan vong society the Warrior caste is often considered one of the most important and so the wraiths and co wear in some casses reall Vonduun Crab and in other cases fake vonduun crab to gather intell;igence and plant sleeper cells on couruscant after it's fall but it's not a governemt sponsered operations it's an insider and republic military operation at the same time.

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If the genre hybridisation was anywhere near the extent of the films, you wouldn't need to meticulously read every page, they'd be obvious.

 

I'll let you have Spy films from that description of Force Heretic. But you're going to need a lot more than that to even border on the genre hybridisation that proper Star Wars does.

 

Each and every book should have at least two genre hybridisations in them to be considered in the ballpark of the movies.

 

You say you own the Thrawn Trilogy and the NJO series. These are the two most popular series in EU. If you can't find genre hybridisation in them it doesn't reflect well on the EU as a whole.

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Bear in mind it's been a while since i read them all in proper order.

 

Star by star has some romance in it as well as the force heretic.

 

star by star has Anakin and Tahiri becomming more in love only to be hurt all the more bt anakins death. would loss of someone you loved class as romance as well i wonder?

 

Force heretic has Danni Quee and Jacen moving closer together into a relationship.

 

Thrawn has spying in it in terms of Thrawn constantly sending spies into the smuggler's and of course Delta source.

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I suppose the Uniying Force could come under documentry since It for the first time puts the new jedi beleifs into plain speak writing.

 

I thought there was such thing as a conspiracy Genre.

 

and perhaps Phillosophy Genra where it tends to have large amounts of philosophy in it.

 

traitor Is almost certainly a Film Noir as well as if you accept phillosphical a philosohpical one.

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I would have thought documentary is one of the genres that can't be captured in a novel, so I'd be interested to see why you feel "The Unifying Force" to have done so.

 

There isn't such a thing as a Conspiracy Genre. Movies featuring Conspiracies are either Science Fiction or Spy.

 

Philosophy is not a genre either. For the most part Philosophy is explored in the Science Fiction genre indirectly (robots being a metaphor for philosophy on what it means to be human).

 

How is traitor Film Noir? I'm unfamiliar with it so I just want to know.

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That explains why no one understands my sig about truth.

 

In traitor Jacen solo is betrayed BY vergere several times. betrayal being a very constant theme thus one element of film noir. Jacen ends up trapped on the vongformin Yuuzhan'tar and priot on a Yuuzhan vong seedship both places he wouldn't want to be but he ends up there. Jacen commits a vicous act by using the dark side out of despair. and Vergere gets punished by nearly getting her neck snapped and later in another book dies. Increadibly pessimistic because it even made me seem like their was no hope in life. Traitor could also be documentry because it talks alot about jedi philospophy and Yuuzhan vong philosophy and sees large scale characted devlopment to the point where it's increadibly upsetting to see vergere die in a later book I had grown to like her as an enigmatic character.

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Just because betrayal is in film noir and Traitor has betrayal doesn't mean Traitor uses Film Noir. And just because a book talks a lot about something in depth doesn't make it like a documentary.

 

I'll go back to the list I posted above to define elements you should look for to identify genres.

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Well if I were to filter the ones that aren't in Star Wars novels, they'd all be gone wouldn't they? The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate how imaginatively George Lucas has combined very different genres while EU has made no attempt at genre hybridisation.

 

EDIT: I'll tell you what I will do. I'll take out the ones that I see as impossible to translate to books.

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Well it was either post here or do work :p

 

Viceroy: I took out all the genres where I couldn't think of a way they would be incorporated into a novel.

 

Here's some examples of non-Star Wars books I've read with unusual genre hybridisation:

 

JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings: The shear amount of singing in this borders on a Musical. Thankfully it was toned down in the movies :p

Frank Herbert's Dune: At the start of each chapter is an extract from essays about things in the Dune Universe, very Documentary-like.

Bram Stoker's Dracula: The whole story is told through diary entries, newspaper clippings and personal letters, giving it a very Cinema Verite quality.

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- Martial arts film (Features extensive fight scenes.

 

you could say the NJO series is that because every book there's some sort of fight. though if yu want examples that fit this more precisely look at the first 3-5 books in the NJO series and of course the final two where there is extensive fighting.

 

The central character usually has a master who teaches them the way of their martial art.

 

Thta could be classed as master Luke master Kyp or several other

 

Vengeance is a common theme.)

 

In the earlier books there is a lot of vengance drivenfights particulalrly by wurth skidder, kyp and ganner.

 

- Film noir (Stylistically lit and staged, it usually centres on a lonely character

 

Traitor is almost exclusively about Jacen there's only a handful of short paragraphs were Jacen isn't the star attraction and then it's got character's dicussing Jacen's actions.

 

who comes to an unfortunate end.

 

I'd say subjected to Yuuzhan vong cooking and tunrning to the dark side for a time while seeing all that he loved and knew on coruscant being turned into a yuuzhan vong homeworld on which he lives knowing he will only live long enough to kill or be killed by his sister in a yuuzhan vong twin sacrifice.

 

Usually features some sort of "femme fatale", a powerful female figure who brings about the main character's misery.)

 

Vergere certainly fits that bill and indeed is responsible for almost all of his pain and suffering. she put him in the embrace of pain. she was the one who got him captured in the first place. and in the second place and in the third place. she helped in demolishing his world view which caused him much anguish.

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Okay, that all sounds convincing, although Martial Arts is a bit of a stretch. One of the more important aspects of the vengeance themes in Martial Arts is that the main character usually avenges the death of either their master or a family member.

 

The film noir argument is convincing; although usually the central character is a low life with no love, especially not for family, the presence of a definate femme fatale makes this borderline acceptable.

 

So far we've got:

Spy

Martial Arts

Film Noir

 

All in three separate books. You've got a long way to go...

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The Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begin With A Single Step

 

I hope you arn't expecting me to do this for every book written for star wars because i don't even have a quarter of the ones out there. and what happened to NJO and the Thrawn trilogy and duology being represenative of star wars EU from what you said about that i was under the impression i'd merely have to justify those.

 

remeber the main fighters were jedi and the one most affected by that would have been luke and he knows he can't act out of vengance.

 

However Ganner kills Shedao Shai in a duel for vengance for the killing and the decoration of the corpse of the Camaasi Senate Elgeos A'kla

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