books New Jedi Order: Love or Hate?

[heavens-champion 1,905]

Those of you who are familiar with the old Star Wars Expanded Universe might be familiar with New Jedi Order, the book series that introduced the Yuuzhan Vong, killed off tons of characters (including Chewbacca, whose death has mercifully been retconned), and basically changed the Star Wars galaxy for the better. So... how many of you like it, and how many of you think it's more of an example of Star Wars meeting Warhammer 40,000 in a bad way?

[Dreambiscuit 9,966]

I love a lot of the EU and in some ways The New Jedi Order is no exception. But things like killing off Chewie for example was such a calculated board room contrivance that I just can't get behind it. It's one thing to have a committee keeping an eye on the various installments of books and so on to make sure nothing interferes with the existing, or soon to exist, timeline, but they should not be so heavily involved with the creative process, especially when it comes to dictating the demise of a major character just because it has commercial impact. When a boardroom concocts a story and tells the author, "Okay, write this," it seems to lose its inspiration. And the Yuuzhan Vong was taken much farther than what I would consider appropriate.

Even the first EU (Splinter of the Mind's Eye) was a combined effort of George Lucas and Alan Dean Foster, but it was still collaborative rather than merely dictated by the business execs, and the difference is like night and day. Don't get me wrong, I love the EU, just not all of it. I'm about 50/50 on The New Jedi Order. 

Edited July 26, 2017 by Dreambiscuit

[heavens-champion 1,905]

1 hour ago, Dreambiscuit said:

I love a lot of the EU and in some ways The New Jedi Order is no exception. But things like killing off Chewie for example was such a calculated board room contrivance that I just can't get behind it. It's one thing to have a committee keeping an eye on the various installments of books and so on to make sure nothing interferes with the existing, or soon to exist, timeline, but they should not be so heavily involved with the creative process, especially when it comes to dictating the demise of a major character just because it has commercial impact. When a boardroom concocts a story and tells the author, "Okay, write this," it seems to lose its inspiration. And the Yuuzhan Vong was taken much farther than what I would consider appropriate.

Even the first EU (Splinter of the Mind's Eye) was a combined effort of George Lucas and Alan Dean Foster, but it was still collaborative rather than merely dictated by the business execs, and the difference is like night and day. Don't get me wrong, I love the EU, just not all of it. I'm about 50/50 on The New Jedi Order. 

Yeah, my opinion on it is split 50/50, too. On the one hand, the Yuuzhan Vong are interesting. On the other hand, they could have toned them down a bit.

[Fluttershutter 2,504]

I loved it. Read all of those books over a single summer. I thought Chewie dying and Han mourning so hard was great. It really was about time somebody important died in SW.

Any faults it had were still a million times better than the Disney garbage.