Star Wars Expanded Universe

Since joining the temple I have read several comments that refer to the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I decided to look into it myself as I had only ever seen the films.

I have started watching the first season of The Clone Wars and reading the Jedi Apprentice series of books and I have to say I am quite enjoying them so far as light entertainment.

I certainly feel that there are some valuable lessons contained within and would think they would be beneficial for a child or an adult to watch or read.

I was just wondering what other peoples opinions on the Expanded Universe were and whether or not in the same way as the films you agree that some valuable parables are contained within?

MTFBWY

Having spent many years in the Star Wars Role Playing arena with my son and his friends, I have many of the e-books and audio books. There is such a vast amount of data on the Expanded Universe it is mind bending. I am waiting for the last of the Fate of the Jedi series to come out. What we know about the SW universe by watching 6 movies is insignificant to the total works of the Lucas Arts team.

One of my favorite Force techniques is "Force Blood Trace". If it were only possible. :whistle:

I've been watching the clone wars since the first episode, I like the quotes they show at. The beginning of each one

Phortis Nespin wrote: Having spent many years in the Star Wars Role Playing arena with my son and his friends, I have many of the e-books and audio books. There is such a vast amount of data on the Expanded Universe it is mind bending. I am waiting for the last of the Fate of the Jedi series to come out. What we know about the SW universe by watching 6 movies is insignificant to the total works of the Lucas Arts team.

One of my favorite Force techniques is "Force Blood Trace". If it were only possible. :whistle:

Dude, I love you. I've noticed more than a little anti-EU sentiment here, and lots of indifference toward it. I've always been of the opinion that the films were just another small part of Star Wars just like anything else. Were it not for the EU, I'd give not a damn for Star Wars beyond casual interest. Yes, there are assloads of lessons to be learned. I'm reading through The Unifying Force, and I've already highlighted parts, which I will share when I am done.

It's the same as everything else, some things have more useful insights then other things. Its certainly good entertainment if your into this genre, and I do take what I can from it with my own beliefs, so yes it can contain useful content IMO - but the trick is to seperate the fun stuff from the useful stuff.

'Please?' Kendalina begged. Jack pouted, crossing her arms.

"No."

'Pretty please?'

"NO!"

'Pretty please with Whyren's Reserve and Angelina Jolie on top?'

Alcohol and an intelligent, politically savvy, gorgeous actress. Jack's two weaknesses.

"Have fun, you guys." She turned away from the computer and let her fanfiction characters pounce.

'So! Star Wars EU!' Kendalina began, cracking her knuckles, '...Where do we start?'

'Well, what kind of media are we doing?' Her son asked, 'Visual? Interactive? Printed visual? Printed literary? Are we including other films like the Ewok adventures, or the Droids cartoon, or the Star Wars Holida-'

'Oh GOD, NO!' His entirely invented twin sister put in, 'Those were stupid cash-in excuses to make and sell toys and everyone knows it.'

'So... just the books are going to be our focus, then?' Triclops asked, 'That still gives quite a variety of answers -- some were written for a more adult audience, others were written for a younger audience, and even that doesn't divide up into 'More mature and more depth', necessarily.'

'You mean like how 'The Courtship of Princess Leia' is the most disgustingly stereotyped and inaccurate depiction of feminism since 'Single White Female', while the books WE come from are reviled as the worst in all of EU among fans and yet Miss Author STILL has a boner for them to the point she's written essays and fanfiction on them?' Ken asked. Both Triclops and Kendalina gave him very peculiar looks.

'...Despite that she is actually female?' Triclops asked.

'Huh?'

'Boy, don't use words you don't understand.' Kendalina advised.

"Okay! So I'm a nerd and a geek and a dork! I GET it!" Jack called from over in her corner.

'In all seriousness, some of those books ARE good. Some pose difficult questions about morality, religion, politics, and philosophy...' Dalina agreed, turning to her brother to finish the thought.

'...But, I somewhat doubt any author, to date, was actually trying to recreate mythology and present serious morality plays and archetypes the way the original three movies were -- all of the EU either has a distinct flavor of wanting to be a rocking sci-fi space opera adventure, or an attempt at being what the original trilogy was that was left on the burner too long.' Ken finished.

'So... it's kinda like any of the Batman franchise, right?' Kendalina asked, 'There's at least one thing out there for everyone -- just depends on if you prefer serious tones, more action and adventure, more comedy, more romance, more mystery... but chances are there'll be something for anyone who liked the original Star Wars movies in the EU, if you look around hard enough.'

Sapadu wrote: 'Please?' Kendalina begged. Jack pouted, crossing her arms.

"No."

'Pretty please?'

"NO!"

'Pretty please with Whyren's Reserve and Angelina Jolie on top?'

Alcohol and an intelligent, politically savvy, gorgeous actress. Jack's two weaknesses.

"Have fun, you guys." She turned away from the computer and let her fanfiction characters pounce.

'So! Star Wars EU!' Kendalina began, cracking her knuckles, '...Where do we start?'

'Well, what kind of media are we doing?' Her son asked, 'Visual? Interactive? Printed visual? Printed literary? Are we including other films like the Ewok adventures, or the Droids cartoon, or the Star Wars Holida-'

'Oh GOD, NO!' His entirely invented twin sister put in, 'Those were stupid cash-in excuses to make and sell toys and everyone knows it.'

'So... just the books are going to be our focus, then?' Triclops asked, 'That still gives quite a variety of answers -- some were written for a more adult audience, others were written for a younger audience, and even that doesn't divide up into 'More mature and more depth', necessarily.'

'You mean like how 'The Courtship of Princess Leia' is the most disgustingly stereotyped and inaccurate depiction of feminism since 'Single White Female', while the books WE come from are reviled as the worst in all of EU among fans and yet Miss Author STILL has a boner for them to the point she's written essays and fanfiction on them?' Ken asked. Both Triclops and Kendalina gave him very peculiar looks.

'...Despite that she is actually female?' Triclops asked.

'Huh?'

'Boy, don't use words you don't understand.' Kendalina advised.

"Okay! So I'm a nerd and a geek and a dork! I GET it!" Jack called from over in her corner.

'In all seriousness, some of those books ARE good. Some pose difficult questions about morality, religion, politics, and philosophy...' Dalina agreed, turning to her brother to finish the thought.

'...But, I somewhat doubt any author, to date, was actually trying to recreate mythology and present serious morality plays and archetypes the way the original three movies were -- all of the EU either has a distinct flavor of wanting to be a rocking sci-fi space opera adventure, or an attempt at being what the original trilogy was that was left on the burner too long.' Ken finished.

'So... it's kinda like any of the Batman franchise, right?' Kendalina asked, 'There's at least one thing out there for everyone -- just depends on if you prefer serious tones, more action and adventure, more comedy, more romance, more mystery... but chances are there'll be something for anyone who liked the original Star Wars movies in the EU, if you look around hard enough.'

And that s**t is why I can never truly ever call myself a Jediist...

Star Forge wrote: And that s**t is why I can never truly ever call myself a Jediist...

kinda vague, and not really contributive to th conversation I would say....

But, that's my opinion....

Oh yes, I edited your post previous, as we like clean words...

Thanks in advance for understanding...

I learned about the EU while playing knights of the old republic.
After that I wanted to learn more about the EU and a whole world opened up

It's a bit like.. Imagine we knew nothing about the world we live in today except for the books we read (and movies we see) about WW2. But suddenly after that we get to read more books, books about WW1, the vietnam war, the dark ages, the roman empire and so on.
Suddenly the world you thought you knew all about gets a bit bigger.

Strange metaphor.. but this is how it felt like to me

Since then I also consider myself a Star Wars Expanded universe fan.. some of my favorite characters are also EU characters

I've truly enjoyed the Expanded Universe since SW: The Force Unleashed came out. I think that the Darth Bane series of books was the best, as it describes the Dark Side thoroughly.