Not really.

Kyle Katarn in Dark Forces was a no-nonsense professional. They lightened him up a lot for Jedi Knight, when he really was more like Han Solo (except skilled and with a backstory). JO/JA settled back down somewhere between the two. Dark Forces Kyle was actually interesting because he's the only character in the entire series that acts like a professional. Or at least like he's the only one who acts like he's fighting a ****ing war.

Dash Rendar in the video games was a DF Kyle Katarn knockoff. In the novel they explicitly pointed out how young, unprofessional, and generally... incompetent he was. Like Han Solo, but with consequences, and it didn't seem too bad at the time because Han Solo was captive during those events so he wasn't around to remind everybody how similar the characters were.

So yeah, both Kyle Katarn and Dash Rendar were like Han Solo, except plus some extra character development that Solo never had. Still better characters.

Me too, I just wished they would have been more judicious about it. At this point it seems like they didn't erase the EU because it was too difficult to work around, but because of NIH.

NIH?

I never read or watched anything other than the movies and some of the games, but it seems like the volume of stuff out there would make it difficult to write any new stories without bumping into something. I don't even know how they can write new stories without rehashing something already done elsewhere (like the "Simpsons Already Did It" episode of South Park).

If I understand correctly, it's not so much the risk of accidental collisions with existing material in the EU, so much as grossly irresponsible authors who can't help but invent yet another all-powerful, sun crushing, Force-eating galaxy destroying, God-like alien bacteria ghost.

Oh wait, they also did that in TFA? Whatever.

I also did that in TODOA

I suppose that makes sense. It's the same reason comic book movies ha e their own storylines; there's so much absolute garbage out there that it's probably best just to ignore or forget most of it.

Also, I wonder if there will be another death star in ep ix, and if someone will have to fly inside of it to blow it up

What if we're already inside an invisible death star, and if we go outside of it we all die? Like some kind of spherical holodeck.

(or we are merely damned to living an eternal hell of hall-of-mirrors as the universe fails to draw itself)

we live on a flat holodeck and scientists tell us it's a spherical holodeck to control us

I wonder if you look at the stars you can still see the dflt.mat if you squint hard enough?

OTOH, Nikumubeki probably doesn't have to squint, since I'm sure dflt.mat was permanently burned into his retina a long time ago.

I didn't even know until 2013 or so that dflt.mat was supposed to be reminiscent of something out of Star Trek. For some reason it disappointed me, even though on all accounts and by all means it should have been a non-issue.

I know it's from star trek, but I've never seen star trek, so it's still just JK to me

wow, what is wrong with you guys

I've been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation since I was 6 years old.

lol nerd

The only Star Trek related things I've seen are:

* The last half of that TNG movie with the time travel
* That part in the first film where V'Ger turns out to be some Voyager probe or whatever they're called
* DarkMateria - The Picard Song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXB84fpWzg8

with the exception of that list item, I think it's safe to say you missed all the good parts

I'm old enough to remember being surprised when I happened across some terrible Star Trek (tng not tos lol) show that I had no idea was on the air. The first season looked pretty rough on first viewing.

Star Wars EU was very tightly regulated when it became a thing in the early 90s. Lucy Wilson was responsible for coordinating it all and making sure certain things were kept completely untouched. She is the woman I thought might have been Kathleen Kennedy but I was completely mistaken. I think Star Wars started to become a sort of free for all after the prequel trilogy. I never kept up with the EU at that point. I still picked up a book here and there but still haven't read most of them. They didn't have to trash the whole thing. They really could have kept pretty much everything done up to a certain point and then selectively chosen some from there. Trashing everything is understandable but also lazy. Ironic that they trashed so much good content to replace it with such drivel.

I was an infant when the first episode aired, so I'm pretty sure by the time I started watching it at age 6 I think they had mostly ironed out the problems that the first couple seasons had (like getting rid of that annoying doctor who hated Data).

You're in your thirties? It's going to be so much harder to excuse you from now on. But, yeah, I didn't really start watching tng until I had cable sometime in 92 (my parents actually had cable around 89 but I wasn't watching much TV then) and I tried not to miss any. By that time it was usually pretty good.

I try hard not to stop myself from doing inexcusable things in life. Things tend to get easier for you in some ways when people get the idea that you don't really care what they think about you....

(For example, look at who's president.)

Incidentally, the new Star Wars movies have made me appreciate the first two seasons of TNG a lot more.

TNG had a standard-setting amount of preproduction and world-building. They hired three people to make deck-by-deck blueprints of the Enterprise and had a team of technical creative consultants who designed in-canon explanations for the technology and ship operations. The ship had thousands of people on it and there was always supposed to be a lot more stuff going on than just the main plot. Among many other things there was a multi-story ship mall, a botanical garden the size of a small forest, and the main shuttlebay complex which was like a combination airport and warehouse, which conducted parallel resupply and trading missions along with the main mission. They never actually showed any of that stuff, it was just set dressing. But for the first couple of seasons they had an idea that the Enterprise should be buzzing with activity and did a really good job giving you that feeling.

Later seasons had better episodes, but also less respect for their own world building. It’s still a harsh contrast against the new Star Wars movies, though, which have zero world building at all.

Interesting observation although the prequel trilogy, maybe not world building, did introduce a galaxy that was much broader than anything we ever had a sense of in the original trilogy or sequel trilogy for that matter.

'New' Star Wars movies as in the current crop, Sequel Trilogy and Stories. The prequels did have plenty world-building, whether or not it was good.

Yeah. The prequels aren’t all that new anymore.

Yeah but, man, those were the good old days. Who would've thought?

somebody or something that is slowly dying

"This deal's getting worse all the time"

It’s also kind of strange how now, hit or miss, there’s a new Star Wars movie every year, but they’re struggling to put out more than 1 game every 5.

It’s like the exact opposite of what we grew up with.

Even as a kid I liked the games (computer or card) and novels better than the movies (at once I'd had a chance to see them), because media other than video seems to lead to far more interesting possibilities.

And of course, making your own level or mod in the game (which you can share and play with other people who feel just the same way) makes for the ultimate mind-bending experience.

And most of the big games are pretty good. Sure, there are some that I've never touched but pretty much all Nintendo exclusives were good. I liked The Force Unleashed games quite a bit as the gameplay was casual and the character pretty OP although many of the levels and bosses and powers were pretty ridiculous. Still, I found them really enjoyable.

I still remember the days when the only truly bad SW game out there was Super Bombad Racing (and then maybe Galaxies after that).

No idea what the situation is like now....

I really loved DF custom levels and it was great to get to know Jereth Kok and Peter Klassen back in the day and collaborate on Condition Red. I never got much into JK/MotS except for Piggot's levels, which you can thank for bringing me to TACC and subsequently here. Only JO level I remember playing much of was Ladder if anyone remembers that one.

Masters of Teras Kasi demonstrated to me that I did not need to own every Star Wars game.

Hmm, I'd forgotten about that. I also forgot about Force Commander and how terribly unbalanced (and cumbersome to control) it was.

Edit: wow, I just looked at the thread title and to my surprise I'm actually managing to stay on topic here for once

->



I'm telling FGR!

One thing that I always wish would get some more acknowledgement is the snowspeeder level in SNES Super Empire Strikes Back. Often, Shadows of the Empire is credited as inspiring Rogue Squadron and that's certainly true but that flying level on the SNES was really good, especially for the time and also considering all the varieties of gameplay they crammed into that trilogy of titles which released during that EU resurgence in the early to mid 90s.

lol, I just looked at a video of the SNES snowspeeder level and it looks awful

Does it count even though I put it in parentheses?