Were The Nineties Sneakily The Best Decade For Star Wars?

Heading into the nineties, Star Wars was largely dead. At least it felt that way. The culture was moving on to new things. Turtles and dinosaurs were dominating the toy aisle as well as the small and large screens, respectively. Star Trek had much more currency courtesy of The Next Generation. Star Wars was becoming history. The media was gone. They toys were gone. But then I like to imagine that George Lucas went out on the lawn of Skywalker Ranch with a boom box held aloft, and blasted Fanfare for Rocky:


Star Wars wasn't in its death rattle in the late eighties. It was lying in wait to stage the biggest comeback in entertainment history and turn the nineties into the best decade ever for Star Wars. Let's walk down memory lane, shall we?

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For those of us who grew up with the OT, either in theater or on VHS, the Timothy Zahn Thrawn trilogy is the sequel trilogy. Up until this point in my life, I wasn't much of a reader. I tore through my copy of Heir to the Empire, which I still own to this day (but the dust cover has seen better days). Even though this sparked my love for reading, I never re-read books. That is of course except for the Thrawn trilogy, which I've read three times, and I'm due for a forth.

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I'll be honest that I never really got into the Dark Horse Star Wars comics when they were being published in the nineties, but I know they are beloved by a large part of the community. I wouldn't hit my stride with the funny books until the following decade with Star Wars: Legacy. The fact that Star Wars comics were back was a pretty big deal.

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And this is why we're all here today. Enough said.

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This was the first coordinated multi-media Star Wars event. Shadows of the Empire spanned a novel, comics, and a video game. It even crossed over to the POTF2 line giving us our only Dash Rendar figure ever. It was quite the scene man.

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I don't particularly care for going to the theater to watch movies anymore, but Star Wars has always been about the communal theater experience. It's the only time I've ever gone to movie and had the audience cheer like it was a sporting event. Being able to see A New Hope in a packed theater again was a thrill and a half. In 1978, my father took me to see Star Wars (before it was called A New Hope). Nineteen years later, I took my father to see the Special Edition of A New Hope. That was pretty sweet. Miss you, pops.

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Everything in the decade so far was prelude. With Episode I, the Star Wars empire became a dynasty. I saw The Phantom Menace ten times in the theater, twice with my father. Collecting the Episode I line was the most fun I've had with the hobby since I was a kid. Finding out that Captain Panaka was coming to the line because he was pictured on the front of the Flash Speeder box was such a vintage Kenner callback. Every time I went into a store and saw the "new" sticker in the upper corner of a bubble, my heart would skip a beat. The movie wasn't the greatest, but the times were. I don't think Star Wars has ever been more dominant. Every consumer brand wanted a piece of the game from Frito Lays to Charmin.

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Those are the big hits from the decade. I skipped over some minor beats along the way like the THX Laser Disc releases (which I still have to this day). All together, the nineties were my favorite time as a Star Wars fan.

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