I agree. Though I didn't exactly live through the non-marketing era of Star Wars I always saw Star Trek as this huge franchise with umpteen movies and tv shows. But it has changed significantly, Star Wars has gone so mainstream and with Kevin Smith doing a disservice to Star Wars fans everywhere by making being a Star Wars fan even geekier than being a Star Trek fan. The horror.

Despite all of this Lucas knows that SW fans, myself included, will always be there with cash in hand...

Funny. I was a fan of Star Trek first, and it's always been my impression that their merchandising efforts have largely been to emulate the model established by Star Wars. To be honest, Star Trek storytelling was generally thoughtful science-fiction until the mid-90s. By that point, Star Wars had begun to sell a lot of novels, comics and toys and Star Trek tried to follow suit.

The single most important problem was that Star Trek writing became incestuous, self-referencing its own franchise rather than continuing the tradition of allegorical commentary that had been its founding principle. It works for Star Wars writers to namedrop tertiary characters and build up profiles for those previously nameless people, because there had only been three movies. Fans were certain those movies had only given them a glimpse into that storytelling environment and they wanted to explore it. Star Trek's universe was already expansive; its infrastructure needed to keep growing; not putting up bigger street signs and advertising its side roads. And yet, there they've been, once again shamelessly trying to fit Star Trek into the Star Wars mold.

Star Trek never followed successfully in Star Wars. Star Wars big marketing pushes were (in the era of the trilogy) - toys, video games and tie-ins. Star Trek never went that route succesfully. Instead, it mostly spawned a lot of novels and comic books.

Post-ROTJ, tie ins died. So did the toys, which is why the a lot of classic Star Wars toys were simply sold in garage sales, lost or discarded. Some of the most collectible Star Wars toys are "Power of the Force" figures which barely sold.

The only thing that Star Wars managed to keep alive IMHO were the video games. X wing, Tie Fighter, Rebel Assault - those were great games, cutting edge PC games. Those cotinued with Rogue Squadron (N64) - and some games for the Super Nintendo era consoles.


The point is, Star Wars, was pretty dead for awhile in terms of merchandising. Sure people loved the movies, and everybody owned a version on VHS, but from about 1986-1997, Star Wars merchandising and hype was pretty quiet. In that space, a lot of people looked back fondly at the original movies, dissected them, etc.

Then, things started moving. The Zahn trilogy and then the SE's come out with a lot fanfare and that started the prequel process.

It's the "successfully" part that's my point. There were Star Trek novels and comics before Star Wars, but it wasn't until Star Wars came along that those things became more than a confederation of one-off stories. Then, when the Star Wars Expanded Universe was formally established in the 90s, its guiding tenant was that every book and comic would recognize events from one another. It was when Star Trek editors tried to emulate that model that Star Trek storytelling got into trouble and became tiresome.

Seriously, have you looked at a Star Trek paperback synopsis lately? "Captain Picard has to contend with a Gorn invasion and only an antiviral created by Admiral McCoy and Dr. Bashir can save the day!" (made-up, but not far removed from what's really being published)

In any event, I still maintain that Star Trek has been lamely trying to do for itself what Lucas's marketing has done for Star Wars.

Rebel Assault It was pretty ground-breaking in the early days of CD-ROM, but it was extremely mediocre. Now Dark Forces was the shit (totally agree on the X-Wing / Tie series - EPIC).

I'd also throw the Thrawn trilogy (20 years old!!!!) in there as something post-ROTJ that was amazing.

Ugh, I'll stay away from discussions of how great marketing is.

Sorry, didn't mean to upset you. Quick Question - where can I get some Star Wars Pajamas in Medium? Yours are really cute!

Even in the mid 80's you could find the figures in stores marked way down. They had tried repackaging a lot of the figures with collectible coins and stuff and it just didn't move. I remember going into hardware stores like True Value or Coast to Coast and they would have tiny little toy sections and there would be a rack full of Walrusman (Ponda Baba) for like a dollar or even less. I really regret not buying some of those figures I saw like that.

Yeah, there was a considerable dry spell during that time. My interests definitely went to the Trek side during that period, as there were the classic crew movies coming out every few years, and then The Next Generation.

But when the Zhan trilogy came out, I was more than ready to get back into it, and I've maintained at least a passing interest in the franchise since then. I don't bother with most "merchandise", but I've bought the first DVD release of 4-6 and all the DVDs of the prequels, plus the Clone Wars series. I've also bought the absolutely fantastic making-of books of ANH and TESB. If you feel jaded and burnt out by the prequels and the SE's and all the ancillary "crap" surrounding the Holy Trilogy, these books will certainly rekindle your love for these films.

86-93 are considered the "Dark Years" for Star Wars fans, there wasn't much going on. The 10th anniversary re-release and Star Tours in 87 was about it for the rest of the 80's. The early 90's saw the Thrawn Trilogy which slowly started to fuel the star wars machine again. The 1992 "Definitive" release on Laserdisc and the 1995 Action figure revamp started the wave of Star Wars merch that lead to Shadows and eventually to what we have now.

I thought the new action figures didn't show up until 1995 - the new Power of the Force line I believe.

Correct, it was a typo. I fixed it.

I'm not a fan of the Star Wars EU, though. It sounds good on paper, but there's been so much material flooded onto the market that it's overwhelming. Hundreds of novels and comic books, covering everything from thousands of years in the past to one hundred years after the movies.

And George Lucas isn't beholden to any of it. At any given moment, Lucas can wipe out all of the comics and novels with a new project. Which puts it in the same boat as the Star Trek books and comics; the Star Wars EU tries to maintain internal consistency, but it's still just a lot of ancillary material that the movies and tv shows are not bound to.

I prefer the way Babylon 5 and Buffy handle this. With Babylon 5, licensed stories only get made with the direct approval of JMS (with the exception of the some of the earlier novels) so they are fully part of the larger saga. With Buffy/Angel/Serenity, Joss Whedon himself personally handles and oversees most of the current comic book projects, so they are fully canon with the series they're spun from.

The Babylon 5 and Buffy models also mean that a lot less stuff gets released into the market, so it's easier to follow.

I've always thought it's funny that most average Star Wars fans probably know more about EU stuff than Lucas himself.

The problem is that the EU does a better job (not every single story, but there is some great quality to be found) of expanding the story than Lucas did. Ep. III broke so many things from both the OT and EU, it's just pointless.

The problem with all this is with Lucas himself. Whedon is a completely different story. Lucas could have done the same thing, and seemed to be doing so, at one point in history. Then he went loopy with midiclorians and one all-encompassing saber swipe. If I have to choose between 5 books about Thrawn and Ep. I-III for my entertainment for next week, guess which I'll choose.

Yeah, I've read dozens upon dozens of the EU stuff* and while a lot of them are entertaining, you can probably count on one hand the "great" ones. 3 of those 5 being Zahn's trilogy, which I would also take any day over Ep. I-III.

*I'm woefully behind now. I think I quit on the EU about 75% of the way into the Yuhzaan Vong series.

Speaking of EU, anybody wanna chime in about the quality of Fate of the Jedi? I was big into EU with New Jedi Order back in the day, then Legacy of the Force kind of tempered my enthusiasm...

I am not a fan of EU, but the reason it doesn't bother me like some SW fans is it doesn't interfere with the original movies. The EU is there is a fan wants to read it (or watch it with the Clone Wars), take it or leave it. My only problem with Lucas is not that he made the PT, but changing the OT movies to fit the PT, so you are forced to watch the changes. Because he refuses to release the OOT in any good quality, the only way I can watch the Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi is to see stupid changes like Hayden standing next to Sir Alec Guinness!

Yeah, I got burned on that. Karen Traviss wrote several surprisingly engaging books (vaguely) based on characters in the Republic Commando video game. With one book to go to finish the story (now Imperial Commando), the series was cancelled because the cartoon series wanted a Mandalorian storyline, and rather than use the klingon-influenced Mandos from the books, they wanted them to be a race of pacifists who long ago turned away from their warlike ways.

And yet the Buffy Season 8 and Angel Season 5 comics totally contradict one another with a major plot twist in one that the writers of the other were blindsided by.

Yeah, while we all understand Lucas doesn't have to be beholden to the EU, for the longest time, until the Traviss incident, it always looked like he thought the EU stuff was canon as well. Everything always actually seemed to work well together.

LOL then this incident and you then say Lucas is no better than Paramount.

I always felt like Lucas made choices in the prequels that went against the EU just so he could make Star Wars "all his". Several elements in the EU were covered or alluded too better than want prequels eventually showed.

Even then, though, Buffy season 8 was kind of a hot mess. Which, sort of makes it fit in with seasons six and seven.

The only Angel comics from IDW that are officially canon are After the Fall #1-17, and possibly Spike: After the Fall and Spike (8 issue miniseries).

(Spoiling the Angel and Buffy comics)

Well yeah the first Clone Wars cartoon/Labrinyth of Evil discrepancies I think most people were willing to let slide.

Especially since when he relaunched Clone Wars he seemed to ignore that first batch of cartoons as well. So you could sort of claim the books once again as the "correct" story.

Then along came the Traviss incident. Which at least at this point seems to be the only major discrepancy between the two. (I'd say that they might feel that way about some of the issues of the Old Republic comics, but I say no one is really going to know until they place all the episodes in chronological order and then try to compare the timelines to see what issues do or do not work.)

What is the Traviss incident?