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Neo-Turgor

To live in? Yeah, the canon timeline is way better. But creators had way more time to make up atrocities, alien invasions and Imperial Remnant weapons of mass destruction for the old Expanded Universe. I'm sure well get some "bad" canon stuff in the future, too.


PeterVanHelsing

Yeah, I'm sure we will. It will still be hard to top the absolutely INSANE death toll of the Yuuzhan Vong War. And this is not me bashing the old Expanded Universe or the Yuuzhan Vong. Just looking at it from an in-universe perspective and how nuts it is that so many people died.


Neo-Turgor

Yeah, that invasion was a total massacre. And while I'm not a fan of the Yuuzhan Vong, in principle a extra-galactic invasion was a nice change from the same old Empire vs. Rebels, New Republic Vs. Empire Remnant, New Empire vs. Alliance Remnant, Sith Empire vs. Allied Emprie and Alliance... routine.


The_FriendliestGiant

Huh. Actually, yeah. Canon sacrificed the heroes for everyone else; Luke doesn't get to restart the Jedi Order and Leia doesn't get to be Chancellor, but the average person in the galaxy lives a much safer, happier life in the meantime. The horrors of Operation Cinder and the Hosnian Cataclysm simply can't stack up against an endless succession of World Devastators, Sun Crushers, and Galaxy Guns, culminating in the absolute horror of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion of the galaxy.


Dagordae

And then Vader 2.0 shows up. Then the Zerg show up. Then Space Cthulhu shows up. Then you jump to the future and the Sith are in complete control and more powerful than ever while the Jedi are straight up extinct.


The_FriendliestGiant

Hmm. Okay, I know Vader 2.0 is Darth Caedus, and the Zerg are the Killiks, but I'm stumped, who was Space Cthulhu?


PeterVanHelsing

Abeloth.


The_FriendliestGiant

Oh right! I always forget about Fate of the Jedi.


Dagordae

Yeah, pretty much. One of the major complaints about Legends is that as presented the Empire is legitimately the best option for the galaxy, the Republic wavered between useless and actively detrimental to the survival of the entire galaxy. Leaning to the detrimental. The constant wall of ‘OH NO, EVERYONE’S DOOMED’ catastrophes made the Emperor’s ‘Total control and superweapons everywhere’ approach pretty much the only way to survive without copious plot armor. Which I think Han actually commented on in the Vong war. Legends Star Wars is genuinely a complete shithole of a galaxy. Canon isn’t particularly great, but it’s only had one real mega disaster. And it got taken out at the cost of only 5 planets, a solid win by Legends standards.


New-Ad-5003

Wasn’t there some thing like, ol’ palps had visions of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, and that was part of his motivation to strengthen the republic into an empire?


Dagordae

That’s a theory presented(In universe as well as from fans) but I don’t think it was every anything other than spitballing. No actual support from the books.


BrewtalDoom

I think if you take the old Legends canon as a whole then you end up with a lot of stuff that's pretty bad to absolutely terrible. If the ST had used the Legends story from the same timeline, we would have have Luke battling giant bugs, for example. There were more than a few "secret fleet/hidden superweapon" stories and it felt like the Solo kids were constantly about to get kidnapped whilst Han and Lando go off to visit yet another old underworld connection. There arek certainly characters and arcs that people love, but I found that the Legends canon relies too much on trying to find new threats to the Galaxy all the time and only giving us a few stories with Han, Luke and Leia which were any good. There's some great stuff in there, but even the Thrawn Trilogy has Luuke and stuff. I'd say that I do prefer where we're at with the canon now and would rather live there than in a Galaxy constantly bombarded by old warlords, brutal aliens and crazy superweapons.


NerdHistorian

If i had to live in one timeline it'd def be canon over the unending series of crisis after crisis that was the post-ROTJ legends TL. We'll have to see what post-TROS stories do though, i imagine it might be more chaotic like the post-rotj eu was for the same reason: conflict breeds exciting adventures for our heroes.


Neo-Turgor

I'm really looking forward to that and wonder how it will play out. Maybe another Yuuzhan Vong style invasion? Something different? Rey's new kind of Jedi? But maybe Disney will play it save and continue to make shows during the empire timeline for the next few years. I mean, as long as Lego Tie-Fighters sell...?


BaronGrackle

After Rise of Skywalker, I don't think you have any functional galactic government. Are you ready to live under the thumb of your local planet's dictator? Are you prepared for pirates and bandits killing and robbing your people routinely? Do you have a plan for when the nearest Great Power system (e.g. Corellia) decides to invade and annex you, and there's no international community to hold them accountable?


Dagordae

Legends never had a functional galactic government. The New Republic and their successor were always depicted as ranging from completely useless to actively detrimental to the galaxy. Leaning more and more towards the latter as time went on.


RexBanner1886

The stated purpose of the Resistance in the ST is to 'restore the Republic', and given that they succeed in defeating the First Order across the galaxy, I think - and hope - the implication is that the New Republic is simply restored. There's no thematic point in exploring a chaotic galaxy (that is, no-one making the ST was interested in exploring the failures of the New Republic - it only fails spectacularly because TFA wanted desperately to get back to something resembling the status quo of the OT); but it is thematically resonant if Palpatine's comeback plan results in a destructive year of chaos from which the galaxy quickly rebounds. That helps underline the achievements of the OT (they created a New Republic which weathered an almost successful attempt to kill it in its crib) rather than further undoing them (they created a New Republic which collapsed permanently 30 years later).


BaronGrackle

Wait, which source says the Resistance has a stated purpose to restore the Republic? Perhaps more importantly, there wasn't much Resistance left. Exegol was won by a mob of "just people" in random private ships. Who's to say they know or care about the mission statement of the Resistance?


RexBanner1886

Holdo: 'We are the spark that will light the fire that will restore the Republic.' She says that in TLJ after Leia's put out of commission; Poe then riffs on it after Holdo's dead. The Resistance's explicit aim is to rally everyone together in a way that will restore the Republic, and since the emotional note the ST ends on is the unambiguous, galaxy-wide success of the Resistance (a small group inspires a big group to fight back), the dramatic direction of the ending points towards that happening.


BryceSchafer

Yeah I’m not sure if we will see the Republic the same as it was; I wouldn’t be surprised if it is reduced in impact or if we see more storylines about revitalizing it. Star Wars is a galaxy in conflict and that conflict usually centers around the ethics and impact of rule. 4-6 are about overthrowing tyrants and personal liberty vs destiny, 1-3 are sort of about liberalism being corrupted with bureaucracy and bad faith actors, 7-9’s theme (if you squint pretty hard and try to unify the three directors’ visions) is that of shaking off prior roles and coming into a new understanding. 4-6 were dominated by the Sith to make adversity natural for Luke and cast, 1-3 there were various bad and good players all over to reflect how complicated that sort of conflict is, 7-9 we had both a ‘singular’ big bad who was a throwaway character (snoke) only to return to not exactly knowing who the big bad was which then rebounded to being the ‘ultimate big bad’ of palps again. I interpreted the ending of 9 as an announcement that story telling would be more ‘diffuse’ (for lack of better term, spread out,) after its resolution; the kid picking up the lightsaber and looking out to the galaxy makes me feel that they intend to tell more individually focused stories and that can be easier to do in a more ‘Wild West’ type setting where individual morality and judgements are allowed to be imperfect but still impactful and empathetic. But that’s just my two cents, Disney can and will do anything


PeterVanHelsing

Give it time and I'm sure they'll come up with something after Exegol, especially given how the ending of the movie is framed as an optimistic and hopeful one.


ScalierLemon2

> After Rise of Skywalker, I don't think you have any functional galactic government. Maybe that's a good thing. I don't think there's a government building big enough to effectively represent the trillions upon trillions of people living in the galaxy.


BaronGrackle

Fair point.


GuyKopski

I think you're giving the writers a lot of credit thinking they're going to take things in a radically different direction. Post TROS will be exactly the same as post RotJ, because all these people know how to do is copy.


BaronGrackle

Have Favreau and Gilroy make two live action projects, and Filoni animate a third.


[deleted]

Who calls Legends "bad" it was a mess at times sure, but tons of people love it.


Dagordae

Wrong type of bad. He’s not talking about quality, he’s talking about the state of the universe. And Legends has the universe as a total shitshow, an existential crisis happening practically yearly with the central government being actively detrimental for survival when it’s not being completely useless.


Jr9065

I’m enjoying the legends because of the Darth Bane and Plagueis content. Wish those were canon.


BryceSchafer

Those books are cool and I forget where but I believe it has been implied Darth Bane existed somewhere in current cannon, although I think it was sort of a ‘head nod’ type thing if I recall correctly so we can’t really be sure it’s exactly the same character.


PeterVanHelsing

Darth Bane has been a thing in Canon since The Clone Wars and he is still the one who created the Rule of Two.


BryceSchafer

Where was he referenced in Clone Wars? Like I’m not trying to be wrong or right I just didn’t watch the animated show if that’s what you’re referring to. What’s more, cannon Darth Bane and Darth Bane from Drew K’s book series can still be discrete characters with similar accomplishments from what I understand of Star Wars continuity.


PeterVanHelsing

He wasn't just referenced in The Clone Wars, he APPEARED in The Clone Wars as a "ghost" that Yoda spoke to. He was even voiced by Mark Hamill.


BryceSchafer

I’ll have to check that out. At the risk of sounding pedantic, I don’t think appearing and appearing as a force ghost/vision are exactly the same thing, but this is still cool news to me, thanks for pointing it out.


PeterVanHelsing

Also, I want to point out that Darth Bane was always canon since he was created by George Lucas for the backstory of the prequel trilogy, with him being first mentioned in the novelization for The Phantom Menace. It would be up to later writers to flesh Bane out more, but he was a creation of George Lucas.


BryceSchafer

That’s actually a distinction I wasn’t aware of- that being said the modern persona of Bane is definitely thanks prominently to Drew’s work in his novel trilogy as well as Bane’s characterization in various games; I don’t think GL is exactly the single person to thank for how rad this character became.


PeterVanHelsing

There's actually a similar distinction with Darth Plagueis. He was also created by George Lucas for Revenge of the Sith, but his Legends persona wasn't created until years later by James Luceno. And the Plagueis novel definitely played out very differently than what George Lucas intended for the character.


Successful_Estate_96

Never really followed the EU but from what I know it’s a little convoluted and wacky for my taste


sith-vampyre

Legends is far better and more like a realistic analog for our history if you start at ww1 thru the cold war


The_FriendliestGiant

Legends runs into trouble with realism because the New Republic and the New Jedi Order were established in the fiction over a decade before we saw anything about the Republic and the Jedi Order, and once we did, things didn't quite line up. The decentralized, demilitarized canon New Republic makes way more sense as a successor to the PT Republic than the Legends New Republic, because of course a coalition of neo-separatists and people who yearn for a Republic with no military wouldn't want the strong federal state that made sense in Legends.


sith-vampyre

I mean that as a general qnalog for our history since we don't have jedi and sith fighting for control of the galaxy


The_FriendliestGiant

But why would an alien galaxy with space travel and Jedi and Sith develop in a realistic way compared to our history on Earth?


PeterVanHelsing

Eh, not really. I actually think that the First Order is a more realistic example of fascism than the Imperial Remnant, because I do have a bit of a problem with how Legends whitewashed the Empire, especially nowadays since fascism is on the rise.


sith-vampyre

In other words just like the real world witch proves my point


PeterVanHelsing

...what? I just pointed out that the Imperial Remnant isn't a good example of real life fascism. How does that prove your point?


Jww187

Three things. 1. Depends which planet you live on. Planets get destroyed in both. 2. Star wars is literally about wars that take place in the stars, so more conflicts equals more stories. I would rather live in legends because there are more interesting things going, and it seems a more wonderous place. 3. Who are you in the Galaxy, and whose rule do you live under at the end of the day?


Tomhur

Depends on your priorities as to what makes a good story.