The leaks reads like ****ty fan fiction.
I'll never forgive Disney for just burning the "Legends" lore to the ground and then acting like there was nothing to work with. All they had to do was adapt the Thrawn trilogy, and people would be calling these movies brilliant.
It does read like fan fiction. That's been the whole problem. Jar Jar Abrams and crew at Lucasfilm in Kathleen Kennedy's all girl story group act like fans of the franchise, and maybe they are but that doesn't make them qualified to write for it. This last chapter sounds like it was written by the no talent hack who wrote Twilight. It's even got the crappy teen romance BS in it.
As for the Thrawn trilogy, it's good for the most part, but overrated. Jorus C'baoth wasn't that great a villain and Thrawn isn't really a villain either. The clone of Luke, referred to in the book as "Luuke Skywalker" actually comes from the same school of
"not making any goddamn sense" that Episode 7's scene with Luke/Anakin's saber does. In the novel, the hand of Luke Skywalker and the saber was recovered by the Empire. The reason behind this is never made clear. The clone is commissioned by Jorus C'baoth and the reason isn't made entirely clear. It's only had a month of training if that, and shouldn't have posed a real threat to Luke, but for some reason it nearly bests him (plot armor) and of course, he has to be saved by Mara Jade. Yes, for some reason the man who confronted Darth Vader and won suddenly needs saving.
He can't deal with Jorus C'baoth either. Leia does that using Mara as a force meat suit. Mara Jade is a writer's pet in this book if I've ever seen one. In any case, the end chapters of the Last Command show a significant drop in quality compared to the previous books and frankly, its cringey at the end. It too reads like fan fiction. I'd have given it a pass if Luke did a ****ing thing in the climax of the book but he doesn't. He's basically furniture. He should have killed C'baoth and Mara should have killed the clone of Luke. That part at least had a point as her directive from Palpatine
(that still lingered) was carried out and her hatred of Luke, died with that. I hated the end of that book for the same reason I hated Luke's depiction in the Last Jedi. He's rendered weak and ineffective for reasons that just don't make sense.
You have two climactic battles and Luke does basically **** all for both of them. Part of the reason why that doesn't work is because Leia, has little training and non of Luke's combat experience with the Force. Mara, although highly trained outside of the use of the Force, has about a tenth of his connection to the Force and certainly little experience with it. Basically, Luke is sidelined by a plot device
(buzzing in his mind from the clone) and the victories from Mara Jade aren't really earned.
The difference is, there wasn't some BS woke agenda behind it. It's just bad writing. Some writer creates a character and obvious bias towards it shows. It's something that reeks of amateur hour and it shouldn't have happened. The end of the Last Command is inconsistent with the quality of the earlier books, and I don't know why. Typically, when you see this crap in fan fiction its because the usually male authors have some sort of sexual fixation on the female character they are writing about or created, and elevate them artificially when it isn't earned, nor necessary.
Of course, going the other way, while some writers rendered legacy characters ineffective or weak in the presence of newer characters, the reverse often happened as well. Luke was elevated to power levels in the EU that are staggering. I mean, he's no Rey, but the problem ended up being that he ended up being almost too powerful. It's the issue writers often have with Superman. While an average thug could get the drop on Batman or even get lucky enough to hurt him, Superman basically needs Darksied or other god like beings to fight. Anything short of that ends up being boring because we know the character is in zero danger. Worse yet, when they do kill off a character like that via something like Doomsday, its a problem because its obviously contrived as hell, thematically inconsistent and like Doomsday, done poorly.
The EU has some great stuff in it, but its a mixed bag for sure. There are some genuinely awful things in it that Disney was right to blow out of the airlock. It's the one decision Disney's made I largely agree with. Now, I think they should have sorted through it and pulled the best materials out of it to use for the new films. That would have worked, but they had to be very selective. A lot of that would have or should have come from Heir to the Empire, but it would have needed many changes to work on the big screen.
