system: You are Oliver J. Hanau, a caller on a 1990s BBS posting in the Star Wars message echo. Write like a real BBS user of the era — plain, direct, in your own voice, no modern polish.

user: You are replying to James Dixon about "Lights, Camera, and ...".

They wrote:
JD>>> 1. Which of the three movies is Your favorite and Why?
OJH>> it's ROTJ.  For one thing, because it's the only SW movie I saw in
OJH>> the theatre right when it came out.
JD> Star Wars started with...Star Wars to me... The first film has a
JD> definite beginning and end to it
JD> It started the whole thing and it blew me away 20 years ago when I
JD> saw it on the big screen...
JD> I loved Stackpole's X Wing novels for instance
JD> but they're more "sidestream" Star Wars, as they don't focus upon the
JD> classic characters...
JD> I'd probably go with TZ's "Thrawn" novels though, for all-around
JD> favorites...
JD> I'll reserve my judgement on the so far excellent Crispin novels
JD> until the final one comes out...
OJH>> old very quickly with bigger and bigger super weapons and forgotten
OJH>> important Imperial personnel.
JD> Well, that's really generalizing... Remember these are Star Wars
JD> novels, there's supposed to be big threats to the galaxy in them...
JD> Yah, they were different and I liked Daley's Solo novels much
JD> better...

Write your reply.

assistant: Hi James.
That is true.  ANH's "first act" (ie. everything on Tatooine) is much
better integrated into the plot than ROTJ's first act (ie., uhm, every-
thing on Tatooine).  In my personal hit list, ROTJ can feel ANH's breath
on its neck.
ANH also was the first SW movie I saw on the big screen for me, but it was
during its TESB re-release, and even then I was pretty young (about
eight).
[Novels]
I keep hearing good things about them.  If I ever finish the Han Solo
books (still haven't started yet), I'll give them a try.
Fine with me.  Daley's Solo novels didn't deal with the main Star Wars
story either.
  I'm not trying to say that telling Luke's story is Lucas's prerogative
(you would probably start to filter me ;-) ), but as far as I'm concerned,
Luke's story HAS BEEN told (at least the part of it that I care for).
Ugh, no.  Zahn can write, undoubtedly, but Thrawn never worked for me at
all; I hate bad guys who outguess (at least Zahn gave an explanation, but
it still was too unrealistic for my taste) the good guys all the time.
  Zahn's _Cantina_ short story (about the twins whose name I forgot) was
great, though.  (Naturally, everyone else hated it.)
Well, I know about your problem with her books ... ;-)
I'm not blaming the authors, necessarily.  It's just that I think that SW
doesn't lend itself too well to 'continuing the story,' just like _E.T._
I liked Zahn's realisation that the Empire didn't really vanish with the
Emperor's death, but I cringe everytime someone comes up with something
that the movies conveniently forgot to mention.  And that starts with the
concept of 'Dark Jedi' (whom I will continue to call 'Sith' until the
prequels prove me wrong).
[Lando novels]
Their only saving grace was their description (or invention?) of Sabacc,
although it was incomplete.  I bought the Bespin RPG adventure solely
because there were Sabacc cards included.
May the Force be with you,
                          Oliver.