Star Wars VII-IX, what do you think?

[Buster's Uncle]

...It's not exactly that Anderson can't write -he could never get away with some of the horrific creative decisions he makes if he didn't have a little craft at the spinning of the tale- but I can't really quite put a finger on it, so I'll just say "hack" and move on...

[Buster's Uncle]

Shadows of the Empire sounds exactly right, though, as far as I remember.

[Elok]

SOTE took place between ESB and ROTJ; the plot revolved around the green alien wanting to kill Luke (to spite Vader) and hump Leia (to hump Leia).  Han was in carbonite the whole time, and his role was occupied by some schmoe named Dash Rendar who basically existed to be a carbon copy of Han without the interesting bits.

Scoundrels was a quirky little bit--basically a Star Wars version of Ocean's Eleven--where Han, Chewie, Lando and a bunch of other people got together to rob some guy's super-awesome-unbreakable vault.  Basically, if you remember Han being in the book, it was Scoundrels, by Zahn.  If you remember Luke being in the book, it was Shadows of the Empire, by some dude Lucasfilm hired to novelize their silly movieless movie tie-in cash cow experiment . . . thingy.

[Buster's Uncle]

I really didn't get but 20 pages in, if that - I don't remember the circumstances, maybe just standing in the bookstore and wasn't intrigued enough to buy, 'cause I probably would have finished it if I could have, but --- meh.

[Elok]

Yeah, SOTE, not Zahn at all.  I think his first Thrawn trilogy was about the best thing he's written, and I enjoyed even the parts where Thrawn wasn't around.

[Buster's Uncle]

I wonder if he really said that.  Much cooler, if true, and I've seen he is willing to have fun with the Star Wars fandom thing...

[Buster's Uncle]

the plot revolved around the green alien wanting to kill Luke (to spite Vader) and hump Leia (to hump Leia).

, BTW.  -Joke nailed (presumably unlike Leia).

[Unorthodox]

! No longer available

Need to let these guys do a full blown movie...

[Bearu]

I find the new movies repulsive because the quality of material continues to plummet towards the level of the average American public.

[Lorizael]

Totally. If I'm going to waste time with my friends, I'd much rather do it picking up power converters than watching the new movie.

[Elok]

I've no idea what you mean there, B--the whole problem with VII was that it was so obsessed with replicating the feel of the OT that it failed to be anything more than a very expensive and well-made homage piece.  There was almost nothing novel in the whole thing.  And it was still far, far better than the prequels, so I don't see how decline figures into it at all.

[Buster's Uncle]

Attn: Uno

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4dM0k3p1hY" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4dM0k3p1hY</a>

[Unorthodox]

Matter of time before someone made a star wars version of that costume. 

In other news, Rogue One is looking surprisingly good, in that it seems to really capture the space adventure spirit better than anything since V.  However, I'm getting annoyed with what appears a continued proliferation of non-jedi force-using people being brought into the fold.  Blind magic stick dude is of an age he SHOULD have been in the Jedi academy prior to the destruction, though admittedly he might have a good backstory to explain his existence. You CAN make a star wars movie without any magic people. 

[Buster's Uncle]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB4I68XVPzQ" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB4I68XVPzQ</a>

[Elok]

I'ma be my usual curmudgeonly self and say Rogue One's plot made no sense whatever, the action was filled with silly cliches (how do even stormtroopers manage to miss a guy kneeling over a dying companion for up to ten seconds, right in the line of fire, on two separate occasions?) and pretty much all of the characters were uninteresting.  Also, aforementioned blind stick guy was a silly zatoichi rip.  Not that SW isn't known for recycling tropes from other genres, but somehow just transposing a character directly didn't do it for me.  Bleh.  Between that and Ep. 7 I've finally given up all hope that any Star Wars project for the foreseeable future will rise above dumb 'splosionfests.