Alas, Americans with guns are very accident prone boaters. I myself have lost of number of items in terrible boating accidents. It's a good thing I am smart enough to always wear a life jacket maybe I should get floating cases for my items of importance. :)
I really enjoyed reading this. Though, I did enjoy the Mandolarian and the Kenobi show. Like you, I never watched Boba Fett. It was not interesting. No one wants an old broke down Boba Fett.
I also tried reading the new series of novels set during the Republic. And it was terrible. I never got past the second novel. The Jedi are weak, conniving, and honestly a pretty evil group of humans, which probably speaks more to our current political climate. Had they been written in the 90's it might have been a good series.
The EU novels were very enjoyable. I started rereading the first Thrawn trilogy, and I enjoyed it even more the 2nd time. I should actually finish it. Even the invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong was interesting, and fun to read at times. It did get bogged down in places, again, I think the changing political climate was a part of that. I particularly liked the idea that Palpatine only did what he did, to prepare the galaxy to fight an extra-galactic threat that only he knew was coming. Though at this point in my life, I don't need evil explained, some things are just evil, for evil's sake.
Games like Knights of the Old Republic were good stories, with plots that you may or may not see coming. Though, (spoiler alert), I did see you being the main hero, as the lost Sith Lord.
I also enjoyed the Prequel trilogy, though I do see the De-Mythologization as a problem. Again, I don't need things explained, I just want to enjoy a good story.
I 100% agree that Return of the Jedi was a foundational movie in my younger years. I remember it being played for years (ok, maybe I only saw it once or twice) on ABC's Sunday night movie. Very powerful to my young psyche.
Though, I also enjoyed the Ewok movies too. So take everything I say with a large grain of salt.
As someone whose Star Wars experience is limited to films up through The Phantom Menace, and none of the EU novels, this sounds like a much better explanation for the why and how of the original trilogy. It also has a serious set of strange attractors that would make for some great RPG play. Looking forward to future articles on this.
You should read some of the EU stuff. The Thrawn trilogy was really good. Some of the other stuff was probably dregs, but high school me loved it all. I just recently donated my entire collection of novels.
Leaded into this there's some pretty incredibly twists and turns that bear some interesting scenarios to explore. Much more interesting, than what is alleged in the official records.
Only ever watched the movies, and lore videos about the EU.
Being very much a creature raised on the Prequels and only to a lesser extent the Originals, I also stopped bothering with modern Star Wars after a few episodes of the Mandalorian season 1 (although Rogue One was a tour de force and well worth watching). I did, at one point as a teen, read an EU novel set shortly after the end of the original trilogy where an alien species nicknamed "the Fluties" attacked - I remember nothing else about the book except that one of the aliens had the surname "Sibwarra", but it was a good read. Much of my Star Wars book focus was taken up by the "Incredible Cross Sections" series, that explained the vehicles from a technical & lore perspective - I spent hours as a kid drawing my own sci-fi vehicles with their own (shoddily drawn) cross-sections!
Looking forward to hearing more about your campaign. The Star Wars universe for me is much like the Warhammer 40k universe: a place I choose to remember as it was when I was a child - much bigger, much more mysterious, filled with wonder and potential before the bankers wrang every last penny from the franchise. May you fill your Star Wars universe with that same childlike wonder, deep myth, and boyish potential for adventure.
Great minds think alike! I've also been getting back into Star Wars with the new fantastic Andor series. One of my longer-term projects is a redoing of the prequels based only on the information we are given in the OT, plus select quality EU sources (like the Thrawn trilogy). In that timeline, the clones are the bad guys, created by unscrupulous "clone masters" for purposes of conquest. The name "the Clone Wars" also implies lots of smaller conflicts, vs. one big one between two large powers. We don't call the many engagements of 1861-1865 "the Civil Wars," but we DO call the many small conflicts between the U.S. and the various indian tribes "the Indian Wars," so it follows in my mind that the Clone Wars are many smaller conflicts on the periphery of the Old Republic, against warlords attempting to use clone armies to stir up trouble.
It is a period of decadence and decay in the Galactic Republic. The Jedi Order is in decline. Elites on the Core Worlds view the ancient Jedi religion as a superstitious holdover of a less-civilized age.
Young Jedi Knight Obi Wan Kenobi wants to restore the prestige and power of the Jedi Order and make them once again the guardians of peace and justice throughout the galaxy.
He will soon have his chance to prove it, because in the Outer Rim the discovery of an ancient, forbidden technology has escalated a local territorial conflict between minor warlords to a contest that threatens to spread and engulf whole star systems in war...
Alas, Americans with guns are very accident prone boaters. I myself have lost of number of items in terrible boating accidents. It's a good thing I am smart enough to always wear a life jacket maybe I should get floating cases for my items of importance. :)
I really enjoyed reading this. Though, I did enjoy the Mandolarian and the Kenobi show. Like you, I never watched Boba Fett. It was not interesting. No one wants an old broke down Boba Fett.
I also tried reading the new series of novels set during the Republic. And it was terrible. I never got past the second novel. The Jedi are weak, conniving, and honestly a pretty evil group of humans, which probably speaks more to our current political climate. Had they been written in the 90's it might have been a good series.
The EU novels were very enjoyable. I started rereading the first Thrawn trilogy, and I enjoyed it even more the 2nd time. I should actually finish it. Even the invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong was interesting, and fun to read at times. It did get bogged down in places, again, I think the changing political climate was a part of that. I particularly liked the idea that Palpatine only did what he did, to prepare the galaxy to fight an extra-galactic threat that only he knew was coming. Though at this point in my life, I don't need evil explained, some things are just evil, for evil's sake.
Games like Knights of the Old Republic were good stories, with plots that you may or may not see coming. Though, (spoiler alert), I did see you being the main hero, as the lost Sith Lord.
I also enjoyed the Prequel trilogy, though I do see the De-Mythologization as a problem. Again, I don't need things explained, I just want to enjoy a good story.
I 100% agree that Return of the Jedi was a foundational movie in my younger years. I remember it being played for years (ok, maybe I only saw it once or twice) on ABC's Sunday night movie. Very powerful to my young psyche.
Though, I also enjoyed the Ewok movies too. So take everything I say with a large grain of salt.
I, too, am a fan of the Ewok movies, and even the Droids cartoon series.
Whew, I thought we were no longer to be friends after this confession... :)
You cannot begin to fathom how the RPG sessions went down.
I thought I had played gonzo games before, but I had not.
I have also never had a game so quickly devolve into a player-vs-player free-for-all, especially when that was not the intent of the GM.
As someone whose Star Wars experience is limited to films up through The Phantom Menace, and none of the EU novels, this sounds like a much better explanation for the why and how of the original trilogy. It also has a serious set of strange attractors that would make for some great RPG play. Looking forward to future articles on this.
You should read some of the EU stuff. The Thrawn trilogy was really good. Some of the other stuff was probably dregs, but high school me loved it all. I just recently donated my entire collection of novels.
Leaded into this there's some pretty incredibly twists and turns that bear some interesting scenarios to explore. Much more interesting, than what is alleged in the official records.
Only ever watched the movies, and lore videos about the EU.
Being very much a creature raised on the Prequels and only to a lesser extent the Originals, I also stopped bothering with modern Star Wars after a few episodes of the Mandalorian season 1 (although Rogue One was a tour de force and well worth watching). I did, at one point as a teen, read an EU novel set shortly after the end of the original trilogy where an alien species nicknamed "the Fluties" attacked - I remember nothing else about the book except that one of the aliens had the surname "Sibwarra", but it was a good read. Much of my Star Wars book focus was taken up by the "Incredible Cross Sections" series, that explained the vehicles from a technical & lore perspective - I spent hours as a kid drawing my own sci-fi vehicles with their own (shoddily drawn) cross-sections!
Looking forward to hearing more about your campaign. The Star Wars universe for me is much like the Warhammer 40k universe: a place I choose to remember as it was when I was a child - much bigger, much more mysterious, filled with wonder and potential before the bankers wrang every last penny from the franchise. May you fill your Star Wars universe with that same childlike wonder, deep myth, and boyish potential for adventure.
That novel is called Truce at Bakura. The proper name for the Fluties is Ssi Ruk
Great minds think alike! I've also been getting back into Star Wars with the new fantastic Andor series. One of my longer-term projects is a redoing of the prequels based only on the information we are given in the OT, plus select quality EU sources (like the Thrawn trilogy). In that timeline, the clones are the bad guys, created by unscrupulous "clone masters" for purposes of conquest. The name "the Clone Wars" also implies lots of smaller conflicts, vs. one big one between two large powers. We don't call the many engagements of 1861-1865 "the Civil Wars," but we DO call the many small conflicts between the U.S. and the various indian tribes "the Indian Wars," so it follows in my mind that the Clone Wars are many smaller conflicts on the periphery of the Old Republic, against warlords attempting to use clone armies to stir up trouble.
Good insight! I hadn't thought about the implications of the plural form of the name, but I agree.
Thanks! Here's my Ep.1 opening crawl...
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....
Episode 1: An Old Fear
It is a period of decadence and decay in the Galactic Republic. The Jedi Order is in decline. Elites on the Core Worlds view the ancient Jedi religion as a superstitious holdover of a less-civilized age.
Young Jedi Knight Obi Wan Kenobi wants to restore the prestige and power of the Jedi Order and make them once again the guardians of peace and justice throughout the galaxy.
He will soon have his chance to prove it, because in the Outer Rim the discovery of an ancient, forbidden technology has escalated a local territorial conflict between minor warlords to a contest that threatens to spread and engulf whole star systems in war...
What's the ancient, forbidden tech in question?
In this case it's cloning tech