Quote from: jeff37923;1022711Vargold, CausticJedi, this one is for you!  

Oh. My. Glob.

It's full of stars.

If I ever run Star Wars, it'd probably be Original Trilogy with very little taken from material outside that unless it feels to me like it fits with the stuff in those. (I might even retcon out the Ewoks, or at least the details of them fighting armored stormtroopers with sticks and stones.)

I'd be willing to skim some things to take bits and pieces from, perhaps starting with the WEG essentials books mentioned in the thread here about that.

Is the novel about Tarkin any good? That's one of the very few that I thought looked like it might possibly be interesting and to my taste.

Quote from: Skarg;1022997Is the novel about Tarkin any good? That's one of the very few that I thought looked like it might possibly be interesting and to my taste.

I quite enjoyed it.  Tarkin is as ruthless a bastard as you expect and utterly brilliant.  Felt a fair bit like a mystery novel.

Quote from: KingCheops;1023080I quite enjoyed it.  Tarkin is as ruthless a bastard as you expect and utterly brilliant.  Felt a fair bit like a mystery novel.

Have you read the Thrawn series?  If so, how do they compare, character wise?  I have to admit, I liked the concept of Thrawn studying the "racial art" of his opponents in order to defeat them in battle, even if it's about as unrealistic as a lightsaber.

Quote from: CausticJedi;1023132Have you read the Thrawn series?  If so, how do they compare, character wise?  I have to admit, I liked the concept of Thrawn studying the "racial art" of his opponents in order to defeat them in battle, even if it's about as unrealistic as a lightsaber.

Yup.  I'd say that this was actually better quality writing and plot but the Thrawn trilogy holds a special place in my heart due to childhood memories.  I haven't read the new Thrawn book.

Quote from: CausticJedi;1023132Have you read the Thrawn series?  If so, how do they compare, character wise?  I have to admit, I liked the concept of Thrawn studying the "racial art" of his opponents in order to defeat them in battle, even if it's about as unrealistic as a lightsaber.

Hey, man, you gotta respect a man who defeats his enemies with a weaponized BA in Art History. Full disclosure: this character was the exact thing that turned me off of the entire EU in the first place.

Quote from: CausticJedi;1023132Have you read the Thrawn series?  If so, how do they compare, character wise?  I have to admit, I liked the concept of Thrawn studying the "racial art" of his opponents in order to defeat them in battle, even if it's about as unrealistic as a lightsaber.

Hey, man, you gotta respect a man who defeats his enemies with a weaponized BA in Art History. Full disclosure: this character was the exact thing that turned me off of the entire EU in the first place.

Quote from: KingCheops;1023147Yup.  I'd say that this was actually better quality writing and plot but the Thrawn trilogy holds a special place in my heart due to childhood memories.  I haven't read the new Thrawn book.

LOL I didn't even know there was a new Thrawn book, but thanks.  I'll go search Tarkin out and give a read.

Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;1023157Hey, man, you gotta respect a man who defeats his enemies with a weaponized BA in Art History. Full disclosure: this character was the exact thing that turned me off of the entire EU in the first place.

It didn't turn me off the EU (some of it's pretty cool, especially the objects, like ships, corporations, blasters and speeders) but it was possibly the dumbest thing I had ever heard of.  Art is individualistic, it's often created by those who are considered strange and aberrant by their fellows.  The exact opposite of what he'd want as a tactician.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1023179It didn't turn me off the EU (some of it's pretty cool, especially the objects, like ships, corporations, blasters and speeders) but it was possibly the dumbest thing I had ever heard of.  Art is individualistic, it's often created by those who are considered strange and aberrant by their fellows.  The exact opposite of what he'd want as a tactician.

Okay, to defend the indefensible for a moment, Thrawn is the only being ever to be able to do this thing, so perhaps it's more of a force-sense or perhaps how he expresses his intuition.  He could have had a one-of-a-kind schooling and training in tactics and is simultaneously simply a prodigy.  It may not even be "true" in-universe that he gains special insight through the artwork, but he "believes" it to be "true" so he seeks out artwork and gives the credit of his intuition to his studying art, rather than saying, "yeah, I dunno.  I can just do it really, really well."

And actually, I kind of liked the idea of it.  It was a novel approach at any rate.

Quote from: S'mon;1022838Well, my Star Wars canon is Star Wars-Empire Strikes Back-Return of the Jedi. Like 'Alien' movies post 'Aliens', Terminator movies post T2, or Highlander or Robocop post the first one, anything else is strictly optional.

I'm entirely with you on this.

Quote from: KingCheops;1023080I quite enjoyed it.  Tarkin is as ruthless a bastard as you expect and utterly brilliant.  Felt a fair bit like a mystery novel.

Thanks.

For me, the whole point of running a Star Wars game instead of making up my own space fantasy setting is being able to say "You've seen the movies, right? Well, there you go! Let's start!" I use the movies and toss the rest.

I don't even use most of the WEG stuff because of stupidity like making each unique alien into a prototype for their entire cloned species. For example, Greedo is a Rodian bounty hunter, therefore all Rodians are bounty hunters and their entire civilisation revolves around bounty hunting.

The only things the WEG books are useful for is the rules. The source books are not only badly written, they're badly written by people who are more interested in their own ass-pull than they are in trying to re-create what you see in the movies (sometimes I doubt the authors even watched the movies). This wouldn't be a big deal were it not for the fact that some of the less intelligent fans and EU writers started thinking that the movies (and later, the TV shows) were somehow supposed to follow the comic books, dime novels and video games rather than the other way around.

For example, the Executor is listed in the WEG materials as being 5 miles long (5 times the length of a regular star destroyer), but clearly is more than double that length. Somehow this bit of stupidity ended up in "official" spin-off books and other media to the point that when Lucasfilm corrected such an obvious mistake (which is like claiming Chewbacca is only 3 feet tall), the EU/WEG devotees squealed like Ned Beatty in Deliverance.

Aside from the movies themselves, the best sources for material are the Brian Daley books, the Art of Star Wars books, and the DK Incredible Cross-Sections books. Another great source is the Technical Commentaries by astrophysicist Curtis Saxton, which is available free of charge here:

Star Wars Technical Commentaries

Quote from: CausticJedi;1022562Well, WEG had it down and Lucas was an idiot for ignoring the timeline that was nicely developed and consistent when making the prequels.

What the fuck are you talking about?

Quote from: Elfdart;1023714The only things the WEG books are useful for is the rules. The source books are not only badly written, they're badly written by people who are more interested in their own ass-pull than they are in trying to re-create what you see in the movies (sometimes I doubt the authors even watched the movies). This wouldn't be a big deal were it not for the fact that some of the less intelligent fans and EU writers started thinking that the movies (and later, the TV shows) were somehow supposed to follow the comic books, dime novels and video games rather than the other way around.

For example, the Executor is listed in the WEG materials as being 5 miles long (5 times the length of a regular star destroyer), but clearly is more than double that length. Somehow this bit of stupidity ended up in "official" spin-off books and other media to the point that when Lucasfilm corrected such an obvious mistake (which is like claiming Chewbacca is only 3 feet tall), the EU/WEG devotees squealed like Ned Beatty in Deliverance.

Aside from the movies themselves, the best sources for material are the Brian Daley books, the Art of Star Wars books, and the DK Incredible Cross-Sections books. Another great source is the Technical Commentaries by astrophysicist Curtis Saxton, which is available free of charge here:

Star Wars Technical Commentaries

 

What the fuck are you talking about?

Well, I'm fucking talking about the concept that fucking Lucas himself said that the fucking EU (at the time) was canon material; it was developed, fucking laid out, and seemed to make good sense about when the fucking Empire was fucking created, when the fucking Death Star was made, when the fucking Clone Wars were fought, and fucking so on.

Then Lucas fucking came along and made the fucking prequel films which fucking trashed the entire timeline that was fucking made up until then...  the one he fucking said was a-ok then later not.

Some sure gave a lot of fucks...  Wow.

I believe the quote in question was that as long as it didn't contradict the movies, then it was canon.  Which allowed him to still make movies as he wished, and if the EU ended up contradicting, too bad, so sad, the EU lost.

Although I believe he may have tacitly ignored the Christmas special, in the same way he ignored mitochlorians for the rest of his prequels.