Couldn't have said it better myself.j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:The Star Wars EU is the same as any fiction's expanded universe- there's some really, really good stuff. Quite a lot of it, in fact. And there is also a lot of absolute drivel.
The problem is that there's a small army of writers and creative teams working on Star Wars projects, each of whom has their own ideas on the way the Force works, the way Jedi work, the way intergalactic politics work... it means there is a metric fuckton of inconsistencies and outright contradictions, as you get all these different writers struggling to put their own stamp on the Star Wars setting. Blame Lucasfilm and Lucasarts for this. They decided they wanted Star Wars to become this huge, multimedia franchise, so they've been hiring people to crank out stuff for years now.
The other problem with the EU is the unwavering devotion to the characters of the original trilogy. Occasional forays into Old Republic, Prequel and Legacy eras aside, most of the EU fiction focuses on what the original gang did after the Battle Of Endor was won. And while that gave us the Thrawn trilogy, and all the awesomness therein, it also meant that the lifestory of Luke Skywalker is now on giant clusterfuck of events. Seriously, after the fall of the Emperor, he leads a war against the remnants of the Empire, falls to the dark side (!) and serves a cloned Emperor with god powers, overthrows the Emperor again, fights a war against a species of intergalactic invaders, then has to fight his own nephew who has become a Dark lord.
In trying to emulate the drama and grandeur of the original trilogy, the EU has to a great extent undone the emotional core of those films. Darth Vader's sacrifice means little when you know that Palpatine will be reborn at a later date, and Luke will willingly become his apprentice. The sheer effort the Rebellion goes to in order to win freedom means buggerall when a few years later the Yuzhon Vong will completely annihilate whatever semblance of order they have created.
When the EU focuses on events outside of the main trilogy, or on characters with only a tenuous link, then it really shines. Star Wars is too big a setting to keep rehashing the same characters and the same plotlines over and over again.
My favorite parts of EU:
- Knights of the Old Republic (both games are just plain great)
- Republic Commando (game and books (to my surprise they were actually pretty good))
- Thrawn Trilogy (damn good books, Thrawn is epic)
- Jedi Knight series (best lightsaber combat in Star Wars games)