WorldCritic said:
Personally I liked the way Return of the Jedi turned out. If we had the darker ending then who knows how the Expanded Universe would have been. Then again I'm one of the few people who actually cares about the books.
Well, I think this is one of the problems with the Star Wars Universe and why it's such a mess to be honest.
On a lot of levels Star Wars is a pretty dark story. That universe as Lucas has more or less explains is one that is supposed to work on cycles. Basically you have a period where good reigns, then a period where evil reigns. In between each of these periods is a transition point of chaos where both are evenly matched, a period of balance, which lasts very briefly as the new moral polarity sets in. This entire thing is controlled by "The Force".
Star Wars is the tale of an era of light coming to an end, the good "Republic" falling to be replaced by a regime of evil. Prophicies are in place, and The Force is reducing the powers of the good guys while enhancing those of the bad guys. The big mistakes being made are on the good side, where as the prequels point out the good guys think that brining "Balance" to the force means that the chosen one (Anakin) is destined to destroy the rising Sith. Sadly when good reigns, the only place to go is down... and well, we see how it all turns out. Another big mistake being made is by Papaltine who believes that with the fall of the good guys (he understand things better than most characters at least as far as this goes) he and his "Galactic Empire" are going to be the foundation of the new era of darkness. This is not true as he forgets about the period of balance. It's noteworthy that Anakin is responsible for both exterminating the Jedi, but also then killing the Emperor and preventing the Empire from becoming the force it otherwise would have been.... the results a period of balanced chaos. Prophecy complete.
As popular as some of it might be, a lot of the "Expanded Universe" stuff is written by people who never really understood how the universe was supposed to work. In the end though Lucas doesn't much care about the purity of vision because (as this points out) he cares about money above and beyond anything. He pretty much figures that if he's still alive and ever has the intention he can do the same thing he did to the old "Hardy Boys" type Star Wars sequels (before Zahn... "The Glove Of Darth Vader", "Prophets Of the Dark Side", etc...) and "Dark Horse Comics"... he can pretty much swoop in as the creator, do whatever he wants to do, and because he's George Lucas liscencing rights will be meaningless as in the end he's the one who will be accepted to dictate canon. Whether we will see this again remains to be seen, but it HAS happened twice before to varying degrees.
At any rate, once in a while you see Lucas do something that shows off the original spirit of the universe. His subtle "ghost writing" for "Knights Of the Old Republic II" kind of shows this, as the entire premise of that game was basically someone who figured out how the universe worked, raging and trying to stop these cycles so people could have free will. Sadly things fell apart with that so a lot of the details on HOW Kreia intended to destroy The Force other than killing it's main orders of force users were not revealed.
I'll also be honest in saying that while Bioware does some awesome writing, I do have some fears about the upcoming "Old Republic Online" game as far as the plot and how well it will fit in with the universe, largely because they are dealing with a time frame with a predetermined outcome. They are producing a game that seems to be "Sith Mania" incarnate, with cinematics showing Sith handingly Jedi with relative ease. Above and beyond my concerns for game balance both mechanically (from them favoring a side) and population wise (people going with the faction designed to be cooler), it seems to be being forgotten that The Sith are supposed to be getting ***** slapped so hard that come the end of the cycle in the "Star Wars Movies" nobody even knows what a Sith is for sure, because they were so completly eradicated by the Jedi and their allies.
See, the reason why Papaltine could handle Mace Windu and a squad of Jedi Grandmasters was not because "sith are that powerful" but because The Force pretty much dictated that this is how things were. The good guys had the force being "cloudy" and not reacting as they were used to (this is mentioned a couple of times... a massive disturbance clouding everything) where The Sith were basically being given a virtual ocean of power to draw from. The Jedi who did well and survived were those who were playing pivotal roles, Obi-Wan and Yoda for example were crucial to the training of Luke Skywalker who was the catalyst for bringing about Vader's change of heart and the death of The emperor.
The point I'm getting at is that I think giving "Return Of The Jedi" that ending seriously confused the intention of a lot of things that happened. Rather than "Star Wars" we sort of got a modern fairy tale in space... nothing wrong with that on a lot of levels, but it didn't do justice to the universe or the concepts behind it.
