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Star Wars New Canon Novels(And Comics and Tv Shows)

itmeJP General
#1

So just out of a general consensus, I was wondering how many people are keeping up with the new Star Wars canon and what their general overall opinion is. Do you like it? Do you feel there are too many gaps in it? Things like that.

Also, comparisons. Do you feel it is living up to the Star Wars Legends series or it is drastically falling short? If you haven’t touched the Legends universe, do you feel you’re missing out on something, or does the new canon seem to be filling enough?

Me personally, I am liking it so far. I feel there are massive, obvious gaps that are kind of in the way, because no one knows quite how to fill them, but they’re waiting for someone else to fill it in first.

One thing I’m not liking is how the new movies basically force you to read their novelizations and associated literature for certain aspects to make sense. Don’t get wrong, huge book nerd here. But Star Wars has always been “Movies first, Books second” with the books simply taking throw away one liners and making a full story out of them. Which was cool.

But now there are things in the movies that leave you going “Do what?” that only make sense if you read the novels, because only the novels take the time to explain everything.

Like the Starkiller for example. Movie makes it look like a super-sized Death Star that just eats suns. Only the novel takes the time to explain that the reason the beam they literally shot from one end of the Star Wars map to the other just didn’t take everything along the way was because the beam was traveling through hyperspace and that there was so much energy bleed out that it was literally visible to the entirety of the galaxy. Or at least a significant portion of it since it went from the Galactic Northwest in the Unknown Regions to the Galactic Southeast, via crossing the Inner Rim and Core Worlds.

But the movie just leaves you scratching your head and what exactly just happened other than a really cool scene where an entire star system is blown to shreds.

That’s just a brief view of my opinions. But what are y’alls?

Admins and mods, I honestly don’t know if this the appropriate subforum or not.

Itmejp general has a thread in it where everyone talks about their favorite fantasy novels. Rollplay General and Archives has a thread where everyone talks about their favorite scifi media, from movies to tv shows to books and/or comics. Two sides of the same coin and I honestly don’t know what puts one in one place and the other in another.

So I honestly don’t get where exactly this is supposed to go. If this is the right place, great, C’est la vie. If it isn’t, I apologize for the inconvenience.

#3

I moved it to General.

To answer your question I have yet to read the cannon comics yet (its in my backlog), but I heard good things about them.
I have been watching Star Wars Rebels and as a huge fan of Thrawn and really sad that he was made non-canon (RIP Mara Jade ) I loved that he was brought back into the canon and done really well.

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#4

I’m reading the books and I’ve been enjoying them. The only negative thing I’ve found is that they’re always limited in what story they can tell since they can’t go beyond episode 7 yet. Overall though I think they’re pretty great, especially Lost Stars, Tarkin and Lords of the Sith. Catalyst was great too and fleshes out the characters of Orson Krennic and Galen Erso a lot, which made Rogue One more enjoyable for me.
Really looking forward to the new Thrawn book too since it’s made by Tim Zahn.

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#5

Yes, I know! I’m sincerely hoping that the book takes him past Rebels because if he gets killed by that little band of miscreants, I am going to flip a table. Figuratively. I’m too poor to afford doing it literally.

#6

My fear is that it’s a prequel and ends around his appearance in Rebels.

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#7

Yeah, I have a fear of that too, but then again Outbound Flight by Timothy Zahn was also a Thrawn Prequel that did a lot to explain just how a Chiss wound up to be in the service of the Emperor as a Grand Admiral while also doing about to explain who the Chiss were as a society.

So for me, my hope is that it is basically Thrawn’s biography and explains how he came into the service of the Empire in the new canon, explains where the Chiss fit into the new canon, and then, assuming he doesn’t die in Rebels, goes on to explain his ultimate fate. I’d like to think one of the reasons it doesn’t come out until April is because the current season will be finished by then and the novel can go out without causing too many spoilers.

And while it is a fear, I’d be perfectly happy with basically another Outbound Flight that serves as Thrawn’s prequel while also reestablishing the Chiss background. Provided that Zahn is allowed to basically reintroduce the concepts he created in Legends. Their rigid society always made it entertaining to read about individual Chiss who had broken off from the mainstream because it made those individuals absolute wild cards. And the Chiss Ascendancy was just super awesome by itself.

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#8

The new Thrawn Novel is confirmed to be a prequel beginning with his first interactions with the Empire and ending before s3 of Rebels. And yes there will apparantly be small references to Legends. WIth regards to his demise in Rebels I doubt Filoni, being the fan he is, will end his life on the show but that’s my hope at least. Hopefully he gets sent away to the unknown regions or something.

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#9

Yo guys! If your curious about the Star Wars new cannon, there’s a podcast with our very own Jesse Cox about that very subject!
Star Wars: New Cannon Book Club !
Check it out!

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#10

Yep. Also highly recommend it.

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#11

I dunno. The same fan managed to take something as simple as the Mandalorians and make it confusing as all get out.

#12

So Jesse said on co-optional that its best to listen to the new cannon star wars books than to read them. Something about the way the author writes his prose or something? I can’t remember for sure. Anyone who read those new Cannon books agree with that recommendation?

I tried to read Lost Stars and gave up sometime in the 2nd half of the book and just skimmed the rest. [spoiler]Mostly because I have had my fill of the star crossed lovers trope[/spoiler]

:itmejphype:'d for the Thrawn book

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#13

I was reading the Catalyst novel (prequel to Rogue One) and switched to the audio book. I found it MUCH more entertaining and easier to consume as an audio book.

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#14

¯ _(ツ)_/¯ The show’s coming back on Saturday so guess we will have to see. Although, I don’t envy what the man had to go through and do in order to make sense of what occurred during the prequel era and for that I admire his commitment.

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#15

Jesse said for some of the books he felt it was better, but I have enjoyed reading Lords of the Sith, Tarkin, A New Dawn, alright I have read them all except Catalyst. The new Thrawn book needs to come out already

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#16

I mean, yes and no. For the most part, he had a complete and total clean slate and free reign to do with it as he pleased. So on the one hand, we get a lot of things from Legends that seem familiar being reintroduced in different ways. Ie, the Inquisitors, ISB, and the Dark Troopers. On the other, we get a few new things. One example being Mandalore’s service to the Empire and Mandalorian Stormtroopers.

It will probably be tougher going on ahead as now there are authors and possibly video games involved, and a communal collective effort means he has to strictly abide by any impacts those individuals make. Meaning he can never do anything that would directly go against say, Tarkin. He can’t have the Rebels discovering the Death Star plans since [spoiler]Rogue One makes that the Rebels didn’t even know of its conception until Bodhi defected and starting blabbering about it all over Jedha.[/spoiler] Things like that.

Honestly it would have been a lot more difficult writing the first two seasons of Clone Wars because during the first two seasons was when Lucas-Star Wars was finally beginnig to accept the books at the same canon level as the movies and tv shows, meaning that he had massive walls of background to deal with and to avoid contradicting.

Then Disney came and everything changed. As evidenced by the Dathomirian Witches being destroyed with the death of the Nightsisters, the introduction of the Nightbrothers, Mandalorians being a pure pacifist society until the Deathwatch came along, the Mandalorian Protectors being incepted during the last year of the Clone Wars, so on so forth.

Now, this isn’t to belittle his efforts or anything. While I may disagree with some of his concepts, he’s done a fantastic job with Clone Wars and Rebels.

But since the beginning, the only concrete restrictions on what he could do, have only been the movies so he has had virtually free reign to do as he wants. It’s only going forward as others are contributing to the Star Wars canvas that what he can and can’t do, will be determined by what someone has done, or even wants to do.

As far as reading vs listening, so far I’ve only read the books, but I’m fine with that. One day I might listen to an audio.

#17

Totally agree with you wholeheartedly. Awesome to see the amount of Star Wars discussion thats been picking up over the past few years. :grinning:

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#18

I can’t read Star Wars books anymore, I need that audio book. I’ve been spoiled by that sweet Skywalker Sound and John Williams soundtrack.

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#19

One day I’ll get to audiobooks. Probably when I can afford them on a regular basis lol. One day :sweat_smile:

#20

I’ve been slowly diving into the new canon novels and have been a day one listener of Jesse’s podcast.

I also LOVE the “The art of books” released for Rogue One and The Force Awakens… Bought both, and will probably pre order the episode 8 one, if there is one.

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#21

I’m working my way through the background and art books. One thing I’ve noticed is that the little tidbits they have are both tantalizing and frustrating because they give a glimpse of this really large thing, but they don’t show you the thing.

Like for example, the Force Awakens book(not the novel) has this little tidbit about how the Kinghts of Ren are neither Jedi nor Sith, but something new, and that Snoke is interested in Kylo/Ben because of his familial connection to both the light and dark side.

So you get this little hook that tells you what the Knights of Ren aren’t, but does nothing to explain what they are.

And there are just so many of them. :triumph:

But I definitely want to get my hands on at least the Force Awakens artwork book because the Amazon preview showed this piece of fighters flying through an asteroid or something like that, and I remembered it was awesome, and I want, but medical bills are evil. So is Diabetic Ketoacidosis brought on by Latent Autoimmune Diabetes. Gotta love it when your own immune system is so healthy it decides to kill you. But that’s neither here nor there lol. Back to Star wars people.

I’m currently catching up on the NCBC. I was a first day listener who was avid right up until they had their hiatus after episode 11 when they talked about the Chewbacca comics and I spent most of last night trying to catch up.

It was actually pretty funny because Alex mentioned Luke choking out the Gamorrean guards in RotJ, and I always thought he just put them to sleep. But, according to the novel based on the screenplay, Luke did indeed choke the guards. He just didn’t kill them. It’s like I saw the whole world wrong lol.