A New (Expanded) Hope

I've made no secret - to anyone - about my, shall we say, "disappointment" with George Lucas this decade and what he's done with the Star Wars franchise. This strikes some as being ungrateful - after all, it is George who first birthed this universe that I've loved so much since that first time, as a kid, I sat wide-eyed and stunned by the original film back in '77. But this universe has turned into something both embarrassing and, frankly, offensive to lifelong fans of it. Lucas has not only turned it into a kiddie property, but has turned it into a completely crappy one, too.

I was there opening day for Episode I, and I was deep into fan nirvana. I'd waited for twenty years. Finally, more Star Wars! And I was also one of the people who, because of this, lived in denial for a long time. I saw it several times in the theater - because that's what us old Star Wars fans do - each time convincing myself that it wasn't the garbage that it really was. I held out hope that things would get better with the next one. I ended up practicing the same denial for that one. By the third film, I had finally become jaded. I only saw this one once on the big screen. And by that time, no amount of Kool-Aid-drinking fanboy obsession could hide the truth. Lucas had lot it. He was a terrible director. He was a terrible storyteller. And he was ruining the franchise.

One would assume, based on these films and the animated things that followed, that all hope was lost.

"No. There is another."

(You see what I did there?).

What few people in the mainstream know is that the Star Wars universe is much, much bigger than just the six movies. There's something out there called the Star Wars Expanded Universe. This began when it didn't look like any more Star Wars films would be coming in our lifetime. And it was realized that film was not the only venue to tell tales of this enormous universe that we all craved more of. Star Wars novels began. Most dork franchises have novels to go with them, often just throwaway things to make money that sell in supermarkets and severely lack quality. But the people at Lucas' empire decided to do something different. They created novels that picked up after Return of the Jedi left off, and continued the story of all these beloved characters and explored all the different parts of their universe that we only ever got glimpses of in the films. The first big hit was Timothy Zahn's "Heir to the Empire" trilogy, and the fan response was enormous.

Not so much for me. I tried them. I really tried. But I'm just not enough of a fan to be able to overlook bad writing to get the stories I want. To me (and a lot of people disagree, and I understand that), Zahn is just a crappy writer. I forced my way through the first book - after a couple of attempts - and started the second one, but I couldn't finish.

Due to this popularity, more books started to be produced. I would occasionally try them when my Star Wars jones got too frantic. I don't think I ever finished one of those, either. Again...bad writing. It seemed I wasn't able to share in this new movement and follow along with the future of Star Wars like so many others.

But in the year 2000, a year when I still hadn't quite accepted what Episode I truly was and was still in a place of renewed Star Wars love, I read about a new series of books called the New Jedi Order. I was intrigued to discover that the books coming out had been building a timeline all this time (as had the Star Wars comics that had been coming out), and that this big, epic story, which was to take place over nineteen novels and be published over five years, was one that took place twenty-five years after Return. I was very curious to see what happened to my beloved characters, ones who, in some cases, now had kids. And I was more intrigued by the idea that instead of using the same crap writers they had been (again, just in my opinion), they were pulling in veteran sci-fi and fantasy novelists to tell the monster tale. I was intrigued enough to grab the first book, take a deep breath, and plunge in.

Wow.

I don't know what I'd been expecting, but it wasn't this. This was a great story. The first book, Vector Prime (written by R.A. Salvatore), really blew me away. It was dark. It was violent. It was actually scary. There was no Jar Jar, no exclamations of "yippee!!", no poodoo jokes. This book began the tale of a war - a real war, with all the horrors and death and destruction that came with it. And right in the first book, a major Star Wars character died (I won't say who in case you missed the news), something I wish I hadn't been spoiled on in the article where I'd first heard of the series. I loved seeing all the old characters again. I loved seeing them having to react to this devastating series of events. And I loved the fact that I knew enough about this Expanded Universe to know that the books were pulling in characters from all the previous Star Wars novels. Even if I didn't want to read many of those books, I loved the fact, from a fan perspective, that they were sticking sternly to ongoing continuity and using everything that had come before. I was completely hooked.

And I followed the whole story, waiting for each new novel with great anticipation. In fact, I even heard about a contest on the official Star Wars web site where you could win a chance to get the next novel in the series well in advance ("Edge of Victory II" by Greg Keyes) and get to review it on the site, and I entered it and won (how THAT for fanboyishness?). As you might have guessed, I'm really picky when it comes to novels and writers - but in this series, there was only one novel in nineteen that I didn't enjoy. Not bad at all. It was epic - huge things happened, characters changed, characters died, the whole face of the Star Wars universe changed. It was immensely satisfying - and yet, published all during the time that George was screwing everything else up with his prequel fetish, a tale about whiny, emotionally infantile people in the middle of a war between clones and wacky robots.

I became such a huge fan of the novels after this, and was able to fill in the gaps of my Expanded Universe knowledge with handy Star Wars Guides to characters, races and planets (all of which is more easily available online now). The problem with this love was trying to share it with other fans of the big SW. You see, even amongst nerds, there are lines in the nerdy sand. I'll know someone, for example, who'll be completely into the films, and will even collect action figures and all the Star Wars Legos. But the minute I mention I'm reading Star Wars novels, that same person will look at me like I just told him I play with Barbie dolls. Any attempts I make to try to convey how cool I think they are hit a big "loser!" brick wall and fall on deaf ears. It's an interesting contradiction. And one that generally means that I'm a Star Wars fan who'll be taking this Expanded journey without most of his fellow Star Wars fans. So be it. Embrace your Count Dooku, you nerf herders!

What makes the novels work is all this post-Return stuff clearly holds no interest to George. Yes, I'm sure all this stuff has to get run by him at some point. But he seems (gratefully) to just rubber stamp it and go back to playing in his Clone Wars era where droids say "roger, roger" and kids get to be Nascar champs. Couldn't...be...happier with that. The less his hands are on this part of the universe, the better for all of us. I know...it's sad to say that. But I just can't continue to defend a guy who's so clearly lost it and refuses to listen to critics (and why would you if you had millions of Stormtrooper-costume-wearing fanatics telling you that everything you touch turns to gold?). I respect the man for what he created. But it's what he created that I love, and watching him, year by year, contaminate and dismantle it is something I can just no longer stomach.

So let him, I say, keep making properties for the kids. I hope the kids love it. I really do. But for those of us who grew up with Star Wars and are now grown-ups, who realize that stories can be told FOR grownups within this vast world, there are, thankfully, the novels. Which I will continue to read as long as the quality is there. It's not always. I tried my best to read the trilogy that took place after the New Jedi Order, but couldn't get through the first book. The story being told there just had no interest to me. The nine-novel series that followed, though, did interest me, so I was able to find a web site that summed up the bizarre bug novels that I couldn't stomach, just to be up to date on what happened to the characters, and jump into the first book in the Legacy of the Force series just recently, written by one of my favorite Star Wars writers, Aaron Allston. The good news is that I haven't had time to read in so long, the series is now over. So now that I'm unemployed, I've got all nine novels ready to be enjoyed. And I guess I'd better hurry, because another series, apparently, has already started after THAT one.

If you're a Star Wars fan, and I mean a fan of the original trilogy, I'd highly advise getting past the stigma and trying the novels out. There are plenty of places online where you can find a chronology so you'll know where to start. And chances are you won't have the same overly-picky writer problems that I do (I have issues...), so you'll be able to enjoy a lot more of them than I have. If you've ever found yourself wondering what happened after Return of the Jedi, there are thousands of pages just waiting to answer that for you. Not only can you watch your favorite characters grow (and grow old - the current book I'm reading is up to 35 years past return), but you experience their children being born and follow along as THEY grow into adulthood and become the newest heroes of the Star Wars galaxy. And you'll meet plenty of fantastic new characters along the way, too. Give one a try, see what you think. The grown-up Star Wars universe awaits you.

Unless you're into poodoo. If so...well, may the poodoo be with you. As long as George keeps calling the shots, I guarantee you that it will be.