SPOILERS
Well they dealt with that specific concern in NJO by demanding to kill off a major character in the first book, Lucas let them Chewbacca off, it wasn't very well done. Luke, Leia, and Han are the only real 'major characters' anyway, not counting droids which presumably can be resurrected fairly easily. LotF and FoJ are better, and EU is so developed that the authors can kill off major characters to the EU audience with having to consult Lucas, or Disney now I guess.
Yes, trust a project Lucas had nothing to do with to restore the image he created then casually dumped aside in the prequels... needless to say hearing Lucas was done made my day.
The novels are better than the films but 3 is much higher contrast, which is kinda of ironic because Terry Brooks and R.A. Salvatore did the first two and they're bigger, presumably better writers (Though not really sci-fi)and I think they just phoned it in. Stover actually manages to make you kinda say 'Yeah, that makes sense from his POV' with Anakin.
I did a reread of them sometime in the last year, they've held up well.
- Albert Einstein
King of Cairhien 20-7-2
Chancellor of the Landsraad, Archduke of Is'Mod