Fun fact: The Chuck Wendig trilogy was Disney's brain damaged and retarded attempt at making their shitty EU's lynchpin. This is due to the sheer incompetence of the staffers, who think the Thrawn Trilogy was the single point from which every thing must stem from, the core of an idea. They honest to God believe they needed a nexus point, a foundation, and stupidly think that all must spring from it.
They're so fucking stupid they don't get that all it was was the first serious work of fiction that wasn't Ewok shit or random comic books. It was meant to test the waters and that's it. That Zahn can write worth a shit helped a lot for the old EU in expanding. All it was was a successful proof of concept; it was meant to see if there was money in the product post movies, not to form some fucking nucleus of work.
NuEU is not helped by the flood of hacks who can't write and only see it as a way to springboard into TV or Film. None of them care and most of them have no talent beyond being willing to work for nothing due to having a mom or dad or husband or wife who makes the money.
Even outside of the Thrawn trilogy, old EU had the SW comics that gave us Lumiya, the Mandalorian Protectors, and a whole host of stuff. That, and the fact that they got an author like Timothy Zahn to write the "official continuation of the Star Wars story" made the Thrawn Trilogy work.
What the hell did Chuck Wendig accomplish that warranted him writing the lynchpin for the new Expanded Universe? They could have gotten Timothy Zahn or Drew Karpyshyn in to write their lynchpin book, but they picked this nobody instead of the other authors that wrote SW books and games? Heck, get James Luceno onboard. Dude wrote both the Plagueis and the Tarkin novel, he's a pretty cool guy.
Most of these NuEU authors are like many SJW comic writers: they're just in it for the gig, they don't care if they rape the canon so long as they can get paid and buy something to eat, whereas the old EU authors, even when they were going off nuts, did their work with a sense of artistry. As much as I hate what Karen Traviss did, even she had more going for her works that these new twats do.
Speaking of Karen Traviss..........
It's not a strawman. I had frequent on-line interactions with such people myself, back then. People who for whatever reason were willfully blind to the fact that the Prequel Jedi were meant by Lucas to be in a very bad place, institutionally, rather than exemplars of the Jedi way. Very confused people.
Hardly. As I've pointed out, she's been a major influence on
The Mandalorian.
Right, every single one of them volunteered to die for the Republic the moment that he came of age.
For someone so apparently eager to shame the use of supposed strawmen you certainly are eager to make use of them yourself.
Traviss doesn't claim there that the Jedi own anyone. What she says, specifically, is that the Jedi
accepted the use of a slave-army for the prosecution of a war, that this was wrong, and that many fans become testy and defensive about it, refusing to countenance that Jedi could make mistakes or do wrong, apparently under the belief that since the Jedi are the main point-of-view faction, and because of their ostensibly serving the Will of the Force, that means that everything that they do is good/justified (never mind the fact that C-Can and G-Canon both are replete with numerous examples of questionable behavior by Jedi).
You may not be claiming that bioethics don't exist, but you're certainly making a mockery of them by trying to argue like this. You do realize that one of the go-to defenses of black slavery in the United States prior to the 1861-63 war was that the slaves were happy and content in their bondage, don't you?
That's not the issue, actually. There are, if memory serves, several instances in the
Republic Commando series where some of the Mandalorian characters find themselves emotionally disarmed by the selflessness and idealism of the young Jedi Padawans they work with in the GAR special operations command; the complaint is rather that Prequel-era Jedi adoptees are normally cut off from and are allowed no knowledge of their birth families in the hopes of preventing them from falling prey to "attachment" (which is somewhat darkly humorous given the Prequel Jedi Order's unhealthy "attachment" to the corrupt and crumbling Republic).
He was blind(?) enough to miss a swing at Jango by a good country mile while the latter flew leisurely away on his rocketpack, which says some interesting things about the limitations of Force-powers.
View attachment 1464428
Yes.
View attachment 1464411
Like, dude, try actually watching Lucas's movies sometime.
Pretty well, all things considered.
Some people just get really defensive about the Prequel Jedi for whatever reason.
Well, my personal take is that any depiction of Grievous that doesn't match the intelligence and lethality that he displays in Genndy Wars is simply not worthy of notice.
Kind of reminds me of another under-appreciated product of The Clone Wars Multimedia Project, Alto Stratus:
View attachment 1464444
The leader of the local Separatist forces on the planet Jabiim, Stratus personally killed six Jedi knights in close combat, and he did it without enhanced reflexes, precognition, special armor or weapons or lifelong warrior training, relying instead on just an ordinary steel sword and a whole lotta righteous indignation.
Lucas meant for the Prequel Jedi to be heroes that he can merchandise and sell toys with. He didn't mean for them to be the bad guys or morally ambiguous characters. Heck, they were more superhero-ish than the OT Jedi who WERE controversial because A) they lied to Luke about his dad and B) they were trying to turn him into the Light Side version of Darth Malgus so he can kill Vader and the Emperor for them, as if he was the Jedi version of a Mafia hitman. THOSE Jedi were controversial. The Prequels Jedi? Were about as standard superhero stuff as the Raimi Spider Man and most depictions of Superman. Every comic book and story about them not written by Karen Traviss has most Jedi be practically as pristine as a fountain of Holy Water. If anything, the clones rather liked their Jedi commanders, as evidenced by these lines:
"It's been said that the 501st got the best of the war. We also got the worst. On Felucia, the Seps dug their metal heels into the muck of that alien hellhole and dared the Republic to come in after them. So we did, only to be met with month after month of flesh-eating diseases, shrieking nocturnal predators, and other sights that haunt me to this day. Cut off and for all we knew abandoned by our superiors, our only hope was Aayla Secura, our Jedi commander. Without her iron will, none of us would have come out of that mess with our sanity, or our lives. When her death came, I hope it was quick. She earned that much. When the 501st was finally rotated out of Felucia, Aayla Secura made a point of seeing us off personally, calling us the bravest soldiers she had ever seen. It's a good thing we were wearing helmets, because none of us could bear to look her in the eye." -Anonymous 501st Legion soldier, Star Wars Battlefront II (2005) on the topic of Felucia and the Jedi General, Aayla Secura
"They're good. No words needed. Perfect sync. Like clones in a way. Better. They're the best. That's why they command." -Clone Commander Bly, Star Wars Republic, issue 68
So yes, according to the clones themselves, Karen Traviss is wrong for saying that the Jedi shouldn't command. Some clones lived only because of their Jedi commanders. Other clones even saw them as perfect.
The Jedi only led the clones because they too served the Republic. It's got nothing to do with approving the use of a slave army, because that wasn't something the Jedi can do-that was something only the SENATE can approve. And the Senate said yes, down to the point where they had the Chancellor create a Grand Army of the Republic and they gave him emergency powers, which probably included drafting people, which meant he could draft the clones into the Grand Army and have them get shot if they deserted. If the Jedi went against this, one of two things would happen. A) Nobody cares, the Chancellor and the Senate would still use clones, and they'd put guys like Tarkin and other future Imperials in charge, which means the clones would suffer more casualties and get PTSD from committing war crimes, since guys like Tarkin have no bones about committing genocide or sending Stormtroopers to die by the truckloads. B) The Chancellor and the Senate see the Jedi Order's refusal to follow orders as treason, and they order the clones to curbstomp the Jedi first before going on to kill the CIS droids. After all, we later saw the clones kill the Jedi and the Senate didn't raise a stink about it, so they wouldn't care if the Chancellor did it three years early. They can just write off the Jedi Order's refusal to join the fighting as "treason" and state that they were probably working with Count Dooku, which is exactly what they did in the old EU.
As for those examples of Jedi weakness, Kenobi and that other Jedi Jango shot in the Geonosian coliseum were not the strongest examples of Jedi. Kenobi was a failure of an apprentice back in EPI who didn't understand his master's wisdom and only won against Darth Maul due to a fluke, and he was a failure of a master in EPII when he couldn't inspire loyalty in Anakin. That, and he was dividing his attention between Jango and Slave-1, and he still did a decent job despite being hit by both missiles and blaster cannons. If you want Jedi strength, just look back on Mace Windu taking a saber to Jango's head. Or Starkiller's dad pulling down TIE Fighters. Or Anakin killing Dooku.
That Jabiim Sep leader who killed Jedi only did it against weakened Jedi whose strength was sapped after a long-ass war. If he was face-to-face with a fresh, ready-for-battle Jedi like Ahsoka Tano or Aayla Secura, he'd be dead.
Really, Cyril Sneer, looking at the argument between you and Adamska, it seems that he's in the right. Karen Traviss and the Fandalorians really have a skewed view of the Jedi that even the clones who served under the Jedi don't have. They get really defensive when people shit on Karen Traviss' works for being inaccurate about the Jedi, when other depictions of Jedi portray the exact opposite of what she says. That, and the Jedi in the PT aren't nearly as controversial as the OT Jedi, since they openly tell their students that the life of the Jedi is about sacrifice, and if their students don't want that, they let them walk away without a care in the world. Just ask Ahsoka and Dooku. Far unlike Jango Fett, who would have shot any of his clones that he caught trying to desert Kamino before the war broke out. So even with the depiction of Jedi pupils in Republic Commando and how detached and idealistic they were, that was still wrong. Especially since even Padawans go out a lot into the real world doing missions alongside knights BEFORE the Clone Wars even started, so if anything, they'd be far from detached and they'd know more about the real world than some Mandos who spent most of their time hiding on their planet or training clones, since these Padawans traveled all over the galaxy for their missions. So they'd know more about the real world and how it ticks due to them seeing most of the galaxy on a regular basis. Hell, in the opening of EPII, we saw Anakin and Kenobi musing about their previous adventures. So no, Jedi Padawans would be far from the naive, detached, isolated imbeciles that don't see the corruption in the Republic.
That, and Mandalorians become Mary Sues in Traviss' works. In other works, they're a balanced, flawed, and powerful people who get their cans kicked when they run into real warriors like the Jedi or the Sith. In Traviss' works, they're over-hyped idiots who try to seize the moral high ground as well as boasting about how badass they are. Which is hilarious, considering that slaughtering Mandalorians is rather easy for Jedi and Sith, especially since it's something one can easily do in KOTOR and SWTOR, and in games like Empire at War: Forces of Corruption, you can just park Mara Jade's ass in front of a Mando camp and watch her kill about 100 Mandalorians in Mandalore.
Isn't this also the first visual piece of media to focus on Rey and her co-stars that's not some 2 minute cameo on another show or Forces of Destiny? Due to Lego's cheap parody humor, I expect a lot of jabs at the older movies or some really cringy attempts to try and turn Rey and friends into a likeable meme. The shot of the prequel jedi fighting First Order losers raises a big eyebrow though... For those who might not know, Disney has released some stupid guides over the years indicating that even their lego spinoffs are part of Disney canon,
as seen here for example. If that's the case will this shit be canon too? Are the fucking jedi going to time travel and retcon the sequels to fuck and beyond? Just what kind of clusterfuck will these idiots produce?
People also often ignore the Han Solo books that were released in the 70s and 80s which also did a good job of expanding the setting and giving us all current lore on Corellia which even the fucks at Disney
partly used for Solo. There's also the Marvel comics from back then which while not perfect early on still had access to George's notes and input. Yet strangely Disney seems to have a fixation with only using the worst ideas from that comic series rather than any of the good ones, or dumbing down/sanitizing the good ones, like turning the horny space vixen species into a bunch of emotionless eunuchs. But Disney taking only the worst ideas from the old and none of the good ones (unless its to knock them down like they did Thrawn) seems to be standard practice for them, as stated by
@BipolarPon.
Regardless, the Thrawn Trilogy sticks out the most because not only was it a proper sequel but... Adamska already beat me to it.
Given how fucked the ST is, I wouldn't be surprised if some time-travel shenanigans happened to retcon it out of existence so they can redo it as some new series on Disney Plus. Maybe the Mandalorian can be the start of it.
Wait, they turned the Zeltrons from the horniest twats in the galaxy into people who don't want to be led along with their emotions? Wow, now that's character rape on a whole race right there. Almost as bad as mischaracterizing Jedi fans as Nazis.
Everything they take from the old EU, it's either a bad idea they're going to make worse, or a good idea they're going to make into a bad one, like with Palpatine coming back and Thrawn.
