Thursday, March 3, 2011

Star Wars - Why I fell out of love with you

(How many characters can YOU recognize?)



At the beginning of February I decided to start reading Star Wars books again. Anyone who knows me knows that I was HEAVY into this back between the Summer of 1996 and the Summer of 2001. I continued a little bit into 2005, but pretty much ended that once Revenge of the Sith came out. Also, in the early 2000's, they began releasing a HUGE story arc called "The New Jedi Order".

From Wookiepeedia: "The New Jedi Order is a multi-author book series that was published by Del Rey between 1999 and 2003, consisting of nineteen novels, two eBook novellas, and three short stories." Let me also note that the story takes place about 25 years after Star Wars episode IV - so the characters are now starting to really show their age.

I've bolded a little bit of that for you to understand why I dropped Star Wars. First, I was in high school, and there was little time enough already, but I managed alright I suppose. I actually made it up to...Book 5 (I had to check that), though I bought Book 6 - never read it. Also, I bought these as soon as they hit the shelves. Book 1 was released in October of 1999, and Book 5 in October of 2000. While that WAS a year to read 5 books, that was a lot of material to be pushing out. That averages to a new book about every 2 1/2 months - not to mention that I didn't read the additional 14 books that came out, the novellas or the short stories. ALSO there were 4 scheduled books that ended up as cancelled projects.


(pulled this picture off of someone's flickr. looks like someone else stopped at the same spot I did.)


Again, I was in high school, mowing lawns and doing menial work around the neighborhood like shoveling dirt, pulling weeds, and watering plants while people were away on vacation. I had a girlfriend and interest in continually shelling out for a series which I knew would be an investment started to not make much sense to me anymore. Book 1 and 6 were both hardcovers (roughly about $28 or so each), and the paperbacks were probably about $14 with tax, so I probably already spent a little over $100. I'm not going to add up how much the entire series would have pushed me back at the time.

Another point to mention was the consistancy. The novels I read were VERY good - don't get me wrong. They were interesting and well written. This was the first time though that such a large story arc was to be undertaken by several writers. Up to this point, I had read all of the "Tales of" books, which features character short stories by various authors. I also owned a lot of the Star Wars RPG books, which featured more short stories by known and unknown authors familiar with the Star Wars universe. This series though, soon became very laborous, as I bounced back and forth between different authors through one continuing storyline. I loved R.A. Salvatore's writing in "Vector Prime", and Michael Stackpole is perhaps my second favorite Star Wars author. They were followed by James Luceno, who was a newcomer to Star Wars. While his books were well written, he had to capture the spirit of many UNUSUAL Star Wars elements.

First off, CHEWBACCA WAS KILLED OFF IN BOOK 1! Yes, you read that correctly. So instead of the snarky Han Solo we know and love, he is depressed and a complete asshole. Meanwhile, an alien species enters the galaxy and uses organic creatures as weaponry - not really Star Wars-esque. While you'd think this might make it easier for a non-Star Wars writer to capture the Star Wars spirit, think again. It's with James Luceno's two books that my interests began to falter.

Then I bought Balance Point in 2001 and realized who the author was. It was Kathy Tyers. This felt like it would be familiar territory with her, as she already wrote about a new conquering alien species back in Truce at Bakura. At the same time, however, the prequel Star Wars films were FAST approaching. I HAD to renew my subscription to Star Wars Insider magazine, and HAD to get the toys based on the new movies. If there was a Vanity Fair magazine with George Lucas on the cover? Have to have that!

I think I decided not to read Balance Point because I know that it was my own balance point. It was the point in which I had to decide if I was going to continue on with this series, or wait someday and perhaps decide to read it then. Maybe I had overloaded myself with novel after novel (I think I read about 50 Star Wars books up until that point), and the future of Star Wars was looking grim. If Chewbacca died, what ELSE was in store for my friends from a galaxy far, far away?

("Is this REALLY going to be worth my time and money?" - Michael, 2001)


Well, I set the books down for a while.

Revenge of the Sith came out in 2005, and I said, "well, it's over now, isn't it?"

A few years after that, I continued to look back at those movies with a sadness (as do many) of how the prequels didn't turn out how I wanted them. The original trilogy continued on as the ONLY Star Wars movies that I accepted, and that was pretty much it.

(In the next installment, I will skip ahead to how I fell back in love with Star Wars, so stay tuned!)

No comments:

Post a Comment