[newman]

I kinda hated "Children of the Jedi". But I guess the title should have been warning enough
It was written by Barbara Hambly, I'm not sure about the rest of her work but this book was abysmal.

[Turambar]

We all know that true Star Wars continuity begins just before SW: ANH and ends just after Vision of the Future

[SpardaSon21]

Outbound Flight was actually good despite it being pre-Clone Wars, but that would be because it was written by Timothy Zahn and included Thrawn.

[Angelus]

Yeah, T. Zahn is the best writer. No other books catch the SW "feeling" like his.
Most ( not all ) post-Endor books suck Jabbas Balls, but Zahn manages to avoid all the crap of the other books ( Jedi Academy, Yuuzahn Vong,...) focused on, and create a in-official Sequel trilogy.
K.W. Jeters "Bounty Hunter Wars" books aren't that bad either, even though they turn Boba Fett into a super-creature.

[Mongoose]

Not to interrupt the author-hate of the moment, but can I just state that I vehemently disagree with just about every point in the opening post without breaking out paragraphs of nerd dissertation to back it up?

[StarSlayer]

Not to interrupt the author-hate of the moment, but can I just state that I vehemently disagree with just about every point in the opening post without breaking out paragraphs of nerd dissertation to back it up?

No

Edit>> In fact if you're going to say the Ewoks should have beaten the Imperial ground forces you will need to provide video evidence that proves you can say it with a straight face.

[Mongoose]

I'm not going to go to that much bother, but I'll still assert as much.  You're talking about the same Imperial forces that couldn't hit the broad side of a Wookie over two whole films.  Why shouldn't a primitive jungle tribe handle them with relative ease?

[WOLF_Angel]

Well we could sort of  (VERY loosely) use the argument of Fremen versus Sardokar as a comparison for Ewoks to Imperial forces,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Okay not really....but hey it was funny in my head:)

[NGTM-1R]

Edit>> In fact if you're going to say the Ewoks should have beaten the Imperial ground forces you will need to provide video evidence that proves you can say it with a straight face.

In Mongoose' defense the Ewoks did start getting their asses kicked towards the end.

[Mongoose]

Yeah, I'd thought of that right after I posted as a potential follow-up.  If not for their far superior numbers, the Ewoks probably would have been mowed down in fairly short order, and even as-is they were on their way toward defeat by the end of the battle.  It was only Chewie's Crowning Moment of Awesome that wound up saving the day.

As far as your other arguments go, I think a few valid reasons as to why the present Star Destroyers might not have stood much of a chance against the rebel fleet have already been raised.  And Flaser effectively deconstructed your concerns about the throne room scene (though I'm not nearly so cynical about the tenets of the dark side as he is ).  I'm frankly surprised that you had that sort of objection, since it seems like you missed the entire point of the battle going on there.  It had nothing to do with concerns of Jedi battlefield morality, or anything along those lines, but instead with the very nature of embracing the dark side and taking on the mantle of the Sith.  Personally, I've always viewed it as one of my favorite moments in the entire OT; the Emperor toying with Luke's every emotion, and Luke himself coming to that realization about his father in his moment of range, are just awesome stuff.

[StarSlayer]

For something that originally was for laughs it sure got serious, but hey I'll bite. 

I'll concede most of the throne room issue, out of the three that was the one I threw in mostly for gags anyway, and jokes aside was probably the best part of the movie aside from the technical aspects. 

And in the context of EU I accept Zhan's/Thrawn's theory on why the Imp fleet fell apart after the old blighter swan dived down the shaft.  Having the endorphin astronomicon suddenly cut would have been like going into sudden heroine withdrawal.  That said the issue wasn't cleared up in the film and the fact that Zhan felt the need to address the issue seems evidence enough that it was a hole that needed to be plugged.  To be honest though my problem was more to do with how the fleet underperformed prior to then them hanging it up after the Death Star blew.  Sure supplementary fluff tries to make it seem like the rebel fleet was much larger then it appeared on screen, but on screen they have only a few serious warships, most of which got fried by the Death Star, and a motley collection of frigate/corvettes/transports yet they managed to go toe to toe with a numerically and technically superior Imperial battle group composed almost entirely of ships of the line and only lose a few snubbies.  Personally I think it would have played out better and been more in keeping with the prior two if the Rebels did have their butts handed to them and only where saved by the Imps suffering a "Collector General" when Palpatine bought it.  But we tossed the seriousness of ANH and ESB in favor of warm and fuzzy.

As for the ground battle, their still is no excuse for how it turned out, it was the most contrived thing in the movies, period.  The fact remains that the second the Ewoks first yell Yub Yub every Imperial on that moon had their brain contract into the size of a pea and the resulting space was filled with the contents of their bowels, I think I'll call the effect assmosis.  They had one job to do, protect the door from the Rebels so they didn't destroy the shield projector.  The first thing they did was abandon the primary objective and scatter to the winds.  If you had a platoon of Marines and a LAV 25 and told them to hold that door you better believe their would have been a shiny new Death Star orbiting the sanctuary moon by the end of the flick, and thats a fraction of what the Imps had.  Its just militarily unforgivable, and really the audience deserved something better then assmosis for why the Imps lost the ground battle.

[brandx0]

On that note, the Americans in Vietnam had a relatively short border to defend against a technologically inferior force, and still managed to get their asses whooped

[newman]

That's true, but they got their asses whooped by guys armed with AK's and MiGs, not a bunch of fluffy stuffed animals throwing rocks

[Snail]

That's true, but they got their asses whooped by guys armed with AK's and MiGs, not a bunch of fluffy stuffed animals throwing rocks

*sigh*




They ruined everything.

[StarSlayer]

On that note, the Americans in Vietnam had a relatively short border to defend against a technologically inferior force, and still managed to get their asses whooped

Thats such a gross oversimplification you might as well say World War One started because a bloke named Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry.

[Turambar]

Outbound Flight was actually good despite it being pre-Clone Wars, but that would be because it was written by Timothy Zahn and included Thrawn.

It had prequel movie characters in it.  This is unacceptable as it gives the movies legitimacy.  If i am ever obscenely rich, i am going to go on an ancient egyptian style quest to remove those movies from history and make it seem as if they were never created.  I will then hire a panel of authors to rewrite the movies properly and hand the film-making process to actual talented people.

[SpardaSon21]

You're focusing on the prequel part of it and are missing the key words of my statement.

1. Timothy Zahn.

2. THRAAAAWWWNNN!!!

[chief1983]

Not only that, the Americans didn't get beat by the VC.  They got beat by popular opinion back home.  Even the VC generals realized after the last offensive that they were totally screwed, because we had essentially wiped out their entire army.  They must have **** a brick when we then proceeded to pull out.

The US did not, tactically speaking, lose the Vietnam war.

[brandx0]

On that note, the Americans in Vietnam had a relatively short border to defend against a technologically inferior force, and still managed to get their asses whooped

Thats such a gross oversimplification you might as well say World War One started because a bloke named Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry.

Of course it's a gross oversimplification, but so is the common statement that the Empire was beaten by Teddy Bears.

For other similar scenarios, see the real life section of http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RockBeatsLaser

[StarSlayer]

On that note, the Americans in Vietnam had a relatively short border to defend against a technologically inferior force, and still managed to get their asses whooped

Thats such a gross oversimplification you might as well say World War One started because a bloke named Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry.

Of course it's a gross oversimplification, but so is the common statement that the Empire was beaten by Teddy Bears.

For other similar scenarios, see the real life section of http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RockBeatsLaser

No, not for similar scenarios.  This wasn't early firearms vs bows and arrows, nor third world equipment vs the latest of the first world's military.  This was bow and arrows vs basically walking helicopter gunships and laser assault rifles.  Of course bows and arrows will beat early firearms.  Early fire arms were crap, they couldn't reload near as fast as a bowman and did not have the penetrative power of a crossbow.  What they did have is economics.  They where cheap and easy to use and maintain and most importantly it took a blacksmith an afternoon to forge a ton of balls.  Fletching arrows took a long skill intensive time and an archer could only carry a limited supply of them.  Logistics is what made firearms take the place of bows and arrows and it took a long time before firearms became a superior weapon, so all those instances of muskets and stuff getting beat by natives isn't surprising. 
But the issue isn't bows vs muskets, the issue is as I've stated repeatedly before that the Imps completely ignored what they where there to do on that moon.  If George wanted to do Shaka Zulu with carebears fine, but rather then coming up with a plausible scenario for Imperial defeat he instead had "A legion of my finest troops" up and do the complete opposite of what they were supposed to do.