My Star Wars Journal Entry #2

 Hey everyone, I'm back with today's update. It's not a huge one because I didn't read as many chapters of The Princess and the Scoundrel last night as I thought I was going to. I won't go into details, but I got some news about people I used to know in middle school and high school, so I just wasn't up for reading as much last night. I think I'm also not going to do this every day either. Maybe every other day. Especially because I won't be watching The Clone Wars tomorrow night or Thursday night because of The VHS Club Podcast, and this week's episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Let's get into it.

I only ended up reading two chapters last night before bed. Not much happened. Just Han and Leia getting ready for their wedding on Endor. I think I said this in yesterday's journal entry, but Beth Revis does a really good job at writing these characters. You're in their heads and you feel things as they feel them. I also like that this book takes its time to get Han and Leia to where they need to be for their trip on the Halcyon. Back in 1994, Dave Wolverton wrote The Courtship of Princess Leia and in that book, Leia and Han's wedding wasn't even shown onscreen. It began on the last page of the book, and we never saw it. Star Wars has very good world building and even though it's been around for nearly 50 years, it's a franchise that always gives us new storie. So I'm glad the authors are allowed to give us that time with the characters, while not giving up the fast paced action that Star Wars is known for.

I feel like that attention to character development began here with season 1 of The Clone Wars. It was the first modern Star Wars TV show that was allowed to give us stories that are very character focused and built upon the world George Lucas created in the movies. Of the four episodes I watched last night, my favourite is "Bombad Jedi", which is a Jar Jar Binks and Padme Amidala focused episode. With some C-3PO antics thrown in for good measure. I thought it was especially cool that Ahmed Best had reprised his role as the voice of Jar Jar in this episode (and in any other episode he appears in). The two part Droid episode was also really good. 

Like I said, not much to update on because I really didn't read as much as I thought I was going to. I might watch something else tonight, so there won't be an update on the TV show tomorrow, but we'll see. May the Force be with you everyone!

My Star Wars Journal Entry #1

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. It's the beginning of August and it's definitely cooler outside than it was a month ago. Today I'm doing something a little special. I'm doing daily blog posts that chronicle my journey through the 2008 animated TV show, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, along with other Star Wars stuff that I do on a daily basis. Let's get into it!

I watched the first season of The Clone Wars as it aired in 2008. At the time the show was on Sunday nights on CTV (CJOH TV) and I was in college, so it was very easy to relax for thirty minutes on a Sunday night, watching a Star Wars TV show before going into a new week of classes and homework assignments. However, halfway through the second season in 2009, it moved off of CTV and I just didn't have much time to watch TV because of assignments, so aside from a few episodes in the second half of season 3, I haven't seen The Clone Wars since 2009. So I finally decided to watch the whole show from start to finish.

I ended up watching the first four episodes that aired in 2008. People always talk about watching the show in an in-universe timeline order, because it jumps around the timeline of the Clone Wars. But it's a Star Wars TV show produced by George Lucas in the late 2000s. It was never meant to be watched in timeline order. The DVDs and Blu-rays don't order them that way and Disney+, which is where I'm watching it, doesn't order them that way either, because there are episodes from later seasons that take place before some of the episodes from season 1, and, much like the DVDs and Blu-rays, Disney+ orders them by season. So the episodes I watched are "Ambush", "Rising Malevolence", "Shadow of Malevolence", and "Destroy Malevolence" last night, after dinner.

There wasn't anything in any of these episodes that I didn't remember from when I originally saw them back in 2008. One particular scene that I remember the most is Anakin and Padme on the train onboard the Malevolence trying to escape the Battle Droids in episode 4, "Destroy Malevolence". I think it stood out to me because, even with all the CGI that George used in the Prequel Trilogy, we hadn't really seen anything like it in Star Wars before, outside of maybe the hover-tram sequence in the Shadows of the Empire video game in 1996. And even then, the animation on that game was primitive in comparison to what we had in The Clone Wars, twelve years later.

Honestly I'm really excited to finally experience the entirety of the show without knowing all that much about events in the show. Nobody was really talking about the show in my online fan circles in the early 2010s, and even in my offline life, nobody was really talking about it. I even avoided spoilers in Star Wars Insider whenever they published episode guides in the magazine as each season wrapped up. But I'm familiar with many of these characters because of Rebels, The Mandalorian, and Ahsoka, so I'm excited to see the stories where many of them originated. 

I easily could've watched more Clone Wars episodes last night, but I decided to stop so I could watch The Force Awakens in preparation for this week's episode of the Haven't Seen Star Wars Podcast, since they were finally covering that movie this week. It's scary to realize that this movie is almost 11 years old now. I don't think there's a single Star Wars fan who doesn't remember where they were or who they were with when it was announced that not only did Disney buy Lucasfilm from George, but, yeah, there was finally gonna be Episodes 7, 8, and 9, movies George had long ago stated he was no longer interested in making.

When the announcement was made back in 2012, I had been visiting my grandparents at the cottage. We'd had a storm on Monday night and so the power was out until dinnertime on Wednesday evening. So I'd been offline for several days. Plus internet at the cottage wasn't stable back in 2012, so there would be days where the internet would go out or my laptop wouldn't stay connected to the Wi-Fi up there. So we'd gotten power back on Wednesday evening, right before that week's episode of Arrow aired, and that episode was Oliver's trial episode after he'd been arrested by Captain Lance for being the Hood. But, I digress.

So on the Thursday morning, I was in Grandma and Grandpa's kitchen, making my breakfast when they announced on Canada AM (CTV's former morning news show) that not only had Disney bought Lucasfilm, but that they were working to develop a new trilogy of Star Wars movies, with the first one slated to be released in 2015. I had just poured almond milk on my oatmeal and was carrying the carton back to the fridge when I heard this announcement. I almost dropped the milk carton. I didn't have a lot of friends who were Star Wars fans at the time, so I didn't really have anyone to talk to about the announcement, except Brad and my two siblings. Naturally, they'd all heard the news online a few days earlier, but, like I said, the power had been out for a couple of days, so I missed it entirely until they talked about it on TV.

I also wanted to watch it last night because, while I have watched it more than the other four Star Wars movies that had come out between 2015 and 2019, I'd only seen it a total of two or three times, despite owning it on Blu-ray. My go to Star Wars movies tend to be one of the ones from either the Original Trilogy or the Prequel Trilogy, so besides The Force Awakens, I've only seen the other four a total of one time, two for Rogue One, which I really need to rewatch so I can do a rewatch of Andor at some point. Maybe after I'm finished watching The Clone Wars. I do love Rey, Finn, and Poe. Also, getting Harrison Ford back as Han Solo in this movie was awesome. I won't spoil what happens to him, but if you know, you know.

Then, finally, before bed, I started my first re-read of The Princess and the Scoundrel by Beth Revis. I hate thunderstorms and heavy rain storms, so I ended up getting through the first six chapters of this book before going to sleep, just to make sure a thunderstorm wasn't about to start. I only read it for the first time last year, after I got it for either my birthday or for Christmas from my sister. I loved it, but I didn't really have a chance to talk about it online. I think one of the reasons I love this book so much is because it's written by a fan who grew up reading the Bantam era Star Wars novels from the '90s and the books from the 2000s, like The New Jedi Order and Tatooine Ghost. So, she understands how to write a Star Wars novel, which is different from writing any other kind of novel.

I also love how the book immediately dives into Leia's thoughts and feelings the day after finding out that not only is Luke her brother, but that Darth Vader, the man who tortured her and destroyed Alderaan with the Death Star, is their father! Like, that's right in the first chapter. The only other novel to try to do this was The Truce at Bakura in 1993, as it also takes place immediately after Return of the Jedi. Han and Leia have always been some of my favourite characters in Star Wars, so I love that they got a book together in Canon as well as in Legends.

That's all I got for you for today. Tonight I'll be watching more of The Clone Wars and probably get a few more chapters in of The Princess and the Scoundrel before bed as well. So I'll be back tomorrow to give you an update on my TV show watching and on my progress on the book. Until then, may the Force be with you. 

Experiencing Star Wars for the First Time in 2026 is Different Now

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I had a friend over this afternoon, but I've been wanting to do this particular blog post for a few weeks now. As a Star Wars fan I often think about how different it would be to experience the Star Wars franchise for the first time now in 2026, compared to how it was when I was first really getting into it in the mid to late '90s and how the first generation of fans got into it when the Original Trilogy was first coming out between 1977 and 1983. So I decided to explore that in this blog post. So, let's get into it.

Star Wars is a unique franchise in that, it's the only one, outside of Dungeons & Dragons, where the structure is so that you can tell any story within the universe and you never run out of characters to use. I once said that one of my problems with Star Wars is that legacy characters are often pushed aside in favour of new characters. However, it'd be more of a hindrance for the franchise if Han, Luke, Leia, Vader, Chewie, and the Droids always had to be front and center. Star Wars is a vast universe, full of interesting characters, hero, villain, supporting, and background, and fascinating settings. Each with rich backstories and moments that any fan can latch onto and want to follow.

It's always been that way, however, as a fan who got into Star Wars in the mid '90s, my experience of getting into the franchise is very different than how my parents's generation got into it in the late '70s and early '80s. It's also different from how people, regardless of their age, are getting into it for the first time today. When I was a kid, there were a handful of novels and reruns of the Droids and Ewoks cartoons, as well as magazines such as Star Wars Insider and Starlog to find out tidbits about the latest Star Wars movie. There was also the Official Star Wars Website that you could look up information on if you had internet access, which was rare in 1995 and 1996.

In terms of content though, there was very little of it. There was only the three movies of the Original Trilogy, and extra material in the form of novels, comics, cartoons, video games, and TV movies. And none of that material necessarily answered the questions you might've had about the aliens in the Cantina scene from A New Hope or the Bounty Hunters in The Empire Strikes Back or Jabba the Hutt and his entourage in Return of the Jedi. Though by the time I first saw the movies in January 1996, the novels had started to answer some of those questions in the short story compilations, Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, Tales of the Bounty Hunters, and Tales from Jabba's Palace. But not everything was answered. For example, Boba Fett didn't get a solid backstory until Attack of the Clones came out in 2002. There were conflicting stories in The Han Solo Trilogy by A.C. Crispin, which was published between 1997 and 1998, and other stories, but nothing stuck until the middle chapter of the Prequel Trilogy in the early 2000s.

When it comes to spoilers though, unless you had a friend or family member who talked about the movies endlessly and told you important plotpoints, you didn't know until you watched The Empire Strikes Back that Darth Vader was Luke's father, or that Leia and Luke were brother and sister until you watched Return of the Jedi, because that information wasn't as well known outside of the fandom as it is today.

Back in the late '70s and early '80s, there was even less. Unless you bought issues of Starlog magazine or were a member of the Official Star Wars Fan Club and read the newsletter, Bantha Tracks, or you happened to pass someone who was talking to their friends about what they'd just seen when they saw the movies, as you were going in to see the movie, you didn't know that Ben Kenobi died in A New Hope (then just known as Star Wars), that Darth Vader is actually Luke's father in The Empire Strikes Back, and that Luke and Leia are siblings in Return of the Jedi.

Fans back then also had to wait three years to find out whether Vader had lied to Luke in Empire or not about being his father until Luke rejoined Yoda on Dagobah after saving Han from Jabba the Hutt at the beginning of the next movie. George Lucas certainly wasn't going to reveal the truth in the few interviews he did when Empire came out in 1980. I suppose you could read the Return of the Jedi novelization by James Kahn to know the truth before you went to see the movie, but that wasn't the case most of the time. It still happened, but it wasn't common.

Watching Star Wars for the first time today is so different. It's a lot harder to go in without any knowledge at all. There's novels, comics, video games, TV shows, and Wookieepedia, where you can look up any piece of information on any Star Wars character, ship, location, weapon, piece of tech, or event within the Star Wars Universe. And online there's always some reference to Star Wars somewhere. It's possible to go in completely blind, but it's much harder to do so these days.

I've seen many reaction channels on YouTube cover the Star Wars movies, and reactions have gone from complete shock at the Vader and Leia reveals to "I knew that was coming". I guess it really depends on how into Fandom you are. Like I had absolutely no clue what happened in the show when I first watched Rebels a couple of years ago in preparation for season 1 of Ahsoka (I'm so excited for season 2). Despite being a huge Star Wars fan and reading Star Wars Insider, I managed to avoid all spoilers for the show, and that show started ten years before I saw it. Even with later seasons of The Clone Wars, I've managed to avoid spoilers, so that if I decide it's time to watch the whole show, I can do so without any foreknowledge of events in the show. Though I did watch the Mortis arc when it first came out, so I do know everything that happened in those episodes.

Also, it's about how you watch the movies too. When I was a kid, we just had the movies on VHS, though they were also available on Laserdisc, but people could very rarely afford the Laserdisc players letalone the Laserdiscs themselves. But until 1982 when A New Hope was first released on home video (VHS, Betamax, Laserdisc, and CED), fans had to wait until the next theatrical re-release of both A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back to see them again, unless they owned the novelizations or the comic book adaptations. 

Today, people can watch all of the movies and TV shows on Disney+ whenever they want. All of the movies are available on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Blu-ray, with the Original Trilogy available on Laserdisc, VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Blu-ray, and the first two movies in the Prequel Trilogy also available on VHS. So there are a variety of ways for people to watch the movies. And each version is different too. Certain versions are only available on certain formats, so depending on which format you're watching it on, changes the experience too. I find watching the Original Trilogy on VHS makes it easier to separate those three movies from the rest of the saga, because visually they don't match the other movies. Whereas if I watch the 1997 Special Edition versions on VHS or the 2004 DVD versions, I connect them strictly to the Prequel Trilogy. While watching them on Disney+ automatically reconnects them to the rest of the franchise as a whole.

A new podcast called Haven't Seen Star Wars started coming out weekly on May the 4th, and the premise is that two lifelong Star Wars fans guide their two friends who have never seen Star Wars through the movies (so far, I don't know if they'll cover the shows eventually or not). One of them isn't into Fandom stuff, so she had no clue about anything that had to do with Star Wars, while the other had heard "Luke, I am your father!" but didn't know where it was from, although that isn't the actual line, but people have thought it was that, though the line is actually, "No, I am your father!". Regardless, these days it's still possible to go in completely fresh, without any knowledge of the franchise, but with social media, memes, and just the internet in general, it's much more difficult to watch anything Star Wars without some sort of knowledge, even if it's just, "Oh yeah, that's Darth Vader! I know what he looks like!". Out of the entire franchise, I think C-3PO, R2-D2, and Darth Vader are the most iconic characters because they're the ones who tended to appear the most on magazine covers in the late '70s through to the mid 2000s when Revenge of the Sith was coming out. Probably because it was easier to take new pictures of those three characters since two are suits, and one is mechanical or a suit, depending on whether R2 is moving or standing still. You could have anybody in the suits and take the pictures, without needing to ask aging actors to come back for new photos of characters they played ten to twenty years earlier. 

Listening to the podcast is what inspired this blog post because it did get me thinking about how people today experience Star Wars for the first time differently compared to how I first experienced it back in the '90s or how my parents and other people of their generation experienced it for the first time in the late '70s and early '80s. Especially because you can put on Disney+ and binge all of the movies in a couple of days, whereas I had to wait a whole 24 hours to watch each movie on VHS, and the first generation of Star Wars fans had to wait three years between each movie when the Original Trilogy was coming out from 1977 to 1983.

I had to do the same with the Prequel Trilogy as it was coming out from 1999 to 2005, though I could rewatch each movie on home video while I waited for the next movie to come out. I also had tons of novels to read while I waited too. So I was never out of Star Wars content to enjoy between movie releases. The Sequel Trilogy was a bit weirder, because even though there was two years between each movie in the trilogy, you still had Rogue One coming out between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, and then both Solo and the first half of the first season of The Mandalorian coming out between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. So there was even more coming out during the Sequel Trilogy than there was when the Prequel Trilogy was coming out almost two decades earlier.

That's all I wanted to talk about in this blog post today. I listened to the soundtrack for The Phantom Menace on CD while I wrote this post and it's still a great soundtrack 27 years later. 

I'll be back soon with more Star Wars blog posts as well as more nostalgic goodness over on My Nostalgia Blog. Until then have a great night and may the Force be with you.

Why The Expanded Universe was so Important for Star Wars

 Hey everyone, how's it going? It's Wednesday, which means it's time to talk Star Wars. Today I'm gonna be talking about why the expanded universe of Star Wars novels, comics, and video games was so important to the franchise. Let's get into it.

When Star Wars first came out in 1977, novels and comics were commissioned by George Lucas as tie-in material to the movie. While they could take place before or after the movie and expand upon things only hinted at in the movie, in the case of the novelization, these books and comics couldn't contradict anything shown in the movie, nor could they affect plotpoints in upcoming movies. They were simply there to tide people over until the next movie came out.

However, by the time Heir to the Empire was published in 1991, there was no indication that George Lucas would make anymore Star Wars movies, letalone sequels to Return of the Jedi. In fact, if he did make more Star Wars films, they'd be prequels, dealing with how Anakin Skywalker fell to the dark side of the Force and became Darth Vader. So while authors couldn't write Star Wars novels dealing with the Clone Wars, the fall of the Jedi Knights, or the rise of the Galactic Empire, they could write novels that acted as sequels. The only exception to this was A.C. Crispin's Han Solo Trilogy (The Paradise Snare, The Hutt Gambit, and Rebel Dawn) as George likely wouldn't include a young Han Solo in his prequel trilogy.

The comics were a whole different story. While they also couldn't cover the Clone Wars, the fall of the Jedi, or the rise of the Empire, they also weren't limited to the time period set after Return of the Jedi. In fact, Tom Veitch and Kevin J. Anderson did an entire comic book series called Tales of the Jedi which took place thousands of years before the events of A New Hope, which is how they were allowed to tell a "prequel" story.

The early days of the Expanded Universe were rough. Despite the intention that it was to be one big Star Wars universe, Timothy Zahn ignored what Dark Horse was doing with Dark Empire and Tom Veitch ignored Zahn's novels. That's why the opening crawl in Dark Empire #1, on page 1, doesn't mention Thrawn at all, even though the story is set in 6 ABY, only a few months after the New Republic defeated Thrawn in the Battle of Bilbringi. Basically a lot of inter-company politics was at play here, which I won't get into in this blog post. 

Due to the success of both Heir to the Empire and Dark Empire, the Star Wars Expanded Universe truly became expanded as more novels and comics were published. Unlike Star Trek, which was a television series first, Star Wars is a movie franchise first, so, books and comics were the only way you could get new Star Wars stories inbetween movie releases. Especially in the late '70s and early '80s, since there were no commercial home video releases of the movies yet. In the '90s though the novels and comics were the only way we could get new adventures of the classic trilogy characters like Han, Leia, and Luke since it seemed highly unlikely that George would be making the Sequel Trilogy.

Movies are inherently meant to be self-contained stories. Oh sure, they can have sequels and prequels, but the movies themselves don't have a lot of time to explore the backstories of every single character whether they're a main character or not. And while television is better suited for that kind of long form storytelling, novels and comics were the best way to tell many of these stories since all a writer had to do was write the story, and in the case of comic books, the artist had to draw everything the writer wanted to see. They didn't have to think about how much it would cost to portray it on screen.

With Star Wars having TV shows these days, the Expanded Universe is less prevalent than it was thirty years ago, but that doesn't make it any less important. Particularly to those of us who love the novels and comics. And for me in particular, the novels are still very important, even if I don't read every single one that comes out. It gives us a look into the larger Star Wars Universe that the movies and TV shows can't necessarily give us. Especially when it would be cost prohibitive to make a show or movie about certain parts. Though, obviously, Andor proved that a show can be made out of any aspect of the Star Wars Universe. Even still there will always be Star Wars stories that need to be told as a novel or a comic book.

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. Join Katie, Nat, and I tomorrow night at 9 PM (Eastern Standard Time) on the VHS Club Podcast for our discussion on Batman Forever. Then join me on Friday for my review of this week's episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds over on The Star Trek Journal. May the Force be with you!

The Power of the Force 1995-2000 Toyline...30 Years Later

 Hey everyone, how's it going? It's Friday, which means it's time for a little trip to the Star Wars Universe to talk about toys. Specifically the 1995 Power of the Force toyline that ended in 2000. So let's get into it.

Being a kid of the '90s I had a lot of action figures, including a bunch of the classic Kenner Star Wars figures that one of my nurses at the hospital passed down to me after her son didn't want them anymore. However, there hadn't been brand new Star Wars toys on shelves since 1985, when the original Power of the Force line ended. But, with the surge in popularity that Star Wars gained between the announcement of the Prequel Trilogy being produced, the novels that were selling extremely well, the Special Editions coming out in 1997, and the re-release of the trilogy on home video in 1995, which I talked about last week, Hasbro, using the Kenner name, began producing a brand new line of Star Wars toys under the same label as what Kenner had used in 1985, The Power of the Force.

These figures, a few of which I own today, were musclebound figures, which was typical for toys marketed for boys at the time (just look at the original Ranger figures from Bandai's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers toyline). Even the new Leia figure looked like she was on steroids or a really heavy workout regime. While this was toned down as the late '90s went along, the look of these original figures is what people came to associate with the The Power of the Force name. 

As I said earlier, as a kid in the '90s, I had a lot of action figures, including the classic Star Wars figures from Kenner. However, I was still excited to get new Star Wars figures, especially after I saw the movies in late 1995/early 1996. And I did. Let's take a look at the ones I got when I was a kid, as well as the one I got a few years ago.

The coolest toy I got from the Power of the Force line was the Millennium Falcon. It was an update of the original Falcon toy that Kenner released in 1978-1979, so not only could it hold the new figures coming out, but it could also hold my original figures from the late '70s and early '80s. Which is probably why my parents and grandparents ever looked for the original Falcon toy for me at garage sales and flea markets because we had the new one and whenever my siblings and I played with the Star Wars toys, the Falcon and the classic AT-AT Walker always came out as well.

To go along with the Millennium Falcon, we got the Han Solo figure as well. I don't remember if we got the Han Solo figure at the same time as we got the Millennium Falcon, or if we got him after we got the ship. I just remember having both. I kept the Han Solo figure with his DL-44 Blaster Pistol. 

A little bit later on, we got the Electronic FX R2-D2 figure that came with a stand in which, using magnets in its 'feet', you could make Artoo move around on, as if it was the scene from A New Hope. Jawas weren't included though. Also, when you pressed spot where the two vents are in the center of Artoo's torso, he makes the Artoo warbling sounds and his center 'eye' lit up. I actually still have this figure in my collection.

The last Power of the Force figure I got when I was a kid was the Greedo that came with the Commtech chip. Since we didn't have the Commtech Chip Reader (which was designed to look like a Commlink from The Phantom Menace) we couldn't stand Greedo on it and hear it say whatever line from A New Hope that was programmed into the chip. Still though, it was interesting to have Greedo.

A few years ago, I picked up the original Power of the Force Darth Vader figure from 1995 at my local comic book store. I was looking for this figure specifically to go with my Power of the Jedi Emperor's Wrath Vader figure that I got at Ottawa Comiccon back in 2017. I gave my Millennium Falcon to my friend, Jonathan, back in 2015 because my parents and I were getting ready to move and I didn't think I'd have enough space for it in whatever house we were going to be moving to. And I was right because I don't have enough room for it. As for the figures, the only one I don't have anymore is Greedo. I got rid of it in either 2015 or 2016 before we moved.

My siblings and I played with my Star Wars toys a lot. Not as much as my Star Trek toys, but we still played with them a lot. Especially when the Special Editions were coming out and Star Wars was at the height of its popularity in the '90s. At that point in time there wasn't a lot of Star Trek stuff that I didn't already have and the toys had become scarce after the Star Trek Generations toyline had come out in 1994. Luckily Star Wars was there to pick up the slack a little bit, along with Gargoyles, Batman, and Power Rangers. I also remember seeing the commercials for all of the Power of the Force toys and of course, Galoob's Micro Machines Star Wars toys as well. 

That my friends, is it for this week. I haven't quite decided what I'm doing next week. The two episode season premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds drops on Thursday and I'll be watching both episodes on Friday evening, so you'll get a post on The Star Trek Journal on Monday, some sort of post on Josh's Geek Cave on Wednesday, a post here at The Star Wars Journal on Friday, and then my review of Strange New Worlds season 3 episodes 1 and 2 on Saturday over at The Star Trek Journal. That's the plan. Until then have a great weekend and may the Force be with you! 

Legends Novels That Don't Have the Legends Banner on Them

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Friday. So today I'm going to be talking about some Legends novels that haven't been published with the Legends banner across the top. This is going to be in their original publication order. Let's get into it.

Originally published on February 2nd, 1995, Ambush at Corellia was the first book in the Corellian Trilogy, written by Roger MacBride Allen. While the second and third books in the trilogy, Assault at Selonia and Showdown at Centerpoint, both got reprints in the mid 2010s that included the Legends banner across the top of the front cover and the spine, for whatever reason, Ambush at Corellia didn't. There's not really an answer as to why all the novels I'm talking about today haven't gotten a Legends banner edition. They just didn't. I also don't really know how well the Corellian Trilogy is regarded by Star Wars fans in general, but, unlike with the Essential Legends Collection, the fan reaction to the books didn't seem to play a factor into what books were published with the banner and which ones weren't. As I'll mention again a little bit later. I also remember enjoying this book when I first read it sometime in the 2000s, though obviously not enough to get the rest of the trilogy, and not enough to keep this book in the collection in 2015 and 2016.

Originally published on May 1st, 1995 in hardcover, and then published in June 1996 in paperback, Children of the Jedi was written by Barbara Hambly as part of the unofficial Callista Trilogy, named after a Jedi character that appears in the book. Again, there's no actual reason as to why this book didn't get a Legends banner reprint. Especially because its follow up novels, Darksaber (by Kevin J. Anderson) and Planet of Twilight (also by Barbara Hambly) each got one. I honestly don't really know why Children of the Jedi didn't get a Legends banner reprint. I know it isn't as well regarded as other Star Wars novels are, but it's not hated like The Crystal Star is. In fact, even if it was, it still would've gotten a Legends banner reprint because The Crystal Star did, and that book is probably the most hated novel to come out of the Bantam era. I also don't remember if I've read Children of the Jedi or not. I know I owned the original hardcover sometime in the late 2000s and early 2010s, but I don't remember if I read it then, or if Garrett lent the paperback edition to me when we were in the same grade 5/grade 6 split class in 1998 and I read it then

Tales from Jabba's Palace is a weird one to me for a book to not get a Legends banner edition. The reason being that the rest of the Tales anthology books all got one, including Tales from the Empire (1997), and Tales from the New Republic (1999). Tales from Jabba's Palace is another book that I don't remember if I've read or not. I'm pretty sure I did either because I borrowed it from the public library or because Brad lent it to me when we were in high school, but I don't remember for sure.

While the second book in the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy by Michael P. Kube-McDowell, Shield of Lies received a Legends banner edition, for whatever reason the other two books in the trilogy, Before the Storm and Tyrant's Test, haven't. Now, I'm a fan of these three books, and they're some of the ones I kept in my collection during the Great Collection Purge of 2015 and 2016 that I performed before we moved and while I was unpacking my things after the move. So, it baffles me that Shield of Lies got a Legends banner reprint, but Before the Storm and Tyrant's Test didn't. Especially because Shield of Lies is the weirdest book in the entire trilogy because of the way the author structured the story in that book.

 

Medstar II: Jedi Healer by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry was published in 2004 as part of the Clone Wars Multimedia Project, but for whatever reason, didn't get a Legends banner reprint. Its predecessor, Medstar I: Battle Surgeons did, but this book didn't. I didn't read either book until 2005 or early 2006 when I borrowed them from the branch of the Ottawa Public Library that was right next door to my high school, and I wasn't connected to the Star Wars fanbase back then as I didn't have regular access to the internet, wasn't on fan forums, and didn't have regular access to Star Wars Insider. So, I had no idea how well either of these books were received. But, again, how well received a Star Wars Legends novel was has nothing to do with the book getting reprinted with the Legends banner on it. So it confuses me as to why half of a duology of novels gets the banner and the other half doesn't, like in the case of the Medstar Duology.

Like with the Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy, the Coruscant Nights Trilogy only got one book reprinted with the Legends banner on the cover. And that was the first book in the trilogy, Jedi Twilight. I realize I'm sounding like a broken record here, but it absolutely baffles me that one book in a trilogy would get the Legends banner treatment, but the other two books in the trilogy wouldn't. The Coruscant Nights Trilogy was published in 2008 and 2009, similar to how the first two books in the Han Solo Adventures trilogy were published in 1979 and the final book was published in 1980. Now, I've never read any of the books in this trilogy, so I have no idea whether they're any good or not. When these books were originally published, I was busy with college and barely had any time to read for pleasure. And when I did have time to read, I was catching up on the books I'd missed in The New Jedi Order when that series was coming out between 1999 and 2003.

This last one, Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller, is probably the weirdest one to not have a Legends banner reprint. Originally published in 2011, Knight Errant was a tie-in to the Knight Errant comic book series being published by Dark Horse Comics around the same time. So while it was slightly less high profile than Darth Plagueis or X-Wing: Mercy Kill, both of which came out in 2012, due to the tie-in to the comic, Knight Errant should've gotten a Legends banner reprint.

What's funny is that even though it didn't get a Legends banner reprint, in 2024 Knight Errant got a reprint which was a part of the Essential Legends Collection. So far this is the only book in that collection to not already have a Legends banner reprint. Which is interesting because the rest of the books in the collection are the most popular Star Wars novels to have come out in the last 46 years and have all had mid to late 2010s reprints with the Legends banner on them.

That's all I wanted to talk about today here on the Star Wars Journal. I'll be back next week with more posts on both blogs. So until then have a great weekend. May the Force be with you!

The Star Wars Trilogy 1995 VHS Box Set Discussion

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So I had originally planned on doing my discussion of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story today, but, I ended up starting to watch The Expanse on Blu-ray last night instead of watching the movie. Instead, I'm gonna be talking about the 1995 VHS box set of the Original Trilogy, which had its 30th anniversary almost two weeks ago. And while I didn't see the movies until six months later, I decided today would still be the perfect day to talk about this box set. So, let's get into it.

"For those who remember. For those who will never forget. And for a whole new generation who will experience it for the very first time. The Star Wars Trilogy!". That quote appeared at the beginning of the trailer for this box set that appeared on all three tapes included in this box set. The three movies could also be bought individually, but, let's face it, I don't think there were very many Star Wars fans who bought the movies individually when they could have all three in one set like this, unless they could afford the box set. This box set was probably under a lot of Christmas trees that Christmas. I know it was under ours as someone bought it for my dad for Christmas that year, which is how I saw Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, as they were referred to as on the front covers of each tape, as well as on the outer box itself, for the first time when I was 9 years old.

Aside from the movies themselves, what I love most about this box set is the interview with George Lucas that was conducted by film historian, Leonard Maltin, and then split into three parts, one part for each tape. It's fascinating to see George talk about Star Wars as it was back in 1995. I don't think the interview was done earlier than sometime in late 1994, because George talks about the Special Editions, and writing the Prequel Trilogy, which he'd just started to write in November, 1994. There was no Disney+, no Andor, no Ahsoka, not even the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition. Just a handful of novels, comics and the three original movies. It's fascinating because George talked about writing all three prequel movies at once, and then filming each back to back, similar to how Peter Jackson would make the Lord of the Rings movies in the early 2000s. This was before he realized just how much ILM had to develop the technology that would allow characters like Jar Jar Binks to believably exist in Episode I.

1995 was also the year that Hasbro began producing the Star Wars: The Power of the Force toyline under the Kenner name. The novels, Children of the Jedi and Darksaber, were published in hardcover by Bantam Spectra, and we were introduced to Lowbacca, Tenel Ka, and Em-Teedee in the first book of the Young Jedi Knights series of paperbacks, Heirs of the Force, which was published by Boulevard Books and Berkley Jam Books. We also had comics like Tales of the Jedi being published by Dark Horse. So this was an awesome time to be a Star Wars fan, no matter how old you were in 1995. 

They were also introducing THX sound to movies. Of course, THX was way more impressive in 1995 than it is today, but still, seeing that original logo before the movie, as well as the original green Lucasfilm logo still excites me to this day. 

You also can't forget about the box art. Star Wars had Darth Vader's face (half of it) with an X-Wing shooting a TIE Fighter near the Death Star, The Empire Strikes Back has a Stormtrooper with the Imperial attack on Hoth underneath, and Return of the Jedi has Yoda with Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker locked in a lightsaber duel with the Emperor watching. 

I managed to find an intact copy of this VHS box set in 2020, just before the pandemic hit. This was back when I was just starting to collect VHS again, and because this is the set that introduced me to the Star Wars franchise all those years ago, I grabbed it because it was one of the main VHS sets that I watched a lot when I was a kid, even after I got the 2000 VHS box set of the Special Editions, I still borrowed this set from my dad.

I still can't believe it's been thirty years since this box set was released. The world is different now, and indeed, Star Wars is very different today than it was 30 years ago. We've had so many more movies and TV shows given to us by the good people at Lucasfilm. Not to mention all of the books, comics, video games, and toys we've gotten since then too. And yet, as Andor showed us, the essence of Star Wars has stayed the same even though the people making the shows and movies are different than they were 30 years ago. To me Star Wars is about people. Not just the characters that we see on our screens, but the people behind the cameras, who worked extremely hard to bring those characters to life. From George Lucas to Dave Filoni and Carrie Beck to Tony Gilroy. 

That's it for me for this week my friends. I've got a few fun blog posts for you next week both here at The Star Wars Journal and at Josh's Geek Cave. So until then have a wonderful weekend and May the Force be with you.