This might surprise everyone on this thread, given the near-endless praise I give the Yuuzhan Vong on a routine basis...when I first heard of them, and saw images of them, I thought they would make for something incredibly stupid and schlocky. My first instinct wasn't to compare them to something from 40K (which I'll admit, regrettably has more to do with my inexperience with that franchise), but rather to some generic edgy enemy types from some uber-bleak video game like
Resistance or something. I didn't think I would like them at all. It was only upon reading NJO, and witnessing their militant religious dogma and parallels to historical holy wars, that I really began to become fascinated with them.
And while others have rightfully pointed out that the initial drawback for the Vong is that they don't match the rest of the Star Wars galaxy...that's precisely why I found them so terrifying. You look at the Empire and the Sith, and you can find them comprehensible and grounded enough to see where they'd fit in the SW galaxy. But the Yuuzhan Vong have this eerie, otherworldly, almost Giger-esque quality about them, made all the more foreboding by their seemingly-ancient connection to the Star Wars galaxy and the mystery shrouding their immunity from the Force.
What made the Vong such a different and welcome threat is that unlike the Empire or the Sith, the first major obstacle in facing them is understanding
what they are, and how they come to even exist as anomalies in the Force. That kind of terror and uncertainty in a major threat is something that, I feel, gave a unique sense of distinction from the kinds of wars fought in the Star Wars galaxy up till that point. But that's just my opinion.
I've never really heard of online hate for LOTF but then again I dropped out of fandom centric things a loooooong time ago.
While I'm not aware of any online hate for LotF somehow not surprised at all.
All I can ask you gentlemen is: what blessed rock have you been living under, and is there room under it for me as well? Because
everywhere I fucking go online, if longtime EU Readers aren't bitching and moaning about the Yuuzhan Vong dropping a moon on Chewbacca (which, funnily enough,
isn't how he dies in the book---the burning atmosphere of the crumbling planet is what kills him), they're bitching and moaning about "Denning ruined the EU with his edgy fixation on gore and boobies and ruining everyone's character!!!!1!" Every community from r/StarWarsEU to the Jedi Council Forums has the weirdest hate-boner for this guy, and every story arc he's ever touched...with LOTF and FOTJ being the most reviled of his contributions, to the point where they're referred to as the "Denningverse" (even though he collaborated with two other authors on both story arcs, but oh, well).
Now, I sometimes see EU newcomers offering some praise to LOTF, which largely comes about in discussions whenever people discuss Crylo Ren and his similarities to Jacen Solo, with virtually everyone agreeing that Jacen's downfall was handled better (even though that isn't much of a feat, given the competition). But even
that's rare, and buried under thousands of other voices calling for Denning's blood.
I mean, fuck...what shipping did he cancel or book did he write to get on everyone's shitlist? He seems perfectly competent to me.
This board can attest that people who post on online forums can be autistic AF. Despite the unjustified hate it receives it was a successful series imo. Have a feeling it was successful financially as well. It is news to me though that people thought it was disrespectful to OT trilogy characters. All of those books were incredibly consistent in their development of All of the characters involved and everyone's story took some unexpected, interesting turns.
I don't remember where I read it, but I think LOTF fared better sales-wise than
Dark Nest...at least five entries made it into the New York Times Best Sellers' List, with
Fury coming the highest at #3....but I don't know how indicative of a success that is, given what I hear about how that list is assembled.
The chunk of the fandom that I've noticed is particularly salty about the treatment of the OT Characters during the Del Rey Era of publishing are the Luke Skywalker fans. You can still find old posts on Jedi Council Forums of people bitching and moaning about how the focus really moved to the Solo Family in NJO and LOTF, and the sparse family drama Luke
does receive is more melancholy and tense with his son. People accused Del Rey of "hating and wanting to undermine" Luke as a character, even though I couldn't disagree with that more, considering the reverence and authenticity to his on-screen counterpart in ROTJ that the Del Rey authors were trying to achieve.
LOTF is a perfect example of a darker Star Wars that stays true to the core tenets of Star Wars imo.(NJO is good but a)I haven't read it completely, b)I maintain some of the redefinition of the force are sacrilege imo). It succeeds where the ST fails in challenging its characters with really intense drama and incredibly tragic events while still staying true and not invalidating the OT we see in the movies. It's shame we couldn't get this story eventually on film. Disney literally had at least 2 decades worth of storylines in the EU they could have used complete with all the wokeness they desired Sword of the Jedi anyone? yet still managed to fuck it up. It's impressive in it's ineptitude.
As I've stated on previous posts, the real improvement LOTF has over the farcical family drama of the ST is that it actually presents events that have weight to them. While the ST versions of Han and Leia seem weak-willed and aloof when it comes to the actions of their school shooter son, LOTF Han and Leia aren't taking any of Jacen's bullshit. They have emotional agency as characters---they challenge and oppose Jacen's actions, and have bitter, heart-wrenching and harrowing exchanges with him...you know,
kind of like how a real family does. The way that ST Han/Leia react to the situation with Crylo seems so out of character for them, especially when you consider how actively they'd argue and confront each other in the OT. It's almost like the Disney Writers have no understanding of these characters at all...but that would be crazy, right? Also, speaking to your desire for LOTF's events making it to screen...I do believe there is a fan-film some passionate fans made a few years ago, one that got a lot of acclaim from the fan-film community. I haven't seen it myself, obviously to avoid spoilers, but I've heard its good...and apparently the casting for Jaina is spot-on.
To the bolded, I'm just going to say that I'm relieved beyond measure that Disney/LFL and their cabal of creatively-inept chimps will never contribute ANYTHING to the Expanded Universe timeline, especially
Sword Of The Jedi. Could you imagine how they'd wreck Jaina's character with the kind of spergy female character writing they have polluting their
own canon?
I can't think of a bigger disgrace to Jaina Solo, one of the best and beloved female characters in the EU, suddenly augmented to spew Tumblr-level "witty" dialogue and lol-so-random antics like Doctor "No Sales" Aphra.
I do remember all the hate for NJO in '99 - early '00s because everyone though extra-galactic invisible to the force aliens with superior "tech" was lame. (also people were upset about Chewie dying but honestly I think he had the most epic death of any SW character, though the war with the Vong was to have a whole fucking slew of epic deaths)
When browsing some of the early reactions to NJO, another big complaint people have with NJO was how unrelentingly bleak and depressing it was, as opposed to the relatively optimistic and light tone of the Bantam Era Books. The political and world climate in which NJO was published didn't help things, either...in fact, I think
Star By Star was published two months after September 11th 2001, which I have to say is some unfortunate fucking timing...especially considering the absolute tragedy that envelops that book. A lot of people were just emotionally drained, and were not receptive to being pelted with misery and hopelessness from their escapist fantasy space opera book series.
And look, I can sympathize with that. But part of me is relieved that Del Rey didn't cancel or course-correct NJO just to accommodate for the climate of the time. The reason being that I think books or any kind of fictional media should exist in a vacuum, and tell their intended story regardless of world events...precisely because those events aren't going to affect how the story ages. Part of what made NJO a revelation of quality when I picked it up a few years ago was because of the stale, stakeless and boring state of Star Wars under Disney. TFA and Rogue One had been released,
Rebels was over, and TLJ was on the way...and the surrounding books and comics were the most inconsequential, monster-of-the-week filler garbage you could ask for. So imagine my amazement where I pick up a Star Wars novel where
bleak, tragic and galaxy-shattering events are allowed to happen, and conflict is characterized by the kind of brutalistic warfare that turns children into adults overnight...which it does, in the case of the Solo Children. If I had somehow been denied a story this good because of the political climate of when it was written, I would be beyond disappointed...I probably would've never re-ignited my love of Star Wars after Disney had utterly ground it to dust.
For all of the controversy and detestement NJO received in a bleak and hostile world of the early 2000's, it has aged really well, and touches on narrative aspects and an original threat that will stand the test of time well after Disney has exhausted the Rebels vs Empire formula for the 200th time.
I will say though, the fact that they got Mark Hamil to do a vocal trailer for Vector Prime was fucking awesome though. Showed just how interconnected the EU was with mainline Star Wars.
That trailer was badass. The ones Random House made for
Darth Plagueis and
Fate Of The Jedi were pretty dope as well.
He was the most powerful Sith lord who ever lived. But could he be the only one who never died? "Did you ever hear the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise? It...
www.youtube.com
There can be no surrender. There will be no mercy. It's not just the future of the galaxy at stake— It's the destiny of the Force.
www.youtube.com
I do remember reading one of the EU books where the Vong are introduced and I think Luke's son or maybe Jacen end up sabotaging an entire Vong ship because they have no defense against the force or lightsabers and I always thought that was pretty damn funny.
It's been at least 3 years since I read
Vector Prime, but I think it was Jacen or Wurth Skidder who infiltrated the Vong ship...which, actually needed to happen, since Danni Quee was imprisoned on board, and she was about to skinned alive in some Vong torture chamber.
Speaking of faults with NJO...fucking
Danni Quee. A character introduced, went nowhere, and served no purpose after NJO. What the fuck was the point of her, beside cockblocking Jacen's attempts to hit on her?
I was initially in that camp as well but as the war wore on, the books got really good and I kind of got into it. The stakes felt super high every book and there was a lot of palpable drama. It made for good reading, especially as a young man. I feel some people just never got over their initial dislike of the Vong, whereas I did.
I loved how colossal and apocalyptic the stakes were in NJO, and how the longer the war dragged on, the more even stalwart veterans like Luke and Mara were beginning to wonder if it was ever going to end, or if there really was a way to defeat the Vong. It really made the conflict seem less like a monster-of-the-week threat like the various Imperial Remnant attacks from the Bantam Era, and more like the next great conflict in the franchise after the Clone Wars and Galactic Civil War.
The series also had zero reservations about executing younger characters while the older ones were left to mournfully linger.
That made it feel like a real war, in all of its ugly glory.
Personally I didn't think they were "not Star Wars" per se, but their actions and portrayal felt more "not Star Wars". They essentially felt like a crossover faction from 40k and while I appreciated the fact that they weren't just another Empire clone faction, their methods and successes felt very unfitting to the setting which can be open to dark, but it shouldn't be so open to grimdark since SW at its core is more optimistic and hopeful than other franchises while still allowing for tragedies,
I would agree if we were strictly talking about the movies. Regarding the EU, however, I've always felt like there was more wiggle room to tackle more serious, harrowing and mature subject matter. There's a lot of people who feel that Star Wars doesn't lend itself to anything besides simplistic and binary space opera heroics...and I disagree. When talking about EU Media that caters towards a somewhat niche part of the fanbase, I think the galaxy has room for a lot of genres and storytelling sensibilities you wouldn't find in the movies, or even the cartoons. Stuff like the military sci-fi that Zahn and Traviss brought to the table, the complex high fantasy elements in
Tales and
Dawn, the labyrinthine politics in
Plagueis and
Cloak Of Deception...even KOTOR I and II touch on a lot of elements most would consider too taboo for Star Wars, with KOTOR II touching on genocidal warfare, nihilism, existential theology, and even
sexuality. I
think that because only a certain segment of the fandom indulges in the comics, novels and games, the gloves can come off and the writers can incorporate genres and contact that would blinside mainstream audiences.
There's a lot of violence, sexual suggestions and political intrigue in both NJO and LOTF that would probably never make it into most modern Disney SW works...and I think it has to do with the writers being conscious that more adults were following the EU during the Del Rey Era of publishing, while kids were fucking off playing LEGO Star Wars, or something.
Aiming to an older demographic gives a little bit of leeway, I think, to delve into genre or tonal territory that isn't necessarily present in the films. The only required caveat, I think, is that the stories written in that more relaxed environment should still be of quality...which, thankfully, NJO and LOTF are.
but with the Vong they just nuked many iconic places and scarred them for centuries while also nuking fan favorite locations and potential next generations for shock value and increase sells if nothing else, like Nar Shaddar and M-TD (with deaths such as these really offering nothing and barely even registering for other characters, only the reader). The only deaths/destruction that were actually brilliantly done were Chewbacca's, Borsk Feylya's (a bothan and New Republic head of state for those who don't know) and Coruscant's destruction. These three left quite the prominent impact and felt like they meant something in how they were executed in contrast to everything else which could feel hollow and clickbaity.
I don't know if I would agree that the bolded were the
only deaths that were well-done, but they were certainly standout moments in the story. I think I'll echo some of the other people on this thread by saying that what I found impactful about the Vong Crusade wasn't just who died or what place got destroyed....it was how, and why. The brutal tactics and demoralizing intentions of the Vong destroying places like the Gardens of Ithor or the Libaries of Obroa-Skai made them feel like a force to be reckoned with. I understand the reluctance of seeing iconic landmarks of the EU Lore reduced to ash, but I don't think I could call them hollow, not with the intentions behind them.
I would also add Anakin Solo's Death to your list of masterfully-impactful deaths. A Wookie Warrior and a Chief Of State are certainly not small casualties...but Anakin was not only impossibly-young, but even being deceptively staged as a long-term protagonist. Just prior to
Star By Star, the narrative had set him up as determined to patch things up with his father following Chewbacca's death, taking the first steps to understanding the Yuuzhan Vong as something other than faceless enemies, regarded as a hero by the galaxy, and reuniting with his love interest from childhood. The writers built mountains of investment for the character...and then in the very next book, killed him off in one of the most unrelentingly-cruel and hopeless deaths in Star Wars history.
The young, wide-eyed, hopeful 15-year-old would be protagonist...lifeless only a week after sharing his first kiss. It really is a snapshot in time, of an era when Star Wars writers had balls to dwarf the Death Star.
But that's just my view on the subject and I've always said I'm mixed on the Vong in this thread (and this is coming from a guy who is pretty forgiving of faults in past SW media) but if I had to pick between the two timelines, I would gladly choose the Vong future over the Disney one, since at least in the first the Skywalkers still come out on top and the message of hope and forgiveness (an optimistic tone) still rings true despite the grimdark and the exploration of Vong culture and their biotech is really engaging. Only thing they were missing was their own language system.
I think the exploration of the different castes and their deities (Yun-Harla, Yun-Shuno, and how they believed the Solo Twins were the reincarnation of those two) were fascinating as well, in addition to learning how much of their religion was founded on the experience of having their bodies expelled from the Force.
It gave a lot of mythological, Milton-esque weight to the Vong as a race and culture.
I really didn't mind Grimdark Wars, it added a gravitas that wasn't there previously. I felt as if maybe the Empire should have been this hard on dissidents all along to really drive home the brutality of their policies. How is the destruction of Alderaan less grim than an exterminatus happening?
I guess the difference between the Empire destroying shit and the Vong cutting a bloody swath across the galaxy is that the goals and motivation are different. When Tarkin destroys Alderaan, he does so to intimdate the Rebel Alliance, emotionally cripple Leia, and send a warning to other insurrectionist opposition to the Empire....but the goal of him and his superiors is, ultimately, conquest and obedience from the galaxy. Preserving a sense of order in the galaxy is their primary motivation, with everyone from the populace to the Senate on their knees.
The Yuuzhan Vong have no interest in ruling the galactic populace: they want them
dead. The culture and lifestyle that the galaxy enjoys is, to them, the ultimate perversion...and the Jedi with their false prophesying and complacency to the debauchery around them are as bad, if not worse for allowing it. For the Yuuzhan Vong, there is no order to be established, no innocence left to be salvaged and or civilians they can assimilate into the True Way of the Vong Religion...the galaxy's races are literally beyond saving. And that's what makes the Vong truly a force to be reckoned with; they're convinced by their twisted religious dogma--down to the last woman, child and elder---that their extermination of the galaxy's inhabitants is a
moral duty, with the same burning emotional need as religious extremists and zealots of real-world history. The Imperials at the top believe in their cause, even if the average stormtrooper doesn't. But the entire Vong race are indoctrinated to sacrifice themselves to the last child to restore the galaxy to its "blessed" state, as their Gods intended. The Empire at their worst don't want the same thing that the Yuuzhan Vong would sacrifice every drop of blood to obtain. The at least value the Core Worlds and its people as valuable assets to oppress and exploit...all the Vong see are the pylons of a civilization that needs to be uprooted and reduced to a cinder.
Which is what presents the ultimate dilemma to the Jedi: you have an enemy whose way of life
as a species is beyond redemption and will end in genocide, unless the Jedi themselves retaliate with genocide and become as heartless as the enemy they're trying to quell.
