A Universe Is Dead…Long Live A Universe

The Star Wars Expanded Universe as we have known it is gone. The seventeen years I have spent reading comics and book, playing video games are smashed like a TIE Fighter in an asteroid field. So we have two options; we can either rage against this bold move which will accomplish…nothing, or we can except it. As for this Fanboy, I have chosen to accept it.

If we really sit down and think about it, to continue with movies it was really the only option open to Disney. It would be all but IMPOSSIBLE for them to keep a movie in canon and it NOT turn into four hours of back story. If this movie is supposed to take place some thirty to forty years after Return of the Jedi think of all they would have to explain. Questions like, Who is Mara Jade and where the heck did she come from? What happened to Chewbacca? When did Han and Leia have a kid?….oh wait…they had three? Well where are the other two? When did Boba Fett make it out of the Sarlacc Pit? And what the heck happened to Coruscant!?  Let’s be serious there would be so few people who could actually enjoy that movie. I mean even with superhero movies I am amazed at how surprised people can be at moments they would have seen coming from a mile away if they had read a comic (like who is the Winter Soldier,) sometimes we forget not everyone is as…dedicated as us.

But hey! The books will live on as the Star Wars Legends. Or as I like to look at it, just like you have the main Marvel Universe and the Marvel Ultimate Universe, for me the original Star Wars canon and all the old books shall be the Star Wars Universe and all this new stuff will be the Star Wars Ultimate Universe! Neither is better than the other (in theory) simply different. But in honor of the fallen here are my three favorite Star Wars Legends books if you are ever looking for a good read.

Darth Bane: Path of Destruction

by Drew Karpshyn

When the movies enter the Star Wars Universe with Episode I the Sith are all but extinct, or so they would have the Jedi believe. But nearly a thousand years before a single Sith found that the only way to truly harness the power of the Dark Side is to have it centered around and belonging to a single figure. Thus began the era of the Rule of Two. This is the story of Darth Bane the first true Dark Lord of the Sith, and the beginning of the fall of the Jedi.

Tales of the Bounty Hunters

by Dave Wolverton, M. Shayne Bell, Kevin J. Anderson, Kathy Tyers, and Daniel Keys Moran

Ever wonder what the story is behind all of the Bounty Hunters that answered Darth Vader’s call in episode V? (Even though I guess now it is no longer the OFFICIAL story.) Here is a collection of short stories that will reveal the motives and origins of some of the galaxies most notorious rouges, and why they are so serious about bringing down Han Solo.

Vector Prime

by R. A. Salvatore

Not only is this the first novel in the New Jedi Order series, it is also the introduction of a new menace to the galaxy that is completely absent in the force. Written by one of my favorite authors, R. A.Salvatore, the story is fast, exciting and delivers the valiant last stand of one of Star Wars most beloved characters.

We may be losing a lot of great moments in Star Wars with the dismissal of the Expanded Universe but we are also getting rid of a lot of things that ended up being…meh. It is also a great opportunity to answer a lot of what if questions. I guess we will find out in September when the first new book is released in the new Expanded Universe.

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