Your Star Wars Headcanon
Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2018 6:36 am
So I'm watching the Star Wars: REBELS series finale, and I'm kind of sad to see it go. The series overall felt like a solid Star Wars TV show, and in a way it really felt like someone's old West End Star Wars RPG group. you had the badass pilot, the Mandalorian, the Jedi Master, the Jedi Apprentice, the guy who created his own alien race because he wanted to be "the big guy" without being a Wookie, and the guy who played the jerk of an astromech because he just wanted to be the gadfly.
Between it and the incredible disappointment of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I've been going through a lot of my Star Wars movies, novels, RPG books, comics, and the like, and I'll be the first to admit the setting became pretty bloated by the time Disney decided to divide the franchise into "Legends" and "Current Canon". A LOT of the Legends stuff was just as bad as the stuff we got out of The Last Jedi, and it makes me think that there should have been some tighter control over the franchise, what should have been allowed to be written, etc.
And like many geeks who have had franchises they love hurt by poor management (looking at you, Marvel Family, Highlander, the Crow, heck, Marvel and DC in general), I have my own personal headcanon regarding what sources I consider for the setting, or at least the setting I'd use if I were going to run anything.
For me, it basically goes like this:
•The Prequel Trilogy: Weird, I know, given the hate the prequels receive, a lot of it justified. But still, I'd include them for several reasons. The Phantom Menace let us have Liam Neson as a Jedi and gave us some solid lightsaber fights with Darth Maul, Attack of the Clones lead into the Clone Wars tv series, and Revenge of the Sith, while not a great movie, was turned into an amazing novel that really explored Anakin's fall to the Dark Side.
•The Clone Wars TV series: Both of them. The "Samurai Jack" series for being more of what I feel high powered Jedi should be capable of, the CGI series for eventually becoming what a good Star Wars series should be about.
•The REBELS TV series: Like I said, I mostly enjoyed the series.
•Rogue One: This was, to me, a solid addition to the Star Wars franchise, and way better than either of the "official" new trilogy films.
•The Vader/Star Wars Marvel series: Marvel's done a lot of solid work with this series, showcasing the time between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. The scene where Vader discovers Luke is his son is particularly powerful.
•The Original Trilogy: Because duh.
•Scoundrels: If you haven't read this, it's basically "Ocean's 11 in Space", where Han, Lando, Chewie and some other criminals pull a robbery on a powerful crime lord. It's REALLY good stuff, and I recommend it to anyone who hasn't heard of it.
•Shadow of the Empire: A light story that bridges some of the gap between Empire and Return of the Jedi.
•The Thrawn Trilogy: The first expanded universe novel trilogy, and overall my favorite EU book series. It did a lot to flesh out the setting, put some rules to the technology and Force powers, and with the exception of a few things, is about as faithful a follow-up to Star Wars as you could hope to have.
Outside of those stories, I'm pretty loose on what I do and don't consider hard canon for what I'd use for a Star Wars setting. I love pretty much anything with Luke and Mara's relationship. I love what Luke turned the Jedi Order into (as detailed here), but several of the novels dealing with the Jedi Order were pretty bad, and the first Jedi Academy trilogy was . . . VERY questionable.
I also dislike the weird notions that have cropped up about the Force over time, that it needs to be a balance between the Light and Dark, which always seemed silly to me. Originally, there was no Light and Dark side of the Force. There was THE FORCE and there was the DARK SIDE of the Force. The way I always interpreted it was that the Force as a whole was about balance, harmony, the connection between living things. The Dark Side was, in turn, basically things that caused imbalances in the Force, a corruption of what should perfect harmony. Anger, for instance, is a perfectly healthy thing that would be considered of the Force, but Hatred would not, because Hatred is Anger taken to unreasonable degrees. In essence, the emotions that fuel the Dark Side are normal healthy emotions taken to unhealthy extremes. That was why the Jedi of the Old Republic, under Yoda's guidance over the last couple hundred years, chose to close themselves off from any emotions or connections that could potentially lead to the Dark Side. It's why they try to control emotions like Fear or Anger, because they can become channels to the Dark Side if not handled properly. As the computer said, the only winning move is not to play.
Unfortunately, going that route cuts the Jedi off from many of the things that makes life worth living, the positive emotions that help fuel life and the Force. Furthermore, it leaves young and inexperienced Jedi unprepared to deal with situations that come up, how to resist temptation or act with emotional maturity in the face of certain emotions. In effect, for all his wisdom, Yoda eventually admitted that he broke the Jedi Order by letting it stagnate over the last 100 years or so. Luke's Jedi, by contrast, were trained to better understand and handle such emotions and resist that temptation, to forge bonds with people and be amongst the civilians they served and protected. Overall, Luke's New Jedi Order should have been a much healthier and balanced Order than what the Old Jedi Order eventually became.
So it's one reason why I tend to ignore notions of balancing the "Light and the Dark" aspects of the Force. The Dark Side is not something that needs to be balanced, because the things empower it are by definition corruption of good things. It turns justice into vengeance, love into possessiveness, admiration into jealous, anger into hate, fear into cowardice, and is built on a foundation of treachery. The Dark Side is not something you balance, it is a cancer you fight with every fiber of your being.
*PHEW*
Sorry about that.
So, if you had editorial control over what was and wasn't Star Wars canon, what are some other Star Wars books, video games, comics, RPGs and the like you would include? What are your favorite works from a Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away?
Between it and the incredible disappointment of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I've been going through a lot of my Star Wars movies, novels, RPG books, comics, and the like, and I'll be the first to admit the setting became pretty bloated by the time Disney decided to divide the franchise into "Legends" and "Current Canon". A LOT of the Legends stuff was just as bad as the stuff we got out of The Last Jedi, and it makes me think that there should have been some tighter control over the franchise, what should have been allowed to be written, etc.
And like many geeks who have had franchises they love hurt by poor management (looking at you, Marvel Family, Highlander, the Crow, heck, Marvel and DC in general), I have my own personal headcanon regarding what sources I consider for the setting, or at least the setting I'd use if I were going to run anything.
For me, it basically goes like this:
•The Prequel Trilogy: Weird, I know, given the hate the prequels receive, a lot of it justified. But still, I'd include them for several reasons. The Phantom Menace let us have Liam Neson as a Jedi and gave us some solid lightsaber fights with Darth Maul, Attack of the Clones lead into the Clone Wars tv series, and Revenge of the Sith, while not a great movie, was turned into an amazing novel that really explored Anakin's fall to the Dark Side.
•The Clone Wars TV series: Both of them. The "Samurai Jack" series for being more of what I feel high powered Jedi should be capable of, the CGI series for eventually becoming what a good Star Wars series should be about.
•The REBELS TV series: Like I said, I mostly enjoyed the series.
•Rogue One: This was, to me, a solid addition to the Star Wars franchise, and way better than either of the "official" new trilogy films.
•The Vader/Star Wars Marvel series: Marvel's done a lot of solid work with this series, showcasing the time between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. The scene where Vader discovers Luke is his son is particularly powerful.
•The Original Trilogy: Because duh.
•Scoundrels: If you haven't read this, it's basically "Ocean's 11 in Space", where Han, Lando, Chewie and some other criminals pull a robbery on a powerful crime lord. It's REALLY good stuff, and I recommend it to anyone who hasn't heard of it.
•Shadow of the Empire: A light story that bridges some of the gap between Empire and Return of the Jedi.
•The Thrawn Trilogy: The first expanded universe novel trilogy, and overall my favorite EU book series. It did a lot to flesh out the setting, put some rules to the technology and Force powers, and with the exception of a few things, is about as faithful a follow-up to Star Wars as you could hope to have.
Outside of those stories, I'm pretty loose on what I do and don't consider hard canon for what I'd use for a Star Wars setting. I love pretty much anything with Luke and Mara's relationship. I love what Luke turned the Jedi Order into (as detailed here), but several of the novels dealing with the Jedi Order were pretty bad, and the first Jedi Academy trilogy was . . . VERY questionable.
I also dislike the weird notions that have cropped up about the Force over time, that it needs to be a balance between the Light and Dark, which always seemed silly to me. Originally, there was no Light and Dark side of the Force. There was THE FORCE and there was the DARK SIDE of the Force. The way I always interpreted it was that the Force as a whole was about balance, harmony, the connection between living things. The Dark Side was, in turn, basically things that caused imbalances in the Force, a corruption of what should perfect harmony. Anger, for instance, is a perfectly healthy thing that would be considered of the Force, but Hatred would not, because Hatred is Anger taken to unreasonable degrees. In essence, the emotions that fuel the Dark Side are normal healthy emotions taken to unhealthy extremes. That was why the Jedi of the Old Republic, under Yoda's guidance over the last couple hundred years, chose to close themselves off from any emotions or connections that could potentially lead to the Dark Side. It's why they try to control emotions like Fear or Anger, because they can become channels to the Dark Side if not handled properly. As the computer said, the only winning move is not to play.
Unfortunately, going that route cuts the Jedi off from many of the things that makes life worth living, the positive emotions that help fuel life and the Force. Furthermore, it leaves young and inexperienced Jedi unprepared to deal with situations that come up, how to resist temptation or act with emotional maturity in the face of certain emotions. In effect, for all his wisdom, Yoda eventually admitted that he broke the Jedi Order by letting it stagnate over the last 100 years or so. Luke's Jedi, by contrast, were trained to better understand and handle such emotions and resist that temptation, to forge bonds with people and be amongst the civilians they served and protected. Overall, Luke's New Jedi Order should have been a much healthier and balanced Order than what the Old Jedi Order eventually became.
So it's one reason why I tend to ignore notions of balancing the "Light and the Dark" aspects of the Force. The Dark Side is not something that needs to be balanced, because the things empower it are by definition corruption of good things. It turns justice into vengeance, love into possessiveness, admiration into jealous, anger into hate, fear into cowardice, and is built on a foundation of treachery. The Dark Side is not something you balance, it is a cancer you fight with every fiber of your being.
*PHEW*
Sorry about that.
So, if you had editorial control over what was and wasn't Star Wars canon, what are some other Star Wars books, video games, comics, RPGs and the like you would include? What are your favorite works from a Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away?