My Star Wars Experience: Vector Prime and the Effect It Had on Star Wars

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Friday. Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the original publication of the first book in the Star Wars: The New Jedi Order series, Vector Prime by R.A. Salvatore. So I wanted to talk about that book and the impact it had on the franchise going forward. Let's get into it.

 Published on October 5th, 1999, Vector Prime was the first book in Del Rey's new line of novels set after Return of the Jedi. Bantam Spectra had begun their Star Wars novel program with Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn in 1991, but since then their approach, most likely due to the prequel era embargo they'd been placed under by Lucasfilm, things had gotten stale by 1999. Luke was too powerful, the Empire had been defeated, and there was no serious threat to any of the main characters. Especially since the Emperor and Darth Vader had been destroyed in Return of the Jedi and Thrawn was gone. So Lucasfilm, with the help of Del Rey, Dark Horse Comics, and author, James Luceno, developed a series where nobody was safe and there was uncertainty as to whether the New Jedi Order, led by Luke Skywalker, could defeat the latest enemy of the New Republic, the Yuuzhan Vong.

I first heard about Vector Prime and The New Jedi Order when I got issue #43 of Star Wars Insider. The news section, which was called "Star News" at the time, had a brief announcement article on the new series in that issue, and then by the time issue #46 came out in late 1999, the book had been published. I thought it was cool, but I didn't immediately rush out to buy the book in hardcover when it came out because hardcovers were pretty expensive 25 years ago. 

I did end up getting the book when it came out in paperback in the summer of 2000. I'm pretty sure I got it in August 2000, because I don't think I got it for Christmas or my birthday as I was focusing on getting the Bantam era novels, which I didn't own very many of at that point. I enjoyed it, but actually reading Chewie's death near the end sucked. I knew about it before I read the book because issue #47 of Star Wars Insider had a whole article on it. So I knew about it going into the book. That article did not prepare me enough that's for sure.

As I mentioned the novels published by Bantam had gotten stale by 1999, and with the world changing, and the Prequel Trilogy coming out, people were no longer interested in novels where there were no stakes because Luke was really powerful and the stories were disconnected from one another despite sharing the same continuity. Even to this day, the novels are no longer tied to Han, Luke, and Leia. And that was another problem that The New Jedi Order ended up fixing. That and the prequel era novels gave us so many other characters as well. Like Jax Pavan in Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter by Michael Reaves. 

While I do think The New Jedi Order was a bit too dark and not alot of fun, it was still important, because it revitalized the Star Wars book publishing program at a time where the books were just as important as the movies. But, it also signified the end of the importance of the novels as the franchise was entering into television with Genndy Tartakovsky's animated series, Star Wars: Clone Wars in 2003, and then Dave Filoni's animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars in 2008. Because we had weekly episodes of Star Wars coming out, people began gravitating away from the books and comics and they became the aspects of the franchise that the really hardcore fans experienced and the general audience had no interest in anymore. Which is fine, because Star Wars novels and comics are still being published today even though they're a more niche corner of the Star Wars Universe.

One thing that I feel is unique to Vector Prime is the marketing. While the Shadows of the Empire Multimedia Project had commercials for the toys and the video game, Vector Prime had a TV commercial, narrated by Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, for the book itself. I don't remember seeing the commercial for the book on any TV channel I was watching in 1999, but it exists. Which is fascinating to me because Star Wars novels and comics never got TV commercials before this, and I don't think any of the books had them after this. So this was an unusual way to market the book. 

According to Leland Chee, the former keeper of lore for Lucasfilm, and I did not know this until recently, Chewie's death in Vector Prime was one of the reasons that the Lucasfilm Story Group chose to relegate the original Expanded Universe to Legends, in favour of a new continuity in novels and comics. Which makes sense since you can't just retcon Chewie's death so that he can appear in the Sequel Trilogy movies, but keep The New Jedi Order and all the books that came after it in continuity. It just doesn't work. Especially when The New Jedi Order takes place within the same time period that the Sequel Trilogy movies ended up taking place in. 

Vector Prime, and just The New Jedi Order in general, revitalized the Star Wars novel publishing program in a way that caused it to grow to where it is now. Because, even the prequel era book program was slow to start following the novelization of The Phantom Menace and the first few books in the young reader series, Jedi Apprentice. I mean Rogue Planet didn't come out until 2000, and Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter and Cloak of Deception didn't come out until 2001. And that was because of potential spoilers for The Phantom Menace. So The New Jedi Order kept things going until the prequel era could be better explored once Attack of the Clones came out and authors could tell stories set during the Clone Wars.

Alright my friends, I think that's gonna be it for me for this week. I'll be back next week for more blog posts. So until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you later. Take care.