In the midst of a site where I often reread stories and share my views, I feel a need to explain why I’ve not done the rather popular New Jedi Order era and later. While I did like parts of it, I found it was too long and didn’t fit the inspiring balance between humor, adventure, and hope against darkness that the movies or previous books had. I felt it was disadvantaged by coming out alongside the prequels. I felt the darkness and compromises it made undermined beloved characters and, in so doing, even negatively impacts the movies.
The New Jedi Order was a Long Series That Both Negatively Affected the Prequel Stories, and Was Negatively Affected by Them.
The New Jedi Order era came out as the Prequels were coming out, and had a negative effect because of it. First, it denied us stories of the new movies characters that we could’ve had. The old era had loads of OT character books already, and even great stories that made background characters popular. The prequels were denied this specifically because they pushed out a long series on the OT characters.
Examples:
- The entire OT era is focused on Luke, Han, Leia, Lando, Chewie, 3PO and R2. We already had loads of books focused on them.
- It boosted Wedge Antillies popularity in the X-Wing Series, and gave short stories to Bounty Hunters, denizens of the Mos Eisley Cantina and Jabba’s Palace
- It introduced all new characters and spun them into very popular new characters, such as Mara Jade, Thrawn, the Solo kids, Tahiri, Tenel Ka, and other new Jedi.
Examples we missed:
- There were only a handful of Prequel stories in comparison. Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Dooku, Anakin, as well as other main characters should’ve had more adult books. The YA books were excellent but there was room for more.
- The Mos Espa denizens, the Coruscant Outlander Club, never got anything. Except a few brief mentions in the Young Adult books
In addition to this, the New Jedi Order era arc itself lost out because the prequels were in play. The original story clearly called for Anakin Solo to be the hero. But George Lucas, quite naturally and correctly, felt it would be confusing to have one Anakin in the movie and a different one in the books, be a protagonist at the same time. He did not tell them to kill him, but just not to use him as a protagonist. The story group made the choice to kill him, not because they needed too, but apparently because they wanted a family member dead.
To finish off this, the New Jedi Order series was very long. Nineteen books just for the initial war with the Yuuzhan Vong. That is both expensive and or time-consuming, both to get and read. And since it’s a series, you dare not miss one! So the negative effect was both in galaxy and in the real world for those who have to wait for the library.
The New Jedi Order Is a Galaxy Out of Balance, Lacking the Humor and Hope of the Movies
Star Wars has always balanced darkness with hope. Even in the darkest moments, light was there. Obi-Wan was killed in A New Hope, but he sacrificed himself to save Luke and the others. His spirit lived on, to guide him. In Empire Strikes Back, Han didn’t actually die, and the heroes did escape. Not unscathed, but free. In Return of the Jedi, the evil Emperor dies and Anakin turns from his fallen life as Vader, dying heroically. Even at the darkest moment, when Anakin falls in Revenge of the Sith, and Padme dies, the movie ends in hope in the form of his children.
In the movies, we see one world destroyed. In the New Jedi Order many are, many beloved worlds destroyed. We also see Shmi, Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan die. Yoda died naturally. Qui-Gon and Shmi serve to advance the plot. Jinn dies battling heroically. Shmi dies as the Lars later due: the trigger to affect the future of the hero (her son Anakin, the Lars nephew, Luke) Obi-Wan dies heroically sacrificing himself but continues as a spirit to guide Luke.
In the New Jedi Order era, some do advance the plot and die heroically. But Chewie’s death is undermined by Anakin’s later sacrifice, no matter how heroic. That goes back to the previous issue, that the stories conflicted with the movies due to sheer timing. Many characters were flat fridged. Most characters, probably, are someone’s favorite. And they got not more than a mention of their murder. It was sheer, gratuitous, and unnecessary – while war is dark, and the clone wars were dark, we didn’t need to have characters we loved killed meaninglessly to show it. That doesn’t fit the Star Wars pattern.
The Consequences of the Story Group’s Choices in the New Jedi Order
Spoiler Warnings! This refers to post New Jedi Order Events.
Due to the New Jedi Order’s era and its direction, We never got a Luke, Ben, and Mara Skywalker story which Timothy Zahn had already an idea for. Mara was killed without him even getting a notice, unlike in the Bantam era where he’d have at least gotten a polite heads up from most of his fellow writers. Why? For no other reason than to get rid of Mara in turning Jacen dark. And it didn’t even really fit Mara as the character she had become. We also never got the future hinted for Anakin Solo and Tahiri, implied as far back as the Junior Jedi Knights stories and even arguably in Dark Empire .
As for Jacen, at the heart of Star Wars, we’ve always had redemption. Even Darth Vader was redeemed. The reason for Jacen’s was not even consistent, changing from Dark Nest trilogies hints, to the reasons given in Legacy of the Force – a certainty that other action would lead to battle with Luke, to Fate of the Jedi, where he believed it was the only way to save his daughter, who iirc he didn’t even know about yet.
Compare that to Anakin Skywalker. We know why he fell. Fear of loss was always his weakness. It was shown clearly and consistently through the prequels. His reversing it, his refusal to lose his son due to the same tyrant who had falsely promised to save his wife, is also consistent.
Meanwhile, Tahiri also bounced back and forth between recovering from Anakin’s forced death in New Jedi Order to still being in so much pain from it she slipped into the dark side and murdered a man. This is just more inconsistency. She was no longer her own character, but manipulated by the writers for whatever slot they needed her for.
Vergere. The idea of her being Sith might’ve been believable had there been any explanation of how she could be a Jedi Knight while hiding being a Sith in training. There isn’t a bit of this, anywhere. It’s one thing for Palpatine to do it. But he was a politician (for whom lying is the norm) and not a Jedi. Even Dooku didn’t fall until he was on the way out the door! So while dark Jedi makes sense, given her actions, a trained Sith (however briefly) makes no sense to me.
Ultimately, Jacen, Tahiri, Mara Jade, Vergere some others no longer felt like the characters they’d been written to be, but just puppets or pawns to move into whatever position the story group wanted. They were no longer even consistent, in motivation or action.
Finally, by having the Sith return through Jacen, Vergere, and Lumiya, it undermines the original saga. The prequels reveal that Anakin was prophesied to destroy the Sith. By killing Palpatine in Return of the Jedi, according to George Lucas’s own words, he achieved this. Having the Sith return through his own family and Lumiya (who he trained) diminishes this.
Conclusion
The long arc of the New Jedi Order and its follow-ups, right up to Fate of the Jedi at the very least, was dark, and not at all in the hope inspiring pattern of the Star Wars hexalogy. While many fans did love it – I don’t claim there were no good books in it – others were turned off by the murder and dark twist of their favorite characters and left, even before the Disney buyout.
For these reasons, I rarely, if ever, reread any of these stories. It’s too long, and lacking the hope of the movies. There is enough sadness in the real physical world, and these books to me, don’t offer the escape from that the others do.
