[Star Wars] Top 5 additions to the Star Wars Expanded Universe?

[C.W.Richeson]

I was a huge Star Wars fan back around when West End Games put out lots of Expanded Universe (as in, not the movies) products for their game. Whether it was their Adventure Journals or guides to the Rebellion or Empire I ate it all up. I was also a fan of most of the novels at the time (around early - mid 90s was the peak for me) but when Episode 1 came along George Lucas took much stricter control over his creation. Still, I love a lot of the stuff that doesn't quite fit anymore.

Of all the Expanded Universe stuff you've encountered, what are your five favorite additions? It could be a book or video game, or even a single character or piece of technology.

My List:
1) Grand Admiral Thrawn. An incredible military commander and a fantastic villain, I cheered every time Thrawn appeared in Timothy Zahn's original trilogy (begging with Heir to the Empire).

2) Interdictors. Perhaps they appear on screen in the original movies, but we know nothing about then. Interdictors create a gravity well shadow that knocks ships out of hyperspace, effectively stopping them in their tracks for customs inspection and traps.

3) World Devestators. True, it's another super weapon, but I loved the idea of war machines that landed and began eating up resources to build an occupying force. Appeared in Dark Empire.

4) Skipray Blastboats. I don't know what it is about them, but the Skiprays are just cool. Small, heavily armed and armored, but really requiring a co-pilot and extra person or two, I would loved to have seen them in the movies.

5) Talon Karrde. Smugglers, outlaws, and gangsters are a major part of the universe for me and I was sad to see such a lack of them in the prequels. Karrde fulfills that niche perfectly for me. Appeared in Heir to the Empire.

[Quasar]

I'm gunna get smacked...but I love Mara.

[Topher]

I'm not a huge SW fan, and have only read a few of the novels. But one thing I did think was fun and clever was Leia as "Lady Vader", with a whole planetary culture of fanatical cultist-assassins who worship her as a demigoddess (and her whole "But I don't *want* this, I'm still dealing with finding out that the man who tortured me was my father" reaction).

Topher

[Keyes]

I was a huge Star Wars fan back around when West End Games put out lots of Expanded Universe (as in, not the movies) products for their game. Whether it was their Adventure Journals or guides to the Rebellion or Empire I ate it all up. I was also a fan of most of the novels at the time (around early - mid 90s was the peak for me) but when Episode 1 came along George Lucas took much stricter control over his creation. Still, I love a lot of the stuff that doesn't quite fit anymore.

Of all the Expanded Universe stuff you've encountered, what are your five favorite additions? It could be a book or video game, or even a single character or piece of technology.

Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars cartoon, Volume 1.

Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars cartoon, Volume 2.

LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy video game.

LEGO Star Wars video game.

Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago... Doomworld

[Something Else]

1) I would have to say that perhaps one of the best things that has happened to the EU are all the old West End Games supplements, and the material that they fed back into the Star Wars universe. I hear a lot about how too much technical detail ruins the cinematic nature of the universe, but I think it feeds in both directions; sometimes, you want to be a hero and be like in the movies, and other times you want to feel like you are living in the Galaxy Far, Far Away...

2) Mara Jade. Yes, she's kind of a Mary Sue. No, I don't care.

3) The KotOR era... it's like a treasure trove for GMs. My only sad bit is that a lot of the WEG tech stuff doesn't work with it.

4) Darth Revan. Sorry, he deserves a special entry, because he's last year's Time Person of the Year, and managing to put Time's Person of the Year into a game is pretty damn impressive.

5) The Light Side. Sorry, I don't buy this whole "there's the Force and there's the Dark Side" thing. The Force is like duct tape and that's the end of it.

[Agrias Oaks]

1) The Clone wars Cartoon series as a whole. better than the prequels by a mile wide stretch.

2) Knights of the Old Republic, epic in scope... I honestly believe this would make a good trilogy of movies, atleast the first one. KoTOR was very great, and brought me back into the Star Wars fold again.

3)Thrawn, as said above.

4)There is no 3, or 5 for that matter. I haven't interacted with a lot of the EU stuff, thats about all i've seen/played

[Something Else]

1) The Clone wars Cartoon series as a whole. better than the prequels by a mile wide stretch.

Okay, this is probably heresy, but despite enjoying the Clone Wars cartoons, I have to admit that I don't think they were really better than the prequels, except in the respect of lacking terrible dialog and a painful romantic plot. Now, I actually liked the prequels to some extent (except for Attack of the Clones), but I'll be the first to admit that the originals were far superior.

The thing is that Clone Wars doesn't replicate what made the originals stand out - that they were real movies. Yes, they were set in space and had an anthropomorphic dog and a giant robot as major characters, but they were serious dramas in the same sense as classic films by Kurosawa or even things like Casablanca.

Clone Wars doesn't give us that. There's no character drama, just violence and killing. Which is fun, and definitely part of the Star Wars universe; but it doesn't make them true Star Wars films.

[wiseblood]

I think the Clone Wars cartoons were just about perfect for what they were- a short hand view of the war that pretty much happens entirely off screen in the live-action films. They were short, action packed, and showed better than the films why the jedi are such bad-asses.

I also like the Knights of the Old Republic stuff. It's nice to see the galaxy without storm troopers around every corner and the ever present menace of the Dark Side of the Force. Things weren't perfect but they were definitely shinier and happier.

Lastly I like the expanded color range for light sabers.

[Bobaloo]

I don't have a lot of recent exposure to EU stuff, so this list might seem a bit dated.

1.) One more vote for Grand Admiral Thrawn. I think he's the reason I have a high opinion of that first novel trilogy.

2.) Rogue Squadron. I never even read all of these, but a squad based fighter pilot book is always fun.

3.) The Emperor's Hand. Not necessarily Mara Jade herself, although I do like her as well, but the concept of a behind the scenes agent of Palpatine.

4.) WEG's Rebel Sourcebook. A resource that revealed the military side of the rebellion.

5.) The Sabacc deck that came with a WEG module. (Crisis on Cloud City?) Totally immersive, and I wish I hadn't lost mine.

Edited in: Tales from Jabba's Palace, the short story anthology. It provided an awesome backstory to other plots and schemes that were occurring around our intrepid heroes. If we're really holding to 5, drop out 3 or 5 on my orginal list.

[Phalanx]

I definitely have to concur with Thrawn. You almost wanted to enjoy serving him as an elite pilot in TIE Fighter and its add-on pack. :D

[mcrow]

My top two are the WEG books and Mara.

[HumAnoyd]

I think that the John Ostrander and Jan Durseema Republic comics are the best handling of the EU out there. The characterization of Quinlan Vos, Aayla Secura and the Jedi Council was superb with some great stories and concepts. Vos's fall and redemption struck a much greater chord with me than Anakin's ever did in RotS.

I also really like the KOTOR games which do a great job of capturing the feeling of Star Wars while maintaining a distinct identity of their own. The new comic set in that era was OK at first but I am starting to get bored with it.

Finally I think Brian Daley's Han Solo Trilogy along with Alan Dean Foster's Splinter in the Mind's Eye are probably the best SW novels out there. I do enjoy some of the other EU books. Jude Watson's childrens books are a suprisingly good read for example. Zahn did a great job of adding intriguing characters (Kaarde and Mara and the Noghri) but I always wished he would stop recycling dialogue from the original films (how many times do people get a "bad feeling" anyway?).

[vitus979]

2.) Rogue Squadron. I never even read all of these, but a squad based fighter pilot book is always fun.

Yup, this one is at the top of my list, with or without Corran Horn.

[Decado]

My favorite EV material is anything written by Timothy Zhan and Michael Stackpole. WEG did a great job with the Star Wars EV and I have fond memories of my D6 Star Wars campaign. Dark Forces II (the one with the live action cut scenes) is my all time favorite Star Wars game. I also enjoyed the little bit of KOTOR I played on Xbox.

Decado

[Jack]

As I gear up to run the rpg I've had to think about this a lot and I've found the stuff I liked:

Most of the Thrawn Trilogy (Including Mara Jade and the Solo twins and all that, though I'm not thrilled with everything that happens with all those characters later in some cases)
More than just red, blue, and green lightsabers.
The Knights of the Old Republic stuff (except Go-TO, who i just thought was poorly implimented)
The Clone Wars cartoons
The original Han Solo books (and the Lando books to a lesser degree as I really like that character)

Things I'm dropping from my own stuff:

The Yuzan Vong
The Rule of Two

The first because it's just crappy, IMO. The second because it was visually too limiting (no big Sith v. Jedi battles in anything remotely around the films with it).

[cubfinder]

I agree a lot w/ Decado, but here's my list:
1) The WEG d6 edition of the RPG kept me going through the Star Wars lull of the late '80s, until...
2) Timothy Zahn and the Thrawn trilogy... or anything SW by him
3) Anything SW by Michael Stackpole
4) Admiral Daala, for some reason I always felt sorry for her
5) The Han Solo trilogy, w/ it's clever inclusion of the original Han Solo novels in it's story

[The Fallen]

1) The Old Republic age. Although Tales of the Jedi (the comic series that introduced that timeframe at first) was somewhat mediocre in its execution, the idea of having stories set on the 'golden age' was a good one. The new KOTOR stuff (didn't play the games, but I'm following the comic books) rules.

2) Clone Wars Cartoon series. Although they went with the "Xtreem Jedi pawns everything with the Force!!!111!!!" route, it still has a lot of great moments, and I say that Tartakovsky understands the setting well.

3) Thrawn. He got way overused, but when you first read about the character in Heir of Empire, he rocked. Clever strategist, good leader, art connousieur, and more important a villain who can put the heroes into trouble without using the Force.

4) The original Jedi Knight game. Yes, it's third level canon. Yes, Jedi are not supposed to be like Kyle Katarn. Doesn't matter. That game was 9 kinds of awesome.

5) Dark Empire. Yes, the Cloned Emperor thing was stupid. Yes, it was goth/dark Star Wars mixed with Force Storms and all kinds of weird things. But, still, in that time it rocked. Specially the first two issues. I love Cam Kennedy's art.


Btw: Hi to everyone!

[Olof Jönsson]

1: Zeltrons. I don't care what anyone says, an entire species of hedonist physically attractive Valley boys and girls with magenta skin is too much Flash Gordon in flavor not to fit the SW setting. That and in my personal EU they invented Teras Kasi (which fits with canon when you see how damned good they are in brutal hand-to-hand combat in the old comics).

2: The Han Solo Trilogy. From orphan with a talent for flying things to young man just thrown out of the Imperial Academy for siding with a (wookiee) slave to increasingly cynical and bitter late twenties smuggler...a lot better than just about most of the EU stuff.

3: The KOTOR games. Big epic battles, Jedi here and there, a super-weapon that actually *isn't* better than the Death Star (although it is nigh-unbeatable for the era), heroes and villains who make sense (from the "Ends justify the means"-ethics of Revan and Malak to the "I was hurt so I'm taking it out on the universe"-motto of *both* Darth Trayas to the "I just want to hurt people so I can feel"-mindset of Nihilus and Sion). ...and HK-47.

4: Lady Lumiya. The revelation that Shiera Elan Colla Brie was a spy for Vader made my jaw drop in the old Marvel run on SW. When Lady Lumiya appeared, I thought she was just a goon...and then it turns out she's somehow oddly familiar...

5: Rik Duel and Chihdo. Smugglers, scoundrels...complete morons. The rotten eggs to Han Solo's bad apple. Someone is unwittingly pissing off an entire planet of savage warriors? Odds are, Rik and Chihdo are doing something really stupid with their most holiest of holy. And they always survived. Barely.

[Major Grubert]

1. WEG d6 without a doubt. I know that's a bit broad sweep, but they were/are great supplements many of which could be read even if there was no game being played. And if there was a game going the amount of story material in them was fantastic. I particularly liked the way they fleshed out the universe, assigning names to companies, models and makes to ships and vehicles, mapped the galaxy to an extent, and yet it still seemed like a place only held in check by your imagination.

2. The Brian Daley Han Solo novels. Rip-roaring fun in a slice of the galaxy that felt right at home next door to the Empire. It's about time I re-read these, it's been a while.

3. The Marvel comics. Mainly for nostalgia reasons since I read them as they were published but they had a quality about them that appealed to me - it seemed Star Wars-y, particularly a lot of the backwater worlds that were featured. I was really happy to see a lot of that material turn up in and around the SW prequels. Honorable mention to Splinter of the Mind's Eye too.

I'm stuck for a 4 and 5. I think I should mention the radio series I suppose, especially ANH and TESB as they added in quite a bit of additional material. Again they aimed at expanding what we knew happened in the films - the skyhopper race, Heater, Lord Tion etc.

Number 5 is probably the The Clone Wars, a lot of clever tips of the hat to established canon and a lot of clever animated trickery by Tartakovsky. Good fun.