- HubPages»
- Entertainment and Media»
- Movies & Movie Reviews»
- Science Fiction & Fantasy Films»
- Science Fiction
Five Star Wars EU Villains That Should Not Be Missed
Introduction
I know that there was a lot of anger among certain groups of Star Wars fans when Disney declared that EU (Expanded Universe) was no longer going to be canon until they decided what to keep and what to throw out. I personally thought that this was a good decision since most of the EU was mediocre at best, downright idiotic at worst. But in all fairness there were some books I liked, and I think that it is sad they are going to possibly be thrown out with the bad. The other reason I liked this decision is that it gives J. J. Abrams far more room in which to be creative. I like this decision because it rids us of the following villains that should not be missed.
Palpatine's Clone
Villain #5: The Emperor’s Clone (Because beating him once was not enough)
Since he is Emperor Palpatine sort of, I am going to put him as the least bad of the lot. The main problems here were that the concept was idiotic, the writing was bad, and the portrayal was terrible. The main point though is, our heroes had already beaten the Emperor. Why did we need them to beat him again and then again and then again? This is not even mentioning the entire, weird, Palpatine wants to possess Anakin Solo’s infant body while it is still in his mother’s womb, bit.
Xizor
Villain #4: Xizor (Because aliens with pheromones and major grudges are all the rage)
Xizor comes from Shadows of the Empire. It is a book that takes place in between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. He is a Falleen, a reptilian race that projects pheromones to addle people’s minds and possibly make mammals fall in love or lust with them. Vader ends up killing Xizor’s parents to prevent an outbreak when a bioweapon leaks from a lab near their city. Xizor swears vengeance. He plans to kill Luke, Vader’s son. To this end, he manipulates Leia with his pheromones, but she is freed from this manipulation due to Chewbacca’s warning. In the end, Xizor is defeated. The problem with Xizor is that he is completely and totally uninteresting. The story was flat. He was a worthless villain. Also the entire pheromone scene was a bit weird.
Darth Scabrous
Villain #3: Darth Scabrous (Because the one thing Star Wars really badly needed was zombies)
I don’t know much about this villain, but he seems to be a villain from a bad horror movie rather than a Star Wars villain. In his search for immortality, he finds Darth Drear’s (seriously who comes up with these names) formula for a Dark Side alchemical construction that can grant immortality. Oh yes, it can also partially raise the dead as flesh eating monsters. Yep, zombies. Darth Scabrous then apparently has to eat the protagonist’s heart so that her high midi-chlorian count can stabilize the formula, thereby making him permanently immortal. Who thought that this was a good Star Wars’ plot?
Exar Kun
An Actual Good Star Wars Comic Book
Villain #2: Exar Kun (How to cast out a Dark Side spirit)
Exar Kun was one of those great villains made by that excellent author Kevin J. Anderson. Yes that sentence is dripping with sarcasm. Exar Kun appears in two main works. They are the comic book series Knights of the Old Republic and The Jedi Academy Trilogy. In Knights of the Old Republic, he is one of the main villains. He is first guided by the spirit of another Sith, Freedon Nadd. He then destroys Freedon Nadd with a dark side force amulet thingy. He becomes leader of the Sith and goes on to try to destroy the Republic. When his fellow Sith Lord, Ulic Qel Droma, is stripped of the Force by Nomi Sunrider, he reveals that Exar Kun is on Yavin Four in the Massassi Temples, which would later hide The Rebellion and house The Jedi Academy. He is defeated, and his dark side spirit trapped. Flash forward. When Luke Skywalker sets up the Jedi Academy on Yavin Four, Exar Kun begins to corrupt Luke’s apprentices. Apparently, Luke could not sense that Yavin Four was utterly steeped in the Dark Side despite the fact that it had been the base of operation for at least two Sith Lords (Naga Sadow and Exar Kun). Yet he could tell Coruscant was steeped in the Dark Side even though it had been the base of operations for only one Sith Lord (Palpatine) and had housed The Jedi Temple. In the end, Exar Kun finally gets defeated by some of the apprentices when they cross their lightsabers in front of him. Wait, what? I’m sure that somebody could explain the deep symbolism of light casting out the dark. I get that symbolism, but in this scene it’s stupid. Crossing lightsabers in front of a dark side spirit, should not kill the dark side spirit. It is way too easy. They should have somehow had to use the lightside of the force to do it. By the way, the symbolism would still be obvious. Some credit is due because he was not named Darth followed by some painfully obvious word that indicates a character trait. See my Darth article for more conversation on this point.
Admiral Daala
An Actual Good Star Wars Villain
Number #1: Admiral Daala (How about we put a mass murdering psychopath in charge of the galaxy)
Admiral Daala is a miserable villain. She is completely unnuanced. She is also inconsistently written by the same author, our old friend Kevin J. Anderson. First off, we get her backstory as the girl, who went to the military academy. Life was so hard. None of the male superiors were willing notice how good she was. This was probably due to the fact that if you actually look at the stories, she is a terrible military commander. Then along comes Grand Moff Tarkin and sees her skills. It is also implied at times that they sleep together, which would explain a mass murdering incompetent psychopath like her reaching the rank of admiral. She is put in charge of the installation that creates The Death Star. Later on in The Jedi Academy Trilogy, we find out that her team has created a new super weapon, The Sun Crusher. She finds out that Tarkin is dead and heads out to take over the Empire’s military. There are several things that happen, and then in the series that follow The New Jedi Order books, Daala somehow gets elected leader of The Galactic Alliance (an alliance between the remnant of the Empire and The New Republic). She basically becomes ruler of the galaxy and begins to try to curtail the Jedi. I’m still not quite sure how she ever got elected. Quite frankly, she should have been being tried for war crimes and then shot, hung, or however they do it in the Star Wars galaxy. I can really only think of three possible explanations. Number one, she was running unopposed. Number two, she perpetrated massive voter fraud across the galaxy. Number three, her opponent was a complete and total incompetent. The point of the matter is this character lurches from one idiocy to the next. She is bloodthirsty and violent. Yet the authors want us to suddenly buy that she is actually electable. Also they want us to buy that sane, intelligent individuals like Pellaeon and Boba Fett, who seems to be the consummate mercenary not following anyone unless they pay well, would actually follow her. Then they want us to believe that nobody could come up with a Remember Alderaan campaign slogan. It is ludicrous.
Conclusion
In closing, I think that Disney made a good choice. Of course, these are not the only bad villains from the EU. We also have such brilliance as the return of Darth Maul with spider legs, Darth Andeddu (really people please work on coming up with better names), Darth Talon (why is she wearing that), and many others.