I spent half my day at work reading all the super weapon entries on Wookiepedia. Also, I got home late because we won trivia at the bar, but there were no Star Wars questions.
Splinter of the Mind's Eye Sweet Ralph Macquarie cover art, courtesy of Wookiepedia! Summary: Luke and Leia crash on a swamp planet. Leia has PTSD. Luke has a crush on her. They go looking for the Kaiburr Crystal with cranky Force grandma and replacement Chewie twins. Darth Vader shows up and mostly kicks their asses, but he falls in a hole. What it introduces: Naming things X of the Y : Which would hold for 4 of the 9 movies, 70ish novels, and numerous video games, comics, etc. The Kaiburr Crystal: Shards of which would become the most desirable lightsaber focusing crystals in the later EU. Kyber crystals would make an appearance in the new canon as both lightsaber crystals and part of the Death Star's superlaser. Commentary: Splinter of the Mind's Eye is widely considered the first book in the Expanded Universe. It was published in 1978, about half a year after the original release of Star Wars/A New Hope. Preceding it are a few of the Marvel Comics (which I'll be...
Return of the Jedi Radio Drama Best scene in the ROTJ drama, and possibly the whole trilogy. The Return of The Jedi adaptation has an interesting backstory. After Reagan cut NPR's funding, they weren't able to produce a Return of The Jedi adaptation in the 80s. Highbridge Audio, the company that did the home releases for the first two dramas, eventually got most of the cast (minus Mark Hamill and Billy Dee Williams) and crew signed back on in 1996 so they could sell my dad a Return of The Jedi cd to put in my Christmas stocking. They did still get an NPR premiere. I'm kind of surprised we didn't listen to them live. My dad was an PBS/NPR fan who loved radio dramas, and I obviously loved Star Wars. Seems like something we'd have gone for. It's the last thing Brian Daley worked on. He died a few hours after recording wrapped. Because it wasn't produced until the mid 90s, it contains a few references to the expanded universe. Mara Jade gets a cameo to narrat...
Time to move to a close on this whole thing. This is going to sort of be in the vein of my regular entries. Things introduced to the EU (that I didn't already mention): Vornskr: Force hunting doggies. Named in German. Weird. Ysalamir: Anti-force salamanders. Noghri: Thrawn's kind of hobgoblin-esque bodyguards. I think one of the reasons I like HttE better than the rest of the series is that they're fairly minimally involved. Zahn goes all in on the cliche primitive honorable warrior race schtick, and doesn't even execute it that well. (I will complain about the end of The Last Command when I get there.) Action # transports: Would become the generic freighter of choice for much of the EU. Winter!: Missed her in my character roundup. Probably holds some kind of record for most appearances by an EU original non-Jedi character, given how early she shows up, how often other authors use her, and how she manages not to die. Plot Summary: Grand Admiral Thrawn is (as his name...
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