I believe a big issue with the Star Wars expanded material is more due to common genre shift than anything else. Certainly, differing authors and overabundance of material are major factors as well, but I think the genre shifts that have occurred in Star Wars’ rather long life contribute to both other factors as well.
The original trilogy (mostly the first movie) openly based some of it’s fight scenes on war movies, lending it a slight military fiction feel at times (though it certainly was not). This influenced a number of the books written in that period, especially books set in the galactic civil war, which would have a military history slant to them, a number of which spent a fair amount of time establishing or explaining the current political and military situation of the galaxy. There would also be several stories (both books and games) about soldiers or (more often) pilots during the war. There are still other genres present, of course, especially ones that more fit ‘adventure stories’, but there’s definitely a general focus on the wider battle of the rebellion/new republic against the empire.
But as we go into the prequels, the balance changes in favor of the adventure stories. Such stories, especially if they focus on only one character and/or in a setting relatively small for the setting, usually doesn’t concern itself with the wider political situation of the setting beyond its singular relevance to the story. This also will affect how power, in terms of technology, the Force, and even skill appears in such stories, as they will be far more concerned with the rules of drama than fitting into a larger machine. Some stories address this by creating exceptions to the rule or extraordinary circumstances, and then removing them (Darksaber, KotOR 2, some of Clone Wars), but others don’t (The Force Unleashed, some of Clone Wars).
Then the sequel trilogy came along and it wasn’t sure what it was focusing on . . . and I’m not really sure where the genre balance might fall right now. Don’t really have the benefit of hindsight, and I’m not visiting the library on a regular basis anymore so . . .
This came to mind during, well watching, a conversation on the Discord, but I thought better of posting this there, since they’ld probably be more concerned with contradicting me than getting some discussion out of it . . . (I should also get on that other thing I wanted to post)
So, any thoughts? Pretty sure this turned into more rambling than having a singular point.
Currently listening to: Sand Dream
Currently working on RPGMaker
The original trilogy (mostly the first movie) openly based some of it’s fight scenes on war movies, lending it a slight military fiction feel at times (though it certainly was not). This influenced a number of the books written in that period, especially books set in the galactic civil war, which would have a military history slant to them, a number of which spent a fair amount of time establishing or explaining the current political and military situation of the galaxy. There would also be several stories (both books and games) about soldiers or (more often) pilots during the war. There are still other genres present, of course, especially ones that more fit ‘adventure stories’, but there’s definitely a general focus on the wider battle of the rebellion/new republic against the empire.
But as we go into the prequels, the balance changes in favor of the adventure stories. Such stories, especially if they focus on only one character and/or in a setting relatively small for the setting, usually doesn’t concern itself with the wider political situation of the setting beyond its singular relevance to the story. This also will affect how power, in terms of technology, the Force, and even skill appears in such stories, as they will be far more concerned with the rules of drama than fitting into a larger machine. Some stories address this by creating exceptions to the rule or extraordinary circumstances, and then removing them (Darksaber, KotOR 2, some of Clone Wars), but others don’t (The Force Unleashed, some of Clone Wars).
Then the sequel trilogy came along and it wasn’t sure what it was focusing on . . . and I’m not really sure where the genre balance might fall right now. Don’t really have the benefit of hindsight, and I’m not visiting the library on a regular basis anymore so . . .
This came to mind during, well watching, a conversation on the Discord, but I thought better of posting this there, since they’ld probably be more concerned with contradicting me than getting some discussion out of it . . . (I should also get on that other thing I wanted to post)
So, any thoughts? Pretty sure this turned into more rambling than having a singular point.
Currently listening to: Sand Dream
Currently working on RPGMaker