One of my cousins refused to read Vector Prime or any of its sequels because she found out Chewbacca died. It's ironic Chewie is the only one of the core OT cast that's still alive in canon aside from droids.
There's a very good reason to keep him alive over the human cast: He can be played by any tall dude in a furry suit. He will be appearing in movies and TV for decades to come.
Well with the story the way it is he's the only one that still has a place in the galaxy and I really hope that Disney gives him the place he should have as the leader or at least ambassador of his people.
It would’ve been interesting and funny to see the immense Vong army and the mother ship while a high ranking imperial officer asks Luke. “Do you know what would be useful right now?” Luke *bilwidered* Imperial officer “A Death Star”
That would have required the New Republic to betray its values. The New Republic considered developing biological and genetic weapons to fight the Vong, but came to conclusion that if they did so, they would be tacitly admitting they were really no better than the Empire.
@@terrylong8894 I get that, but being nice about war to an enemy that won’t to you gets your own people annihilated and that’s what almost happened. The Vong were Ruthless. Whether they were blown up on a ship from a super weapon, got stabbed by a lightsaber or shot with a blaster bolt has the same outcome and an instant death seems more humane if that’s what they were going for.
“I can't help but wonder how the old Empire would have handled the crisis. I hope you will forgive my partisan attitude but it seems to me that the Emperor would have mobilized his entire armament at the first threat and dealt with the Yuuzhan Vong in an efficient and expeditious manner through the use of overwhelming force. Certainly better than Borsk Fey'lya's policy if I understood it correctly as a policy of negotiating with the invaders at the same time as he was fighting them sending signals of weakness to a ruthless enemy who used negotiation only as a cover for further conquests." "That's not what the Empire would have done Commander. What the Empire would have done was build a super-colossal Yuuzhan Vong-killing battle machine. They would have called it the Nova Colossus or the Galaxy Destructor or the Nostril of Palpatine or something equally grandiose. They would have spent billions of credits employed thousands of contractors and subcontractors and equipped it with the latest in death-dealing technology. And you know what would have happened It wouldn't have worked. They'd forget to bolt down a metal plate over an access hatch leading to the main reactors or some other mistake and a hotshot enemy pilot would have dropped a bomb down there and blow the whole thing up. Now that's what the Empire would have done."
You don’t really need a “can’t be touched by the force” enemy, because conventional enemies already have that sort of plot armour 99% of the time when they fight Jedi and somehow the Jedi only fight by swinging around their lightsaber and forget that they have telekinesis, mind tricks, and so on. Looking at how Force Push works in the shows and movies you would think it has like a one-hour cooldown or something.
No need for a well thought out gimmick when bad writing will suffice and it becomes a competition between incompetent villains and idiot heroes to see which one is slightly less self defeating at the moment... which has been pretty much the entirety of DisCan so far
@@cyberpup2246However, the EU was a flexible area of potential where good stories from it could be brought in. Meanwhile disney’s cannon immediately discredits most of the possibilities outright relegating anything not under their control to fan fiction.
@@cyberpup2246 I’ll definitely agree not allot of the EU works well, but it has its moments and characters. Like I said before, I’d missed the freedom, and some of the better defined rules for things like hyperspace. I must agree the stories you mentioned, even under Disney’s cannon, were ones that worked well.
@@cyberpup2246 the difference though is that DisCan had forty years of material to see what worked and what didn't by what came before. DisCan also had access to a much larger budget and resources than the EU. Finally, DisCan had complete creative freedom to do anything...and they still turned in inferior product.
Lmao, yeah that's true. The force is used so often in the EU in many instances, yet still the Jedi aren't invincible. Canon shouldn't have any problems tbh
Vong were controversial for a lot of reasons. One more important one was there were so many authors who all got a crack at a novel that some of the rules of how they worked got bent. Some books were really good, others were really bad and the constant struggle against the vong organic stuff felt...lacking compared to X-wing vs TiE type crunch. In the end, I think the series was good and interesting, but I doubt we ever see Disney touch them.
I full agree. I read them all but I am not sure if I enjoyed even half of them. And the constant loosing of "our" heroes did not make it better. For me, the turning point was the novel about Jacen on former Coruscant. I enjoyed that one and the aspect of a new force perspective but the most other books of the series were rather exhausting and sometimes even annoying. And I think LucasArts knew that people don't really enjoy the Vong and ended the series rather quickly in the end.
Aside for the wildly inconsistent quality of the writing between the books, my main problem was that it was too depressing. If I remember right, Star by Star (which I think was one of the better books in the series) that detailed the fall of Coruscant was released on the heals of 9/11. Overall though, I enjoyed the new direction for the post OT era.
I started out NJO as a Vong hater, but I've turned around on them. The Vong invasion was a really good way to upset the status quo within the galaxy, and the later stuff when they're dealing with the aftermath and all the Vongformed planets was really interesting. The concept of a whole species cut off from the Force was always kinda wack, but I liked how it evened the playing field between the Jedi and their enemies without it being just another invasion of dark side force users.
Agreed. I wasn't a fan of the idea of the Vong but once I read the series I was blown away by how fleshed (no pun intended) out they were as antagonists. The whole series was very well written, very dark, very morally grey, not for kids
Just make them similar to the Orks from the Lord of the Rings with some elements from the Covenant in Halo. Just because you have a disturbing faction does not mean that the films have to have an R rating.
I remember how popular the NJO was when it first came out. It broke away from the "jedi vs sith" narrative that star wars had been up to that point and i think that combined with the dark sadistic nature of the vong is why disney will never pick it up, but it's one of my favorite star series ever.
I'd like to point out that the vong weren't really outside the force. both Anakin and Jacen were able to learn to use "Vongsense" to differing degrees, essentially attuning to the different frequency of the force the vong were using, one which was much much weaker.
@@Tuskin38 Most of the Legends content was made under license, not in-house like Disney Canon stuff is. Disney/Lucasfilm still technically owns the rights to it, but that doesn't change the fact that someone else came up with it. So it wouldn't be theft in a _legal_ sense, but it would in an _ethical_ sense. But then again Disney's been caught red-handed directly ripping fan-made designs and even stuff made by other companies for other settings _cough40kTauandEldarvehiclesinmarvelcomicscough,_ so I'm surprised they _haven't_ done that yet.
I was a huge fan of the New Jedi Order book series. With the death of Chewbacca at the end of the first book it really set the tone of how the good guys aren't always going to win. I read every book on the edge of my seat cause the good guys were getting their butts kicked every step of the way. It was a bit more on the "horror" side of stories so maybe live action isn't the way to go for that story line.
I liked the concept of an extra-galactic invader that was outside the realm of the force but don't like the Vong in general, they're like a weird hybrid of the Tyranids and Dark Eldar from 40k.
That's my opinion too. My favorite thing from that entire story is how drastically they changed the galaxy, which is something Disney hasn't been willing to do.
Howabout the The Ssi-ruuk? they could be quite interesting as antagonistic threat :) Unlike the Yuuzhan Vong they do use technology, but they use the life force (soul?) of living beings to power it through the Entechment technology.
Yes, I found them very sinister. If I remember they captured a human boy and brain washed him to be like a loyal pet. Occasionally this would wear off and he would start to realise he was a prisoner far from home, so then he was taken back to the brain washing chamber. Eventually I think I’m right he played a part in their defeat.
I think the Ssi-Ruuk should come back as an invader, tho idk about the whole entechment thing. I find it funny how ppl hated aspects of the bong and how they worked like them being outside the force and stuff but then ppl were OK with entechment. I wouldn't hate it but I also wouldn't be for it
#AskEck: what were the other Super Star Destroyers besides the Executor doing during and after the original trilogy, who were their captains, what did they do, etc
@@eds1942 yeah, the executor class, I know of the Lusankya and the Executor, but the rest are a mystery to me, and there were supposedly about a dozen of them
The original Star Wars novelization implied the Executor was the only one of its class, being a special build for Vader’s use. Even this was a retcon, as Vader was using an Imperial-class in New Hope. George later admitted that he wanted to boost Vader’s power and explain why the rebel fleet didn’t engage the Empire because of threats like the SSD.
I personally liked the Yuuzhan Vong in the stories; they were a welcome change from the good guys battling endless Imperial stragglers trying to reclaim the Empire. Their "alienness", such as their violent culture and biological "technology", were also pretty interesting. I would love to see them in live action, but I suspect Disney would heavily water them down and make them just a bland group of mooks for the good guys to ragdoll in the big fight scenes.
One of the big issues I always had with the Vong is the fact that their armour wasn't pressurised, yet no-one, not even the Imperial Remnant ever seemed to try to take advantage of that.
@@mithonig6553 I didn't read much into the series TBH. But seriously, a race that could be hindered by tear-gas shouldn't pose that much of a threat on the ground.
@@GoranXII too bad that like a third of them had eye implants that would prevent that and Ooglith suit and gnullith masks would make you immune to gas attacks anyways
I agree with Eck that it’s more likely that we see an analogue to the vong, but what that could be remains to be seen and there’s a lot of stuff that could be worked with.
Disney will never "canon-ize" the Vong for the same reason they won't let Thrawn have his ysalamiri -- the Force just *has* to be the be-all and end-all of everything in their AU -- can't have anything that brings the Jedi and/or Sith down a notch. It's a real shame, because the Vong were far more interesting antagonists than simply using the Empire yet again, especially when it no longer made sense to do so.
This is my opinion on much of the Expanded Universe: It's better that they don't consider it attached to anything made by the disney Corporation. A prime example of what might be: Thrawn. In his own books he's a calculating genius, a great leader and communicator, laying out the thought process behind his brilliant strategies and presenting himself as a figure of menace and terror for his sheer cold effectiveness... In the two shows he's been a part of, he's written by stupid people that think smart people are omniscient wizards. he doesn't have plans, he has plot beats, and when he takes an action it's not something original, but a pale reflection of something someone read in a fragment of a book he was in, minus any of the reasoning or gravitas. Can you imagine what Mara Jade would have been like if written by Disney? How generic and marvel-esque the Vong would have been?
I honestly don’t understand why anyone would be surprised - at this point - that Disney doesn’t care about any of the pre-existing EU lore. They don’t even care about their own canon lore.
That's a question that most of us asked YEARS ago (when they went with the "New Trilogy" instead of the Vong and the Solo twins. No Mara Jade, no proper Academy,, nothing.
I've haven't read any novels on the vong. I've heard enough about them to be quite interested. They are like a blend of warhammer dark eldar, tyranids, and nulls/blanks. They bring a more mature theme to the SW universe
I always liked the Vong; probably because I grew up reading the books. It’s not likely, but I’ve always hoped that if Disney ever picked up your animated legends idea, a NJO series could really sell the Vong to modern audiences and give them a shot at coming into canon.
The Vong invasion and all books onward were my favorite part of the legends timeline ! I loved the Vong invasion, I loved the lost tribe of the Sith. I'm so sad the stories won't continue.
"Edgy" is really the defining word, you nailed it. They are very 90s edgelord, extreme, hyper-violent, etc. There is an excessively 90s design to them. While any era of Star Wars has always been of their time, most of it ages well. 1977 Star Wars doesn't have so much of the 70s baked into it to make it stand out in that way. Compare it to the Thrawn trilogy, which doesn't scream "80s!" This is also why Dark Empire doesn't fair so well. Being in my twenties in the 90s, there were certain super edgy tropes you would see in all our media which immediately stood out as "extreme dark and edgy." A lot of it was popular, which is why it kept getting made...but a lot of it was abject failure. It was a response creatively sound art which it aped the ideas of without understanding the substance. And it is something we still see today (Zach Snyder's take on Superman/Justice League comes to mind.) A lot of us saw it for what it was, and a lot of us loved it...and 20 years from now it will have aged so poorly, and nobody will want to draw from any of that part of the mythos at all. The Vong are a terrible execution of some interesting ideas. They are clearly exploring some of the ideas that are worth exploring, and we saw it in Ahsoka. They also don't even make sense. How are they simultaneously cut off from the force and making everything out of organic life?
i enjoyed the NJO and would be open to seeing the vong, with some tweaks, set up for rey's jedi. i was so sick of imperial warlords by the time vector prime came out!
My version of the Vong would be Wounds in the Force. They would be connected through Yuuzhan’tar/Zonama Sekot, who would several it’s connection to them for their brutality, making the entire species Wounds in the Force.
Why does it matter if they're gone they don't seem Star Wars like to me it looks like something from The Lord of the Rings they could just bring back a different alien species kind of like them but cool.
Because it was an awesome series that met alot to an entire generation of fans and Disney would rather make a bland politically correct villain than give even a single dollar to an outside creator. Star wars has been fucked since this company got its shitty hands all over it
@@ArgentWolf95 not really the armor looks like something from Lord of the Rings but aside from that maybe they can be in Warhammer 40K and it'll make sense.
When it became apparent that Ezra had taken Thrawn to another galaxy, I thought the future held some sort of a 3 way royal rumble. Jedi, New Republic and Mandalorians. vs Imperial Remnant and Chiss Ascendency vs the Yuuzhan Vong (or Grysk if you want to call them that etc). Maybe theres some way they get to the SWs galaxy by some ancient device which is in the unknown regions etc. Queue conflict and a good explanation for why the imperial remnant isnt just wiped out by the time of the ST. All that was (or wasnt shown) in that new galaxy / peridia, made me realise that we probably wont see them.
I've always thought of the NJO as what happens after some Star Wars writers read Sam Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations/Jihad vs McWorld". After Fukuyama's "End of the Empire" ;)
we all know we won't see them not bcz the force reason but bcz they're like rated M star wars, and we don't even get people with arms being cut off or significant scars or cuts, except kylo's.
Yeah but okay George your Lightsabers have meaning and definition for each one and crystal color. George: "I like pwetty colors." Also, George refusing to kill off Han Solo but then Disney is more than happy to do it and RUIN everything. Incompetence and idiocy plagues Hollywood.
Disney SW are circling creative bankruptcy, adamant that all roads lead to their precious First Order -- so at this point I'm very glad they're not thinking of the Vong . It's bad enough to see Admiral Smurf get ruined .
It's specifically because I love the Yuuzhan Vong saga that I'm glad Disney doesn't want to touch it. I don't like Disney Star Wars at all and treat it as fanfiction to the Legends expanded universe. If they don't wanna go this way, good. Better for me to not see something I enjoyed ruined.
@@Tacticalcowboy67 I was curious and looked it up, they never specified and if anything there's some info that contradicts each other. Around Revan's time some Mando's had a bad encounter with Vong scouts, but it's also mentioned that the Vong's oldest worldship wasn't even a thousand years old. Sadly, like a lot of EU stuff, too many writers making stuff happen. Don't get me wrong I preferred the EU personally, but I'm not blind to flaws either
@@IrishEyes1994regarding the oldest vong ship being a thousand years old that was because as they were organic they died and grew again or something like that along the way, but i might be wrong tho
The two species that the Yuuzhan Vong were caught between were the Silentium (Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu) and the Abominor (the only known member being the Great Heep from Star Wars: Droids)
I honestly love these kind of video. Being someone who never read any lengend-related stuff, I helps me understand things that I overheared here and there. Thanks for that Eck!
#AskEck If a Borg Cube encountered a World Devastator, what would happen? Would the Borg be able to adapt to the Devastator's weapon, or would it just get eaten away? Or would they not even fight, but instead join forces, the World Devastator having similar adapting capabilities and being the epitome of Artificial Intelligence they've been striving for? And, should they fight, would the Devastator be able to adapt to and fire back Borg weaponry? *Video 5 of posting this😁
@darthrevan1281 More like the Borg would teleport drones aboard in critical infrastructure areas before the cube is destroyed and start assimilating tech and crew from within.
Early Legends was a mess. So Lucas wanted them to establish and stick with a clear continuity and setup a team at Lucasfilm specifically to oversee it. They even went out to bring in the OT cast for a media campaign to draw fans in. However, for their first story arc, Lucas had requested that they move away from the old Jedi vs Sith and Republic vs Empire for something new. Their new enemy was to one that the Jedi would not be able to draw upon the Force to give them the edge over and they should drive both the Jedi and the New Republic to the brink. The DelRey team came up with the Yuuzhan Vong who were originally outside of the Force. This led to Lucas finally answering the question as to whether the Force is universal or a localized phenomenon to the A GFFA. Lucas also wanted them to kill off a main character in the first novel to show everyone that the gloves were off, that nobody was safe. The Del Rey team decided to kill off Chewy since he was more of an extension of Han Solo anyway. The decision upset a lot of fans. Later when Anakin Solo started to stand out as the next hero, Lucas had said that the name might get people confused and that Jacen Solo should be the real hero of the series. The writers decided to kill off Anakin Solo, and made Jacen (the original Ben Solo / Kylo Ren) the hero but tossed in a twist that lead the character to the Darkside. Aside for signing off on the books, that was the extent of Lucas’ involvement with the series. Of course he was invested in the prequels at the time. But his requests for the new direction was the seed for some of the criticisms that the storyline received. The other big issue was with the Force philosophy of the Potentium. Which was on the writers for that one. Lucasfilm had to put out a statement of clarification to clear the issue up. At any rate, after the Disney takeover, the was decided by the higher ups that the sequels should take place around or within a few years after the NJO’s Yuuzhan Vong invasion which turned the galaxy on its end to the point that no one who wasn’t familiar with the EU’s NJO series would recognize the state of the galaxy. So Lucasfilm made the decision to just dump nearly all of the EU into noncanon status under the Legends label to free things up for the new writers for the all of the movies, shows, books and games they had envisioned. And it’s rather ironic that the writers are walking on tippy toes to avoid any issues, with the exception of the Last Jedi which alone divided the fandom more than both the prequels and the NJO series together and more sharply.
Not me, I loved the idea of an unknown enemy with tech or attributes so advanced they can compete with the best of what we know. Pretty much a reminder to not get comfortable
idk why i never thought of it before now, but based off the picture of the Vong that was used for the thumbnail of this video, you could use the LEGO "hunter orc" figures from the Lord of the Rings (Hobbit?) sets as stand-ins for the Vong in LEGO Star Wars displays. they look damn similar. missing nose, greasy black hair, pointy ears, pale skin, orange eyes, spikey brown clothing.
Let's be honest, introducing the Vong couldn't do anything worse to the franchise than Disney already has just by letting Ryan Johnson and to a lesser degree J.J. Abrams near it.
Bruh JJ did more damage than Rian. But ultimately the blame lies on the writers and executives who went into one of the most lore dense universes without a unified story to tell
I dunno, a lot of it comes down to preference of course but I felt like J.J.'s first movie was alright. It wasn't amazing, felt like he was playing it safe and just remaking the originals. But then nearly every single interesting new aspect of the movie with possible story lines were all picked up by Ryan and thrown in the blender and forgotten. Then after the movie came out he went on record saying he didn't know or care about any of the lore. I'm not trying to sound like some elitist snob though I know I will to at least some degree, personally if a director goes into a movie with that mindset I don't think they have any reason to be part of an established franchise. I'm not asking them to read every single book and know every single bit of canon, I sure don't(it definitely helps to have a few of those people as advisers of course) but at the very least someone in charge of the outcome of a movie should respect it exists, which he didn't. Then for the third movie it was mostly just J.J. doing damage control. Him trying to tie up a trilogy that each movie had almost nothing to do with the other two apart from the characters inside it.
@@andrewbryant4259 Heck no man, it was RJ. He didn't want to make a sequel that would have a 3rd movie that follows it. He wanted to make a stand alone story using Star Wars to do whatever he wanted with it. The only issue was, it wasn't a stand alone film. It was the second to a 3 part movie. He even killed off the main villain that JJ mentioned had big plans for. JJ had to run damage control with the 3rd movie leaving not much time for an actual story. Heck he had to bring Palp back. He said it was always his plan but he full of it. RJ could have cared less. What's worse there's even a old clip of him saying the type of film writer he wants to be is one that has half of a fandom saying it's the best thing they ever saw and loving it while the other half says it's the worst thing ever and hates it. He got what he wanted, in his eyes it's mission completed
Gotta say you got your wires crossed bub. The opening toTFA is excellent: new characters, perspectives on a new adventure to find Luke. Except they forget the plot and then Han shows up and just doesn't leave. After Han shows up, every character gets redefined in connection to Han. It's not great writing. All that is fine, until the last scene. Rey meeting Luke in the last 30 seconds. If Rey had just jumped to hyperspace, and the camera drifts to Luke on a planet hidden by a gas Nebula sitting by himself on a rock in the ocean, it would have been fine. The next movie could have started from any point. But nope Rey had to come face to face and setup a meeting, and thaf forced the next movie to open there. People complain about Luke, but he was done dirty in TFA not in TLJ. Honestly in the Sequels I couldn't have given a rats ass about Han making an appearance.
@@andrewbryant4259 Why do we still have to argue whether it was JJ or Rian who did more damage? Imo they did an alley-oop dunking on all of the potential momentum of Star Wars. I say a pox on both of their houses though their crimes to the lore are different from each other.
I recently finished my re-read of NJO during the course of this year. I still love the series. Some of the best EU books (Star By Star & Traitor for example) appear in the series. There's no way Disney would let LucasFilm touch the Yuuzhan Vong as they were in the books. They are too dark and the version we'd get would be a watered down version for the worse, just like most things LucasFilm pulls from the EU to canon. The other thing I think do a live adaptation of the Yuuzhan Vong would be hard and expensive to do.
So at this point, after multiple disasters and hilariousness, we're still somehow expecting consistency and uniform direction in canon from Disney Star Wars? *shocked Ewok face*
The appealing part to me was that it wasn’t yet another “something, something dark side” story, but sort of a mix between ww2 japanese and islamic fundamentalists. Gave them an aspect of realism that “evil for the sake of being evil”- dark lords never had to me.
Of course they will, just like they ignored Mara Jade. Or Luke's new approach for the Jedi Order. Or Han being a supporting and loving husband and father. Or Thrawn actually being a strategic genius instead of simply being referred to one. Or...
Gotta agree with this hell making a halo star wars crossover having the covenant come to the star wars galaxy is more likely than the vong being introduced
#AskEck: What are your thoughts on Operation Domino and how the Galactic Civil War would've gone if it was successful? I wish we could've gotten more lore about the "Secession Worlds" mentioned in The Essential Guide to Warfare that the Empire crushed early on.
Honestly, the Vong were always a very interesting enemy to me, edge aside. A galactic civilization of aliens that the Jedi struggle with fighting due to a sort of immunity to the affects of the force with odd tech. Forcing them and galaxy as a whole to fight and strategize differently then they have. The grisk could replace this idea with its potential implementation, but we'll see...
Short answer is YES. Long answer is in the video itself. If you reading this either before or during the video, then watch it! You already clicked on it, so why not watch it anyway! Author of this video would be glad if you watched it fully. Also comment, doesn't matter if alone or under mine, that definitly help his statistics on youtube.
#askEck What ultimately brought about Jacen Solo's fall to the dark side? It seemed strange to me after what happened in the final book of the new jedi order.
Pride, arrogance, the idea that because he had been the first to consider new concepts about the Force he was suddenly above old fashioned ideas like "good" and "evil", not talking to any of his family for five whole years, delusions that what he was doing were necessary for the greater good.
I would argue he pulled a Revan during his travels to learn and master the Force. He learned so many esoteric powers in the process - hence the Revan comparison - but became convinced that there was no true difference between Light and Dark before Lumiya seduced him into the Sith by working from Vergere's existing teachings.
what david said, and also the fact that he had been tortured extensively by Vegere. That crazy bird lady broke him and he never really recovered. If luke had any sense he would have thrown him in a loony asylum after the war. But this is also the same guy who let the vong live in peace so you know
Simple answer to your question in the title is obviously.... the fact it is now Legends and not Extended universe tells you all you need to know. Disney is reimagining starwars in their image. It is unfortunate. Personally I like starwars for everything pre disney and I have given up on the rest.
@@andrewbryant4259 they're wasting money on disney plus a 15 billion dollar waste. Just just blew over billion this year. Reckless spending doesn't bring in customers.
@@rexthewolf3149 they're not making that much in the parks and a news update disney got caught bribeing reedy creek officials. That's criminal charges right there.
I think a break from the whole Jedi vs. Sith would be a good thing. The Yuzhan Vong could provide that necessary break from the two bashing each other’s heads in all the time.
I've said this before, but with the current prominence of Baldur's Gate 3, and a certain character in it, I think I"ll mention it again 😅 Its been many years ago, but I remember reading an interview with Michael Stackpole where he mentioned something along the lines of his creation of the Vong was in part inspired by his previous work in the TTRPG industry. Stackpole did do some work for the 3rd Edition of Dungeons and Dragons, which features a race called the 'Githyanki', a gaunt people on a 'crusade' to wipe out their enemies , the Mind Flayers ('Illithids') and conquer/enslave all others they come across. No they don't use 'Bio-Tech' (although the Illithids did to a limited degree), but there are some similarities between the two (I've often thought of them as the 'Third Race of Gith', and planned on using them in a 'Spelljammer' campaign- a 'Space Fantasy' setting for D&D).
#AskEck: how would palpatine, with or without vader fared in the sith empire that was around during the old republic era, either as a regular sith lord or doing what he tried in the prequel trilogy (guessing this wouldn't work as well considering the era differences and the jedi even at this time being less hooked to the republic.)
Palpatine was so steeped in the rule of two it’s almost impossible to imagine him coordinating with other sith equals. He was all about dominating even his closest allies. Interesting topic, but ultimately I think either he kills all the other sith and forms his empire or they recognize the danger in him and kill him at a young age
palpatine would've overthrown whoever was in power. he'd murk exar kun or darth vitiate or whoever. he was the pinnacle of the rule of two and he was the product of 1000 years of knowledge and power. The old republic sith aren't that powerful, with a few exceptions. common misconception.
I would want the Vong to be somewhat like legends. Keep the staff and organic ships. Those are pretty iconic for them. As for the Force thing goes, maybe make it so they aren't easily manipulated by or sensed through the force. I'm sure Lucasfilm can come up with a solution there
#AskEck I'd love to see a genuine analysis of Jacen Solo's fall in Dark Nest and LotF. Is it character assassination? Did Denning misunderstand the philosophy of Lucas and the NJO writers? Is it worse than TLJ Luke?
I think it's an incredibly interesting and unique storyline. It's the only threat that could truly change the star wars galaxy for good, because jedi and sith were always and will always be two sides of the same coin... so whoever wins it will eventually tilt back and forth. It's not creative to continuously just have a new darth or new jedi sect or gray jedi sect, it is fun for a long while but not forever.
The Vong, were, without a doubt, my favorite bad guys. They were a terrifying threat that felt realistic, and evil. The jedi/sith conflict is the most tiring aspect of SW (at this time) as it felt like it had gone nowhere. It was the same tired tropes and nothing grew, nothing changed. The Vongs lack of the force/empathy forced EVERYONE to change. The jedi/sith's journey to growing as factions was interesting (as was the Republic actually getting off its ass to become a semi functioning govt). I still remember reading Vector Prime, and Chewie dying, it was shocking and for once i got the feeling, that the main characters werent safe and it really hammered home how bad these guys were (which made the story all the more interesting). It must be said that chewie went out like a boss, a true hero, saving Han's kids. Ill never forget that scene. All these things are probably examples as to why they wont come back, the current SW trend is not to push boundries, but do the bland crap they know will sell toys.
I always liked the existential threat of the Vong because they reminded so much of the return of the Honered Matres in Dune, whom they were obviously inspired by. I think modern Disney canon has become too small in scale to ever do a galaxy wide invasion of any kind, even the current 'extra galatic threat' is just one general and his ship rejoining what is probably a small fleet at best. Their focus on such a small scale world building makes it hard to care compared to sweeping grand space opera that used to involve hundreds of systems.
The trouble I always had with the Del Rey era was they pulled the taffy so much. sure there was up and down in both era's there were good series and bad series in Bantam, but the series would be consistent and 3 books over 16-20 months and done. A del ray series lasted years and the ones in the middle nothing happened. There was three chapters where they discussed how they were secretly removing the crew and weapons from a super star destroyer so they could ram it into a world ship. That could have been covered in a couple paragraphs.
#AskEck I’m rereading Legacy of the Force now which hits on Jacen’s flow walking. Jacen goes back to watch operation Knightfall and Anakin slaughtering the Jedi. Do you think there could have been a way for Jacen to affect/alter Anakin’s destiny(had he wanted to) if he had stayed long enough to commune with Anakin?
Don't think Flow Walking works that way as Jacen teaches Tahiri to do it and she tries and ultimately fails multiple times to alter Anakin Solo's destiny. Or at least that's how I remember it, haven't read Legacy since it was being printed
The Vong were cut off from the living Force because they were all so bloodthirsty and warmongering so naturally their best idea for re-establishing their connection is, wait for it, _more_ violence and death? Were they hoping it would go full circle or something? I can see why George Lucas would want to retcon this rather silly notion out of the Vong.
Years ago, i heard Chewbacca was killed off early on because of how hard the character is to write for in books. Cant remember the source so no idea if it's true.
Yeah, they dropped a moon on poor Chewie...I mean that literally. At least he went out like a hero. I think he died saving Han and Leia's kids, if I remember correctly.
@@g00n71please do. New Jedi Order is amazing. It builds on a lot of the rest of the EU post-endor, you will get a little more out of it if you read the catalogue, but it's still really good without it
I've always been a huge fan of the Vong series ever since I first read the books. I doubt that Disney will bring them into canon simply because it isn't marketable to children and Star Wars is meant for everyone. As far as them being cut off from the Force, I think there were never completely severed from it. If I remember correctly, Anakin Solo grew a gem plant thing when he was undercover as a prisoner of the Vong on Yavin 4. He was able to bond with it using the Force and used it as the crystal for his new lightsaber. I think he was also able to kind of sense the Vong and their technology when he was wielding that lightsaber with the crystal. Not as strong as sensing others in the Force, but more than anyone else awash able to do with the Vong. The whole thing about the Vong being hidden from the Jedi in the Force also applied to all of their living technology, which was actually living to a degree. I think the Vong had fallen so far from what they had once been that the Force simply became super suppressed and unable to affect them greatly. I think the hope at the end of the series was that over time, the Vong would be able to recover their connection to the Force. I don't think it was ever fully gone, just so distant that no one could sense it in them, aside from Anakin Solo to a small extent. But that being said, I doubt Disney has any plans to bring them back into canon. I would love for the books to be canon again, but it's not likely.
Perhaps, the Vong are far more known and fleshed out than the Grysk, although I think I would prefer for them to remain under Timothy Zahn’s creative freedom until their identity has fully matured
Vector Prime was the first EU book I didn’t read. I heard about Chewie’s death and That was enough for me to be done. When I learned that the Yuzhan Vong were impervious to lightsabers and couldn’t be affected by the force, I thought it was the worst idea ever. I’ve been an avid reader of the new Canon and I like the way they’ve brought in the best aspects of the EU by making it all work in the same unified framework.
Well I mean all the other aspects are there. Eventually a character has to die, most have already died in the Sequel Trilogy. There are lightsaber resistant materials, most famously beskar. Ysalamiri are “impervious” to the force. It is the combination of all these things that specifically pushes the Vong too far off the scale for you? Like they are contrived to be such a large challenge. Or is something else in particular?
It’s the perfect storm nature of the Vong. They needed a challenge that could actually be a threat to the Jedi at that time and they couldn’t just keep falling back on “this Jedi is a Sith now” all the time. I like how the ideas have filtered in slowly and it’s not all contained in one culture or race. The Beskar thing, I love. Especially how they’ve worked with the Mandalorian culture. In the High Republic (best Star Wars books ever, in my opinion), they have an enemy called The Nameless that literally eats the force from Jedi and leaves them a dry husk. So, yeah, it’s just the Vong are too “perfect” a villain.
I mean, that’s what George Lucas did with elements and characters he liked from the EU before the sale to Disney. There are some great books still worth reading from pre-2014 but I just never liked the Vong era.
I've never liked the Vong for reasons I won't go into here (my headcanon for the EU timeline essentially ends at the Thrawn duology), so I wouldn't exactly be thrilled if they were reintroduced into the current canon. I do like the idea of an extra-galactic threat so existential and overwhelming that it forces the entirety of the Star Wars galaxy to band together and oppose it, I just wish it had been executed differently. That said, I do have to give LucasFilm execs credit for allowing such a radical narrative change that essentially changed the EU forever. That kind of creative risk taking is unheard of with Disney behind the helm.
Would you mind going into those reasons if someone asked? Because imo the Vong are some of the most interesting concepts ever introduced in Star Wars (I'm specially interested in their biotechnology).
#AskEck: Do you think we will get or that there IS an explanation for the various magicks in Star Wars, (like obviously the nightsisters but also even less explored examples like Orphne and Rish Loo's Gungan magick) and do you have any personal thoughts on how these can stem from the force but not be directly connected?
I don't trust anyone to do the NJO right, because some of their own authors, especially Troy Denning, couldn't do it right. Troy Denning never got Traitor by Matthew Stover, and the whole post-NJO suffered because he was allowed to be the main author. I couldn't even be bothered to read the Dark Nest Trilogy or anything after it, because the way Jacen Solo was being handled didn't make any sense.
The Vong being oitside of the Force is a grave misconception. Outside of the Force means outside of nature AKA dead. There were certain methods to actually sense yhe Vong, either through biological implants or connecting to certain objects. The Vong sort of existed on a different plane within the Force, ever since they were severed from their original living homeworld, Yuuzhan'tar.
I feel like the Vong could be awesome if they were reworked a little. To me them not being tuned into the force can make sense with them coming from another galaxy. They never learned to touch it before their galaxy devolved into chaos and war or maybe it is something truely specific to the sw galaxy. So creatures from another galaxy would seem foreign to it and I could see how the force might not want to let the vong in. I do also like the idea of someone other than the sith being the big baddies. Having bad guys the force doesn’t work on has a lot of potential and I also like the galaxy having to come together, put aside their differences, and kick those xenomasocists out of the galaxy we love.
The vong could still fit in if they, perhaps did away with the no-force thing, perhaps instead making it so they have no force sensitives, or like only one or two in their entire population, and to make their primary aspect instead the hatred of technology.
One of my cousins refused to read Vector Prime or any of its sequels because she found out Chewbacca died. It's ironic Chewie is the only one of the core OT cast that's still alive in canon aside from droids.
There's a very good reason to keep him alive over the human cast: He can be played by any tall dude in a furry suit. He will be appearing in movies and TV for decades to come.
@@AndorianBlueshow dare you call Chewbacca a furry
@@TheTrollingMaster-xr9ellmao
Well with the story the way it is he's the only one that still has a place in the galaxy and I really hope that Disney gives him the place he should have as the leader or at least ambassador of his people.
I hope they keep Chewie around for a long time. That’s one of the changes that I actually appreciate.
It would’ve been interesting and funny to see the immense Vong army and the mother ship while a high ranking imperial officer asks Luke. “Do you know what would be useful right now?” Luke *bilwidered* Imperial officer “A Death Star”
That would have required the New Republic to betray its values. The New Republic considered developing biological and genetic weapons to fight the Vong, but came to conclusion that if they did so, they would be tacitly admitting they were really no better than the Empire.
@@terrylong8894 I get that, but being nice about war to an enemy that won’t to you gets your own people annihilated and that’s what almost happened. The Vong were Ruthless. Whether they were blown up on a ship from a super weapon, got stabbed by a lightsaber or shot with a blaster bolt has the same outcome and an instant death seems more humane if that’s what they were going for.
. . . yeah, that joke is actually in the several books in a few different variations.
Imagime this scene with the P. Funk ufo as the mother ship
*Vong get out of the ship
-Aaaw we want the funk
“I can't help but wonder how the old Empire would have handled the crisis. I hope you will forgive my partisan attitude but it seems to me that the Emperor would have mobilized his entire armament at the first threat and dealt with the Yuuzhan Vong in an efficient and expeditious manner through the use of overwhelming force. Certainly better than Borsk Fey'lya's policy if I understood it correctly as a policy of negotiating with the invaders at the same time as he was fighting them sending signals of weakness to a ruthless enemy who used negotiation only as a cover for further conquests."
"That's not what the Empire would have done Commander. What the Empire would have done was build a super-colossal Yuuzhan Vong-killing battle machine. They would have called it the Nova Colossus or the Galaxy Destructor or the Nostril of Palpatine or something equally grandiose. They would have spent billions of credits employed thousands of contractors and subcontractors and equipped it with the latest in death-dealing technology. And you know what would have happened It wouldn't have worked. They'd forget to bolt down a metal plate over an access hatch leading to the main reactors or some other mistake and a hotshot enemy pilot would have dropped a bomb down there and blow the whole thing up. Now that's what the Empire would have done."
You don’t really need a “can’t be touched by the force” enemy, because conventional enemies already have that sort of plot armour 99% of the time when they fight Jedi and somehow the Jedi only fight by swinging around their lightsaber and forget that they have telekinesis, mind tricks, and so on. Looking at how Force Push works in the shows and movies you would think it has like a one-hour cooldown or something.
No need for a well thought out gimmick when bad writing will suffice and it becomes a competition between incompetent villains and idiot heroes to see which one is slightly less self defeating at the moment... which has been pretty much the entirety of DisCan so far
@@cyberpup2246However, the EU was a flexible area of potential where good stories from it could be brought in. Meanwhile disney’s cannon immediately discredits most of the possibilities outright relegating anything not under their control to fan fiction.
@@cyberpup2246 I’ll definitely agree not allot of the EU works well, but it has its moments and characters. Like I said before, I’d missed the freedom, and some of the better defined rules for things like hyperspace. I must agree the stories you mentioned, even under Disney’s cannon, were ones that worked well.
@@cyberpup2246 the difference though is that DisCan had forty years of material to see what worked and what didn't by what came before. DisCan also had access to a much larger budget and resources than the EU. Finally, DisCan had complete creative freedom to do anything...and they still turned in inferior product.
Lmao, yeah that's true. The force is used so often in the EU in many instances, yet still the Jedi aren't invincible. Canon shouldn't have any problems tbh
Vong were controversial for a lot of reasons. One more important one was there were so many authors who all got a crack at a novel that some of the rules of how they worked got bent. Some books were really good, others were really bad and the constant struggle against the vong organic stuff felt...lacking compared to X-wing vs TiE type crunch. In the end, I think the series was good and interesting, but I doubt we ever see Disney touch them.
I full agree. I read them all but I am not sure if I enjoyed even half of them. And the constant loosing of "our" heroes did not make it better. For me, the turning point was the novel about Jacen on former Coruscant. I enjoyed that one and the aspect of a new force perspective but the most other books of the series were rather exhausting and sometimes even annoying. And I think LucasArts knew that people don't really enjoy the Vong and ended the series rather quickly in the end.
@@christianscheidl5364 The novel is Traitor
@@christianscheidl5364I basically liked the series till after traitor then got tired
Aside for the wildly inconsistent quality of the writing between the books, my main problem was that it was too depressing. If I remember right, Star by Star (which I think was one of the better books in the series) that detailed the fall of Coruscant was released on the heals of 9/11.
Overall though, I enjoyed the new direction for the post OT era.
I argue it's because of the true violence, the mutilation and torture.
Edit:star by star is truly the best.
I started out NJO as a Vong hater, but I've turned around on them. The Vong invasion was a really good way to upset the status quo within the galaxy, and the later stuff when they're dealing with the aftermath and all the Vongformed planets was really interesting. The concept of a whole species cut off from the Force was always kinda wack, but I liked how it evened the playing field between the Jedi and their enemies without it being just another invasion of dark side force users.
yeah exactly they were a different kind of enemy that broke the repetitive dark side/light side cycle of the Star Wars galaxy
Agreed. I wasn't a fan of the idea of the Vong but once I read the series I was blown away by how fleshed (no pun intended) out they were as antagonists. The whole series was very well written, very dark, very morally grey, not for kids
I like the Vong invasion the most because it was finally something other than the repetitive Jedi/Sith pissing match.
It’s going to be hard to make the Vong work on screen without an R rating.
No it's not hard.
Yuh huh.
Just make them similar to the Orks from the Lord of the Rings with some elements from the Covenant in Halo.
Just because you have a disturbing faction does not mean that the films have to have an R rating.
Then do it.
Here’s an idea: stop being emotionally fragile and get angry at real stuff like people hoarding property or slavery
I remember how popular the NJO was when it first came out. It broke away from the "jedi vs sith" narrative that star wars had been up to that point and i think that combined with the dark sadistic nature of the vong is why disney will never pick it up, but it's one of my favorite star series ever.
Do the Yuuzhan Vong, conquer planets and then later destroy them, or just straight up destroy them directly?
@ezrathewolf3726 Both. They would terraform them to match their homeworld, or destroy the planet if the resistance was too much
I'd like to point out that the vong weren't really outside the force. both Anakin and Jacen were able to learn to use "Vongsense" to differing degrees, essentially attuning to the different frequency of the force the vong were using, one which was much much weaker.
And Tahiri... kinda
Having this sort of weak connection, rather than none at all, seems more consistent with the idea of The Force flowing through all life and whatnot.
@@cobaltrogue9175I mean they are supposed yo have evolved a symbiotic force bound with their living homeworld... which they blow up.
They didn't use it.
It’s disappointing that they ignore so much of the legends books because they had such cool ideas and great stories
I wouldn't be so bad if they created some content just as good but it's just terrible all around.
@@AlejandroFlores-vi8tl they've made a ton of good content.
They would just end being accused of “stealing” from legends.
@@neofulcrum5013 How can someone steal from themselves? Lmao those people are silly.
@@Tuskin38
Most of the Legends content was made under license, not in-house like Disney Canon stuff is. Disney/Lucasfilm still technically owns the rights to it, but that doesn't change the fact that someone else came up with it. So it wouldn't be theft in a _legal_ sense, but it would in an _ethical_ sense.
But then again Disney's been caught red-handed directly ripping fan-made designs and even stuff made by other companies for other settings _cough40kTauandEldarvehiclesinmarvelcomicscough,_ so I'm surprised they _haven't_ done that yet.
I was a huge fan of the New Jedi Order book series. With the death of Chewbacca at the end of the first book it really set the tone of how the good guys aren't always going to win. I read every book on the edge of my seat cause the good guys were getting their butts kicked every step of the way. It was a bit more on the "horror" side of stories so maybe live action isn't the way to go for that story line.
Exactly if Chewie and the Solo kids aren't safe no one was.
I still remember freaking out over Anakin's sacrifice 😂😂
I liked the concept of an extra-galactic invader that was outside the realm of the force but don't like the Vong in general, they're like a weird hybrid of the Tyranids and Dark Eldar from 40k.
That's my opinion too. My favorite thing from that entire story is how drastically they changed the galaxy, which is something Disney hasn't been willing to do.
Honestly this is close enough to my opinion I'm just going to up vote rather trying to go into details
And that makes them awesome.
The Yuuzhan Vong was just C tier grimdark space fantasy shoehorned into Star Wars.
Yeah , they're too fantasy even for Star Wars
The Yuuzhan would be cool. Seeing Thrawn’s ysalamiri would be also.
Howabout the The Ssi-ruuk? they could be quite interesting as antagonistic threat :) Unlike the Yuuzhan Vong they do use technology, but they use the life force (soul?) of living beings to power it through the Entechment technology.
Yes, I found them very sinister. If I remember they captured a human boy and brain washed him to be like a loyal pet. Occasionally this would wear off and he would start to realise he was a prisoner far from home, so then he was taken back to the brain washing chamber. Eventually I think I’m right he played a part in their defeat.
I think the Ssi-Ruuk should come back as an invader, tho idk about the whole entechment thing. I find it funny how ppl hated aspects of the bong and how they worked like them being outside the force and stuff but then ppl were OK with entechment. I wouldn't hate it but I also wouldn't be for it
The dinosaurs with snakes coming out of their noses?
@@rector0455 yep
The Yevetha were always cooler/more threatening to me than mean dinosaurs
#AskEck: what were the other Super Star Destroyers besides the Executor doing during and after the original trilogy, who were their captains, what did they do, etc
Of the Executor class?
I know of the ‘Iron Fist’ and the ‘Lusankya’.
@@eds1942 yeah, the executor class, I know of the Lusankya and the Executor, but the rest are a mystery to me, and there were supposedly about a dozen of them
@@thatguy45177 in Legends, SSD Terror was guarding, and apparently being equipped as a carrier for, the Tie Phantom project.
The original Star Wars novelization implied the Executor was the only one of its class, being a special build for Vader’s use. Even this was a retcon, as Vader was using an Imperial-class in New Hope. George later admitted that he wanted to boost Vader’s power and explain why the rebel fleet didn’t engage the Empire because of threats like the SSD.
@@thatguy45177 a dozen sounds about right.
I personally liked the Yuuzhan Vong in the stories; they were a welcome change from the good guys battling endless Imperial stragglers trying to reclaim the Empire. Their "alienness", such as their violent culture and biological "technology", were also pretty interesting. I would love to see them in live action, but I suspect Disney would heavily water them down and make them just a bland group of mooks for the good guys to ragdoll in the big fight scenes.
One of the big issues I always had with the Vong is the fact that their armour wasn't pressurised, yet no-one, not even the Imperial Remnant ever seemed to try to take advantage of that.
Wait i thought Anakin and the Givin ventured the Atmosphere out of that one space station
@@mithonig6553 I didn't read much into the series TBH. But seriously, a race that could be hindered by tear-gas shouldn't pose that much of a threat on the ground.
@@GoranXII they had masks for stuff like that and given how they tteated pain they would probably get a high out of tear gas
@@mithonig6553 Worshipping of pain or not, when your eyes are streaming with tears, you're _not_ operating at full efficiency.
@@GoranXII too bad that like a third of them had eye implants that would prevent that and Ooglith suit and gnullith masks would make you immune to gas attacks anyways
I agree with Eck that it’s more likely that we see an analogue to the vong, but what that could be remains to be seen and there’s a lot of stuff that could be worked with.
Disney will never "canon-ize" the Vong for the same reason they won't let Thrawn have his ysalamiri -- the Force just *has* to be the be-all and end-all of everything in their AU -- can't have anything that brings the Jedi and/or Sith down a notch. It's a real shame, because the Vong were far more interesting antagonists than simply using the Empire yet again, especially when it no longer made sense to do so.
can we not talk about what disney did to Thrawn.
It’s probably for the best that they don’t mess that story up.
Hard to mess up a story arc that was already garbage from the get go.
They won't be adapting the NJO series of novels, though?
@@Spectro108 Hard to mess up? You underestimate Disney lol.
@@Spectro108It’s better than anything Disney is putting out in their boring subpar canon.
Enjoy your garbage can.🗑️
This is my opinion on much of the Expanded Universe: It's better that they don't consider it attached to anything made by the disney Corporation.
A prime example of what might be: Thrawn.
In his own books he's a calculating genius, a great leader and communicator, laying out the thought process behind his brilliant strategies and presenting himself as a figure of menace and terror for his sheer cold effectiveness...
In the two shows he's been a part of, he's written by stupid people that think smart people are omniscient wizards. he doesn't have plans, he has plot beats, and when he takes an action it's not something original, but a pale reflection of something someone read in a fragment of a book he was in, minus any of the reasoning or gravitas.
Can you imagine what Mara Jade would have been like if written by Disney? How generic and marvel-esque the Vong would have been?
I'm currently 5 books in. Just finished the Battle of Fondor.
Good luck I'm 11 books in and I needed a break.
@@razorburn645 Already took it. Started Wheel of Time. I'll jump back and forth after Christmas.
I'm on book 11... Get those tissues ready for Star by star
They’ve been ignoring the expanded universe (Legends) from the start
I honestly don’t understand why anyone would be surprised - at this point - that Disney doesn’t care about any of the pre-existing EU lore. They don’t even care about their own canon lore.
That's a question that most of us asked YEARS ago (when they went with the "New Trilogy" instead of the Vong and the Solo twins.
No Mara Jade, no proper Academy,, nothing.
No Darth Caedus -----
Vector Prime is an insanely amazing book. It should be remade into the 7 episode - no less.
I've haven't read any novels on the vong. I've heard enough about them to be quite interested. They are like a blend of warhammer dark eldar, tyranids, and nulls/blanks. They bring a more mature theme to the SW universe
Yeah, they’re probably the most WH40K thing in SW
I always liked the Vong; probably because I grew up reading the books. It’s not likely, but I’ve always hoped that if Disney ever picked up your animated legends idea, a NJO series could really sell the Vong to modern audiences and give them a shot at coming into canon.
The Vong invasion and all books onward were my favorite part of the legends timeline ! I loved the Vong invasion, I loved the lost tribe of the Sith. I'm so sad the stories won't continue.
"Edgy" is really the defining word, you nailed it. They are very 90s edgelord, extreme, hyper-violent, etc. There is an excessively 90s design to them. While any era of Star Wars has always been of their time, most of it ages well. 1977 Star Wars doesn't have so much of the 70s baked into it to make it stand out in that way. Compare it to the Thrawn trilogy, which doesn't scream "80s!" This is also why Dark Empire doesn't fair so well.
Being in my twenties in the 90s, there were certain super edgy tropes you would see in all our media which immediately stood out as "extreme dark and edgy." A lot of it was popular, which is why it kept getting made...but a lot of it was abject failure. It was a response creatively sound art which it aped the ideas of without understanding the substance.
And it is something we still see today (Zach Snyder's take on Superman/Justice League comes to mind.) A lot of us saw it for what it was, and a lot of us loved it...and 20 years from now it will have aged so poorly, and nobody will want to draw from any of that part of the mythos at all.
The Vong are a terrible execution of some interesting ideas. They are clearly exploring some of the ideas that are worth exploring, and we saw it in Ahsoka.
They also don't even make sense. How are they simultaneously cut off from the force and making everything out of organic life?
i enjoyed the NJO and would be open to seeing the vong, with some tweaks, set up for rey's jedi. i was so sick of imperial warlords by the time vector prime came out!
My version of the Vong would be Wounds in the Force. They would be connected through Yuuzhan’tar/Zonama Sekot, who would several it’s connection to them for their brutality, making the entire species Wounds in the Force.
Bio-horror peoples aren't exactly considered brand friendly by companies like Disney. Which is sad, because they are insanely cool.
Why does it matter if they're gone they don't seem Star Wars like to me it looks like something from The Lord of the Rings they could just bring back a different alien species kind of like them but cool.
Because it was an awesome series that met alot to an entire generation of fans and Disney would rather make a bland politically correct villain than give even a single dollar to an outside creator. Star wars has been fucked since this company got its shitty hands all over it
@@Automaton237 this is far from Tolkien too. They are from Warhammer 40k.
@@ArgentWolf95 not really the armor looks like something from Lord of the Rings but aside from that maybe they can be in Warhammer 40K and it'll make sense.
@@Automaton237 they have a big Sadomasochism thing going on in their lore, even the Orcs and Uruks aren't that bad mate.
When it became apparent that Ezra had taken Thrawn to another galaxy, I thought the future held some sort of a 3 way royal rumble.
Jedi, New Republic and Mandalorians. vs Imperial Remnant and Chiss Ascendency vs the Yuuzhan Vong (or Grysk if you want to call them that etc).
Maybe theres some way they get to the SWs galaxy by some ancient device which is in the unknown regions etc. Queue conflict and a good explanation for why the imperial remnant isnt just wiped out by the time of the ST.
All that was (or wasnt shown) in that new galaxy / peridia, made me realise that we probably wont see them.
I've always thought of the NJO as what happens after some Star Wars writers read Sam Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations/Jihad vs McWorld". After Fukuyama's "End of the Empire" ;)
I bought every Star Wars Timothy Zahn Book for Christmas on the sales, already half way through Heir to the Empire and am Loving IT!!! 👍❤️
Look at what happened when Disney took "Palpatine returns" from Dark Empire, everyone complains.
Lol are you serious? Somehow palpatine returns and somehow people hate it. Maybe explain stuff
there's a big diffrence between a well written plot that is well explained and somehow hufflepuff returned.
we all know we won't see them not bcz the force reason but bcz they're like rated M star wars, and we don't even get people with arms being cut off or significant scars or cuts, except kylo's.
I love that George ignores what he doesn't like. “I made it up; I do what I want.”
Yeah but okay George your Lightsabers have meaning and definition for each one and crystal color.
George: "I like pwetty colors." Also, George refusing to kill off Han Solo but then Disney is more than happy to do it and RUIN everything. Incompetence and idiocy plagues Hollywood.
Disney SW are circling creative bankruptcy, adamant that all roads lead to their precious First Order -- so at this point I'm very glad they're not thinking of the Vong .
It's bad enough to see Admiral Smurf get ruined .
It's specifically because I love the Yuuzhan Vong saga that I'm glad Disney doesn't want to touch it. I don't like Disney Star Wars at all and treat it as fanfiction to the Legends expanded universe. If they don't wanna go this way, good. Better for me to not see something I enjoyed ruined.
lol, watching the short first few seconds of the video game u can see the turbo lasers " curve " after being shot lol
#Ask Eck
At what point in galactic history did the Vong begin their long journey to the Star Wars galaxy?
I believe it was around 10,000 BBY but I might be wrong
@@Tacticalcowboy67 I was curious and looked it up, they never specified and if anything there's some info that contradicts each other. Around Revan's time some Mando's had a bad encounter with Vong scouts, but it's also mentioned that the Vong's oldest worldship wasn't even a thousand years old. Sadly, like a lot of EU stuff, too many writers making stuff happen. Don't get me wrong I preferred the EU personally, but I'm not blind to flaws either
@@IrishEyes1994regarding the oldest vong ship being a thousand years old that was because as they were organic they died and grew again or something like that along the way, but i might be wrong tho
I think the Vong shouldn't be made Canon. Simple because they'll be ruined.
The two species that the Yuuzhan Vong were caught between were the Silentium (Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu) and the Abominor (the only known member being the Great Heep from Star Wars: Droids)
I honestly love these kind of video. Being someone who never read any lengend-related stuff, I helps me understand things that I overheared here and there. Thanks for that Eck!
#AskEck If a Borg Cube encountered a World Devastator, what would happen?
Would the Borg be able to adapt to the Devastator's weapon, or would it just get eaten away? Or would they not even fight, but instead join forces, the World Devastator having similar adapting capabilities and being the epitome of Artificial Intelligence they've been striving for? And, should they fight, would the Devastator be able to adapt to and fire back Borg weaponry?
*Video 5 of posting this😁
@darthrevan1281 More like the Borg would teleport drones aboard in critical infrastructure areas before the cube is destroyed and start assimilating tech and crew from within.
At this point I don't want Lucasfilms to touch any of the IP anymore. I just hope they find someone else worthy of the mantel.
Early Legends was a mess. So Lucas wanted them to establish and stick with a clear continuity and setup a team at Lucasfilm specifically to oversee it. They even went out to bring in the OT cast for a media campaign to draw fans in.
However, for their first story arc, Lucas had requested that they move away from the old Jedi vs Sith and Republic vs Empire for something new. Their new enemy was to one that the Jedi would not be able to draw upon the Force to give them the edge over and they should drive both the Jedi and the New Republic to the brink. The DelRey team came up with the Yuuzhan Vong who were originally outside of the Force. This led to Lucas finally answering the question as to whether the Force is universal or a localized phenomenon to the A
GFFA. Lucas also wanted them to kill off a main character in the first novel to show everyone that the gloves were off, that nobody was safe. The Del Rey team decided to kill off Chewy since he was more of an extension of Han Solo anyway. The decision upset a lot of fans. Later when Anakin Solo started to stand out as the next hero, Lucas had said that the name might get people confused and that Jacen Solo should be the real hero of the series. The writers decided to kill off Anakin Solo, and made Jacen (the original Ben Solo / Kylo Ren) the hero but tossed in a twist that lead the character to the Darkside. Aside for signing off on the books, that was the extent of Lucas’ involvement with the series.
Of course he was invested in the prequels at the time. But his requests for the new direction was the seed for some of the criticisms that the storyline received. The other big issue was with the Force philosophy of the Potentium. Which was on the writers for that one. Lucasfilm had to put out a statement of clarification to clear the issue up.
At any rate, after the Disney takeover, the was decided by the higher ups that the sequels should take place around or within a few years after the NJO’s Yuuzhan Vong invasion which turned the galaxy on its end to the point that no one who wasn’t familiar with the EU’s NJO series would recognize the state of the galaxy. So Lucasfilm made the decision to just dump nearly all of the EU into noncanon status under the Legends label to free things up for the new writers for the all of the movies, shows, books and games they had envisioned. And it’s rather ironic that the writers are walking on tippy toes to avoid any issues, with the exception of the Last Jedi which alone divided the fandom more than both the prequels and the NJO series together and more sharply.
My opinion: legends is canon. Disney is not canon
Merry Christmas guys enjoy your time off and looking forward to seeing you in the next year.
I always hated the idea of the Vong. I don't miss them in the least.
Exactly, thank you!!!
Not me, I loved the idea of an unknown enemy with tech or attributes so advanced they can compete with the best of what we know. Pretty much a reminder to not get comfortable
idk why i never thought of it before now, but based off the picture of the Vong that was used for the thumbnail of this video, you could use the LEGO "hunter orc" figures from the Lord of the Rings (Hobbit?) sets as stand-ins for the Vong in LEGO Star Wars displays. they look damn similar. missing nose, greasy black hair, pointy ears, pale skin, orange eyes, spikey brown clothing.
The problem with the Vong is that they are R rated, imo. The book I read was pretty grisly, almost like a fanfic of Star Wars meets grimdark.
Alien Queen is a disney princess now. I'd be glad to see some of these characters facehugged.
Let's be honest, introducing the Vong couldn't do anything worse to the franchise than Disney already has just by letting Ryan Johnson and to a lesser degree J.J. Abrams near it.
Bruh JJ did more damage than Rian. But ultimately the blame lies on the writers and executives who went into one of the most lore dense universes without a unified story to tell
I dunno, a lot of it comes down to preference of course but I felt like J.J.'s first movie was alright. It wasn't amazing, felt like he was playing it safe and just remaking the originals. But then nearly every single interesting new aspect of the movie with possible story lines were all picked up by Ryan and thrown in the blender and forgotten. Then after the movie came out he went on record saying he didn't know or care about any of the lore. I'm not trying to sound like some elitist snob though I know I will to at least some degree, personally if a director goes into a movie with that mindset I don't think they have any reason to be part of an established franchise. I'm not asking them to read every single book and know every single bit of canon, I sure don't(it definitely helps to have a few of those people as advisers of course) but at the very least someone in charge of the outcome of a movie should respect it exists, which he didn't.
Then for the third movie it was mostly just J.J. doing damage control. Him trying to tie up a trilogy that each movie had almost nothing to do with the other two apart from the characters inside it.
@@andrewbryant4259 Heck no man, it was RJ. He didn't want to make a sequel that would have a 3rd movie that follows it. He wanted to make a stand alone story using Star Wars to do whatever he wanted with it. The only issue was, it wasn't a stand alone film. It was the second to a 3 part movie. He even killed off the main villain that JJ mentioned had big plans for. JJ had to run damage control with the 3rd movie leaving not much time for an actual story. Heck he had to bring Palp back. He said it was always his plan but he full of it. RJ could have cared less. What's worse there's even a old clip of him saying the type of film writer he wants to be is one that has half of a fandom saying it's the best thing they ever saw and loving it while the other half says it's the worst thing ever and hates it. He got what he wanted, in his eyes it's mission completed
Gotta say you got your wires crossed bub.
The opening toTFA is excellent: new characters, perspectives on a new adventure to find Luke. Except they forget the plot and then Han shows up and just doesn't leave. After Han shows up, every character gets redefined in connection to Han. It's not great writing. All that is fine, until the last scene. Rey meeting Luke in the last 30 seconds. If Rey had just jumped to hyperspace, and the camera drifts to Luke on a planet hidden by a gas Nebula sitting by himself on a rock in the ocean, it would have been fine. The next movie could have started from any point. But nope Rey had to come face to face and setup a meeting, and thaf forced the next movie to open there.
People complain about Luke, but he was done dirty in TFA not in TLJ.
Honestly in the Sequels I couldn't have given a rats ass about Han making an appearance.
@@andrewbryant4259 Why do we still have to argue whether it was JJ or Rian who did more damage? Imo they did an alley-oop dunking on all of the potential momentum of Star Wars. I say a pox on both of their houses though their crimes to the lore are different from each other.
I recently finished my re-read of NJO during the course of this year. I still love the series. Some of the best EU books (Star By Star & Traitor for example) appear in the series. There's no way Disney would let LucasFilm touch the Yuuzhan Vong as they were in the books. They are too dark and the version we'd get would be a watered down version for the worse, just like most things LucasFilm pulls from the EU to canon. The other thing I think do a live adaptation of the Yuuzhan Vong would be hard and expensive to do.
Vong are just too weak for Rey Skywalker for the audience to consider them a threat to Rey.
The Vong would interfere Disney's genius masterplan of keeping the Empire vs Rebellion war going for all eternity.
😂😂😂😂 I read this with the palpatine voice
So at this point, after multiple disasters and hilariousness, we're still somehow expecting consistency and uniform direction in canon from Disney Star Wars? *shocked Ewok face*
Maybe they should change the invading aliens.
Yes. I hope they do. They can’t even do Thrawn correctly.
The appealing part to me was that it wasn’t yet another “something, something dark side” story, but sort of a mix between ww2 japanese and islamic fundamentalists. Gave them an aspect of realism that “evil for the sake of being evil”- dark lords never had to me.
Of course they will, just like they ignored Mara Jade. Or Luke's new approach for the Jedi Order. Or Han being a supporting and loving husband and father. Or Thrawn actually being a strategic genius instead of simply being referred to one. Or...
Gotta agree with this hell making a halo star wars crossover having the covenant come to the star wars galaxy is more likely than the vong being introduced
#AskEck: What are your thoughts on Operation Domino and how the Galactic Civil War would've gone if it was successful? I wish we could've gotten more lore about the "Secession Worlds" mentioned in The Essential Guide to Warfare that the Empire crushed early on.
Honestly, the Vong were always a very interesting enemy to me, edge aside. A galactic civilization of aliens that the Jedi struggle with fighting due to a sort of immunity to the affects of the force with odd tech. Forcing them and galaxy as a whole to fight and strategize differently then they have. The grisk could replace this idea with its potential implementation, but we'll see...
Disney cant even tell a complete story
Short answer is YES. Long answer is in the video itself. If you reading this either before or during the video, then watch it! You already clicked on it, so why not watch it anyway! Author of this video would be glad if you watched it fully. Also comment, doesn't matter if alone or under mine, that definitly help his statistics on youtube.
#askEck
What ultimately brought about Jacen Solo's fall to the dark side? It seemed strange to me after what happened in the final book of the new jedi order.
Pride, arrogance, the idea that because he had been the first to consider new concepts about the Force he was suddenly above old fashioned ideas like "good" and "evil", not talking to any of his family for five whole years, delusions that what he was doing were necessary for the greater good.
A fundamental misreading of the NJO series post-Star by Star
I would argue he pulled a Revan during his travels to learn and master the Force. He learned so many esoteric powers in the process - hence the Revan comparison - but became convinced that there was no true difference between Light and Dark before Lumiya seduced him into the Sith by working from Vergere's existing teachings.
what david said, and also the fact that he had been tortured extensively by Vegere. That crazy bird lady broke him and he never really recovered. If luke had any sense he would have thrown him in a loony asylum after the war. But this is also the same guy who let the vong live in peace so you know
Add to all that whomever he saw on the Throne of Balance in the Pool of Knowledge.
Simple answer to your question in the title is obviously.... the fact it is now Legends and not Extended universe tells you all you need to know. Disney is reimagining starwars in their image. It is unfortunate. Personally I like starwars for everything pre disney and I have given up on the rest.
In short yes. But if they do it's because they are desperate. Disney has no more money to spend wastefully.
Disney’s profit. PROFIT for 2023 is estimated at almost $30B. They have money to waste
@@andrewbryant4259 they're wasting money on disney plus a 15 billion dollar waste. Just just blew over billion this year. Reckless spending doesn't bring in customers.
Just because films fail doesn’t mean the don’t make money from other avenues.
@@rexthewolf3149 they're not making that much in the parks and a news update disney got caught bribeing reedy creek officials. That's criminal charges right there.
This was my main concern in Disney if they did the new movies with the bong story line the fan base would have ignored a lot of the pandering
The Vong remind me of something out of Star Trek
This is how I felt about the Vong as well.
Bio-borg basically
They reminded me of the Shadows from Babylon 5.
thank god yes let's ignore that stuff. PLEASE
Disney seems a lot more interested in alienating the OG fans than appeasing them.
Self proclaimed "OG fans" / "lore masters" tend to be the loudest cry babies. Forget those losers.
I think a break from the whole Jedi vs. Sith would be a good thing. The Yuzhan Vong could provide that necessary break from the two bashing each other’s heads in all the time.
No one currently employed by Disney even knows what this is. You assume too much.
I've said this before, but with the current prominence of Baldur's Gate 3, and a certain character in it, I think I"ll mention it again 😅
Its been many years ago, but I remember reading an interview with Michael Stackpole where he mentioned something along the lines of his creation of the Vong was in part inspired by his previous work in the TTRPG industry.
Stackpole did do some work for the 3rd Edition of Dungeons and Dragons, which features a race called the 'Githyanki', a gaunt people on a 'crusade' to wipe out their enemies , the Mind Flayers ('Illithids') and conquer/enslave all others they come across.
No they don't use 'Bio-Tech' (although the Illithids did to a limited degree), but there are some similarities between the two (I've often thought of them as the 'Third Race of Gith', and planned on using them in a 'Spelljammer' campaign- a 'Space Fantasy' setting for D&D).
#AskEck: how would palpatine, with or without vader fared in the sith empire that was around during the old republic era, either as a regular sith lord or doing what he tried in the prequel trilogy (guessing this wouldn't work as well considering the era differences and the jedi even at this time being less hooked to the republic.)
Palpatine was so steeped in the rule of two it’s almost impossible to imagine him coordinating with other sith equals. He was all about dominating even his closest allies. Interesting topic, but ultimately I think either he kills all the other sith and forms his empire or they recognize the danger in him and kill him at a young age
palpatine would've overthrown whoever was in power. he'd murk exar kun or darth vitiate or whoever. he was the pinnacle of the rule of two and he was the product of 1000 years of knowledge and power. The old republic sith aren't that powerful, with a few exceptions. common misconception.
@@andrewbryant4259devil's advocate I wouldn't overlook that a palp who isn't a descendent of the rule of two wouldn't act as if he was
I would want the Vong to be somewhat like legends. Keep the staff and organic ships. Those are pretty iconic for them. As for the Force thing goes, maybe make it so they aren't easily manipulated by or sensed through the force. I'm sure Lucasfilm can come up with a solution there
Honestly just making them biopunk klingons would solve a lot of the issues
#AskEck
I'd love to see a genuine analysis of Jacen Solo's fall in Dark Nest and LotF. Is it character assassination? Did Denning misunderstand the philosophy of Lucas and the NJO writers? Is it worse than TLJ Luke?
I think it's an incredibly interesting and unique storyline. It's the only threat that could truly change the star wars galaxy for good, because jedi and sith were always and will always be two sides of the same coin... so whoever wins it will eventually tilt back and forth. It's not creative to continuously just have a new darth or new jedi sect or gray jedi sect, it is fun for a long while but not forever.
The Vong, were, without a doubt, my favorite bad guys. They were a terrifying threat that felt realistic, and evil. The jedi/sith conflict is the most tiring aspect of SW (at this time) as it felt like it had gone nowhere. It was the same tired tropes and nothing grew, nothing changed. The Vongs lack of the force/empathy forced EVERYONE to change. The jedi/sith's journey to growing as factions was interesting (as was the Republic actually getting off its ass to become a semi functioning govt). I still remember reading Vector Prime, and Chewie dying, it was shocking and for once i got the feeling, that the main characters werent safe and it really hammered home how bad these guys were (which made the story all the more interesting). It must be said that chewie went out like a boss, a true hero, saving Han's kids. Ill never forget that scene. All these things are probably examples as to why they wont come back, the current SW trend is not to push boundries, but do the bland crap they know will sell toys.
Except that the toys aren't even selling.
Well, they made sure Kol Skywalker was never born
I always liked the existential threat of the Vong because they reminded so much of the return of the Honered Matres in Dune, whom they were obviously inspired by. I think modern Disney canon has become too small in scale to ever do a galaxy wide invasion of any kind, even the current 'extra galatic threat' is just one general and his ship rejoining what is probably a small fleet at best. Their focus on such a small scale world building makes it hard to care compared to sweeping grand space opera that used to involve hundreds of systems.
Geeeesh... that "I am 12 years old and this is so cool" design of this creatures....
The trouble I always had with the Del Rey era was they pulled the taffy so much. sure there was up and down in both era's there were good series and bad series in Bantam, but the series would be consistent and 3 books over 16-20 months and done. A del ray series lasted years and the ones in the middle nothing happened. There was three chapters where they discussed how they were secretly removing the crew and weapons from a super star destroyer so they could ram it into a world ship. That could have been covered in a couple paragraphs.
It's a smart idea it's not worth it. Most people don't really want it and most that do just want it so they can rage farm more
#AskEck I’m rereading Legacy of the Force now which hits on Jacen’s flow walking. Jacen goes back to watch operation Knightfall and Anakin slaughtering the Jedi. Do you think there could have been a way for Jacen to affect/alter Anakin’s destiny(had he wanted to) if he had stayed long enough to commune with Anakin?
I'm pretty certain flow-walking explicitly does not allow for one to alter or commune with individuals if I recall. Only to observe and interact.
Don't think Flow Walking works that way as Jacen teaches Tahiri to do it and she tries and ultimately fails multiple times to alter Anakin Solo's destiny. Or at least that's how I remember it, haven't read Legacy since it was being printed
The Vong were cut off from the living Force because they were all so bloodthirsty and warmongering so naturally their best idea for re-establishing their connection is, wait for it, _more_ violence and death? Were they hoping it would go full circle or something? I can see why George Lucas would want to retcon this rather silly notion out of the Vong.
Years ago, i heard Chewbacca was killed off early on because of how hard the character is to write for in books. Cant remember the source so no idea if it's true.
Interesting, I think the death trooper book wrote Chewbacca pretty well but who knows
Yeah, they dropped a moon on poor Chewie...I mean that literally. At least he went out like a hero. I think he died saving Han and Leia's kids, if I remember correctly.
@@sterlingdennett i need to read that series
@@g00n71please do. New Jedi Order is amazing.
It builds on a lot of the rest of the EU post-endor, you will get a little more out of it if you read the catalogue, but it's still really good without it
I think they wanted to show just how serious the Vong invasion was and they needed to kill a massively popular character.
I've always been a huge fan of the Vong series ever since I first read the books. I doubt that Disney will bring them into canon simply because it isn't marketable to children and Star Wars is meant for everyone.
As far as them being cut off from the Force, I think there were never completely severed from it. If I remember correctly, Anakin Solo grew a gem plant thing when he was undercover as a prisoner of the Vong on Yavin 4. He was able to bond with it using the Force and used it as the crystal for his new lightsaber. I think he was also able to kind of sense the Vong and their technology when he was wielding that lightsaber with the crystal. Not as strong as sensing others in the Force, but more than anyone else awash able to do with the Vong. The whole thing about the Vong being hidden from the Jedi in the Force also applied to all of their living technology, which was actually living to a degree.
I think the Vong had fallen so far from what they had once been that the Force simply became super suppressed and unable to affect them greatly. I think the hope at the end of the series was that over time, the Vong would be able to recover their connection to the Force. I don't think it was ever fully gone, just so distant that no one could sense it in them, aside from Anakin Solo to a small extent.
But that being said, I doubt Disney has any plans to bring them back into canon. I would love for the books to be canon again, but it's not likely.
I would much rather see more of the Grysk than the Vong
Perhaps, the Vong are far more known and fleshed out than the Grysk, although I think I would prefer for them to remain under Timothy Zahn’s creative freedom until their identity has fully matured
Off topic but I just want to say that I am really glad you are reading through the X-Wing series!
Vector Prime was the first EU book I didn’t read. I heard about Chewie’s death and That was enough for me to be done. When I learned that the Yuzhan Vong were impervious to lightsabers and couldn’t be affected by the force, I thought it was the worst idea ever. I’ve been an avid reader of the new Canon and I like the way they’ve brought in the best aspects of the EU by making it all work in the same unified framework.
Traitor.
Well I mean all the other aspects are there. Eventually a character has to die, most have already died in the Sequel Trilogy. There are lightsaber resistant materials, most famously beskar. Ysalamiri are “impervious” to the force. It is the combination of all these things that specifically pushes the Vong too far off the scale for you? Like they are contrived to be such a large challenge. Or is something else in particular?
It’s the perfect storm nature of the Vong. They needed a challenge that could actually be a threat to the Jedi at that time and they couldn’t just keep falling back on “this Jedi is a Sith now” all the time. I like how the ideas have filtered in slowly and it’s not all contained in one culture or race. The Beskar thing, I love. Especially how they’ve worked with the Mandalorian culture. In the High Republic (best Star Wars books ever, in my opinion), they have an enemy called The Nameless that literally eats the force from Jedi and leaves them a dry husk. So, yeah, it’s just the Vong are too “perfect” a villain.
I mean, that’s what George Lucas did with elements and characters he liked from the EU before the sale to Disney. There are some great books still worth reading from pre-2014 but I just never liked the Vong era.
I've never liked the Vong for reasons I won't go into here (my headcanon for the EU timeline essentially ends at the Thrawn duology), so I wouldn't exactly be thrilled if they were reintroduced into the current canon. I do like the idea of an extra-galactic threat so existential and overwhelming that it forces the entirety of the Star Wars galaxy to band together and oppose it, I just wish it had been executed differently. That said, I do have to give LucasFilm execs credit for allowing such a radical narrative change that essentially changed the EU forever. That kind of creative risk taking is unheard of with Disney behind the helm.
Would you mind going into those reasons if someone asked? Because imo the Vong are some of the most interesting concepts ever introduced in Star Wars (I'm specially interested in their biotechnology).
#AskEck: Do you think we will get or that there IS an explanation for the various magicks in Star Wars, (like obviously the nightsisters but also even less explored examples like Orphne and Rish Loo's Gungan magick) and do you have any personal thoughts on how these can stem from the force but not be directly connected?
I don't trust anyone to do the NJO right, because some of their own authors, especially Troy Denning, couldn't do it right. Troy Denning never got Traitor by Matthew Stover, and the whole post-NJO suffered because he was allowed to be the main author. I couldn't even be bothered to read the Dark Nest Trilogy or anything after it, because the way Jacen Solo was being handled didn't make any sense.
They also ignoring the Sith species as well which I would love to see one in canon.
The Vong being oitside of the Force is a grave misconception. Outside of the Force means outside of nature AKA dead. There were certain methods to actually sense yhe Vong, either through biological implants or connecting to certain objects. The Vong sort of existed on a different plane within the Force, ever since they were severed from their original living homeworld, Yuuzhan'tar.
I feel like the Vong could be awesome if they were reworked a little. To me them not being tuned into the force can make sense with them coming from another galaxy. They never learned to touch it before their galaxy devolved into chaos and war or maybe it is something truely specific to the sw galaxy. So creatures from another galaxy would seem foreign to it and I could see how the force might not want to let the vong in. I do also like the idea of someone other than the sith being the big baddies. Having bad guys the force doesn’t work on has a lot of potential and I also like the galaxy having to come together, put aside their differences, and kick those xenomasocists out of the galaxy we love.
The vong could still fit in if they, perhaps did away with the no-force thing, perhaps instead making it so they have no force sensitives, or like only one or two in their entire population, and to make their primary aspect instead the hatred of technology.