Speculation The Official Episode VII and the EU thread

I was thinking that, aswell. Cudos to you!

 

What's wrong with fan fiction?

 

That I never finished any that I started...

 

Nothing is "wrong" with fan fiction, but I don't want what happens in it dictating what the films can & can't do.

 

The only EU I don't want violated is this:




If this gets messed with...heads will roll.

 

I brought this up elsewhere, but it's particularly relevant here.

The relationship between the SW franchise and its licensed media is very unique, and there is absolutely no real imperative for it to remain so. Even if the ST overrides a large swath of the EU canon, there is no reason why anyone ought to be freaking out about it because, if the ST were to do so, it would not wipe any of the EU stuff from existence; it would simply change the nature of the EU's relationship to the SW filmic canon. The EU would still exist in such a scenario, and Kathy Kennedy and the other folk at Lucasfilm and Disney would still have the option of mining it either directly or indirectly for future non-Sequel Trilogy SW projects should they so choose.

Even if the ST does override a large swath of the EU canon, that material will still exist as part of the SW brand; all that will change is that the SW canon's relationship to the licensed EU media will become exactly like the relationship between the canon of other franchises and their licensed media. This won't stop people from picking and choosing which pieces of the EU licensed media they wish to continue to consider canonical, nor will it prevent anyone at Lucasfilm or Disney from potentially mining the EU licensed media either directly or indirectly for future SW filmic projects.

There is absolutely no reason why there cannot be major alterations made to the existing EU material vis a vis the Sequel Trilogy, and the possibility of such alterations being made is nothing to be freaked-out about. Regardless of what the Sequel Trilogy does to the EU, the EU will still continue to exist as a cohesive narrative universe, with the only thing changed being that certain aspects of it - depending on exactly what may have been overridden in terms of specific details and whatnot - will no longer be considered to be part of the SW canon, which is fine because, as I already noted, there was never any imperative for the contents of the EU licensed SW media to be considered to be part of overall canonical tapestry of the SW brand an universe in the first place, nor is there any imperative for the EU licensed material to continue to be considered to be part of the overall canonical tapestry of the SW brand and universe.

 

I just want to repeat a point that I brought up earlier...



It makes perfect sense from a marketing/merchadise point of view to embrace the EU.

If the movies are set decades after Episode VI, which I'd say is a sure bet, someone will inevitably ask:

"It's 45 years later? What?!? What have Luke, Han, and Leia been doing all this time??"

LFL could either goes through the immense costs of publishing a whole new continuity, OR... they can simply refer those people to the EU books and comics.

Sales for all that material will go up, at zero cost to LFL. It's basically free money. (And if they decide the opposite, you can bet that EU sales would plummet). It's a massive cash cow, a huge resource that hasn't been utilized to its full potential.



Of course the ST will be an original story, not an EU adaption, but it can build off of the EU... while at the same time being a great starting point to "jump on." You would NOT NEED the EU to understand the ST, it can stand on its own, but it can be greatly enriched by the EU.

They can use the EU's characters (Ben, Jaina, Allana, Lowbacca) and worlds/species (countless) while still telling original storties with minimal reference to past stories but just don't contradict them.

LEIA, to JAINA: "I've lost both my sons to war, I don't want to lose you too!"​

LUKE, to BEN: "You have a fiery heart, just like your mother. I wish she was alive to see the Jedi Knight you've become"​

HAN, to LOWBACCA: "You're getting pretty good. You'll be as good of a copilot as your Uncle Chewie by the time you're 200, at this rate!"​

And those things don't even need to be referenced.


Why would Kathleen Kennedy and LFL throw away free money?

 

Summer Dreamer, I think if they decide to disconnect from the current EU it would open up new writers to create material to connect the trilogies.

My concern, to be honest is that I don't personally care too much about the EU. To me the EU is like fan fiction. A blast to read sometimes, and good "what-if" scenarios, but not part of the main story arc.

And I also use the same line of thinking about the clone wars cartoons and the newer clone wars animated series. I like them a lot, don't get me wrong, but they may or may not be part of the story, they neither complement nor add to the Anakin-Luke story arc. IMHO

Lastly, GL was always quick to contradict the EU and even CANON EU (the movie novels). No need to bring the examples I think everyone here knows them, and this has not "hurt" sales of the EU that I know of.

 

I think people are reading far too much into the contradicting parts of the universe.

With a franchise so huge, with so many people involved in so many media, contradictions are bound to happen.
Some get retconned, some don't.

I don't think there's some secret agenda of movies contradicting the EU or vice versa.

Yeah, some things don't fit, enjoy them or don't - it's both ok.
There's plenty of it to go around, anyway.

 

I originally posted the below in a different thread, but I thought the numbers crunched would be relevant here too.

...so I tried to find more objective facts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books#List_of_best-selling_book_series puts Stars wars books at 160 million copies as of 2005. They outsell chicken soup for the soul. Let's ballpark total sales by 2015 to be 200 million books. I'm going to keep these estimates rough and call the average price of a book 15 bucks. (If someone wants to provide a better number I'll use it, I'm just not sure how to weight the ratio of hardback to softback and account for constantly inflated book prices without sales distribution data.) This puts the gross of the books at 3 billion dollars. The total worldwide gross of all 7 movies is only 4.5 billion http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=starwars.htm.

The value (monetary) of star wars lies in the merchandising. How much revenue has EU toys/comics/expensive replicas generated for the company?

 

Maybe for SW fans but no one outside of SW fandom knows the EU characters. They will simply not be crazy enough to base the most anticipated film ever made on a bunch of stuff that comes with masses of baggage and which the average person has never heard of. They'll want to focus on the well-known popular characters, flex their creative muscles and develop their own new elements, and pepper the movie with a few arcane references to make deep fans feel included.

And its not a bottom-line issue. No seriously talented A-List director's going to bow to a ledger. "Look at this, 15% of revenue over the past 35 years came from an assortment of books & comics, ergo, you have to stick to continuity!" The candidate's going to want to put their stamp on the Saga, not follow an established temporary timeline that was only meant to satisfy desire for the film they are now about to make for real.

 

*coughs, points to avatar* Yes, they do.

 

That wasn't drawn by a SW fan...?? Who else would draw that?

Take that pic and show it randomly to people, ask them to identify the redheaded woman. Do the same with Luke, Han, Leia, Yoda, Anakin, Maul etc. see what happens.

 

Perhaps I was unclear.

My point was that people outside of Star Wars fandom know who Mara Jade is. And Thrawn. I know many such people.

Edit: I am NOT saying more people know who she is (as well as other EU characters) than movie characters.

 

You're assuming that if they ever introduce Mara, Talon, Katarn or Thrawn they will provide no back story and just shove them on screen thinking that the audience is already familiar with them?
Why would they do that?

I sincerely doubt they will introduce another character high up on the General Greivous scale of randomness.

 

The PT just threw villains around very irresponsibly.

Episode I - Darth Maul! Damn! He's badass! I wonder what he'll...oh, he's dead.
Episode II - Count Dooku and Jango Fett. Cool, Christopher Lee! Jango Fett! Yoda's former apprentice, a very different approach to a Sith Lord...could be interesting--whaaa?! Jango just went down like a punk! Well, we still have Dooku...
Episode III - ...aaaand he's decapitated as well. General Grievous...eh, who's this guy now...he's kinda cool, has potential I think that--well, ****. He exploded.

All of those had potential, but were just thrown away needlessly.
Hope that doesn't happen in Episode 7, that they make a cool main villain or two, stick with them and maybe introduce an occasional badass sidekick.
Not just waste em like PT.

 

At the expense of dictating what they can do witht he movies and tv shows moving forward.

They could also publish new material within a new continuity and sell it to both the old and new fans.

Sell 5000 more copies of an old book, or 1 million copies of a new one?

What if the filmmakers want Leia to have ONLY a son and tell a story about him? Lucas has said he never saw Luke getting married, and what if they want Luke to deal with enforcing the old orders rules or creating new ones? What they want Chewie instead of the lame replacement?

 

I think some people are not quite grasping the importance of this movie.

It will be blown way out of all proportion. It will be scrutinized more closely than the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is already being obsessed over 24/7 online. A-list writers and directors are lining up to have a chance at bat. Even Ewan McGregor's ready to come back! It's going to be insane for the next 3 years.

SW, while very robust, has become a pretty narrow area for participating fans. The comics enjoy a circulation of about 18,000 copies monthly compared to the 65-80,000 averaged by other mainstream comics. TCW is No. 1...with boys aged 4-14. The novels have fallen off the bestseller lists and even veteran readers have been complaining loudly about the drop-off in quality. It has become accepted "fact" that the PT "sucked" and "ruined SW" blah blah blah. Mr. Plinkett is seen as the ultimate voice on all things SW: think about that.

In short, if SW is to continue, it needs a major come-back. This is what Disney/Lucasfilm are planning. They will do the obvious things necessary to make everyone happy, and to get the world excited about SW. Stop looking at $$$ and comparing it to your annual paycheck and think in terms of longevity and public presence. Yeah, SW makes $$$ but it's in the doghouse as far as the general populace is concerned. It needs a makeover. Some of the flab will have to be lost.

Lucas inventing new characters (which he's brilliant at) is very different from cramming Mara Freakin' Jade into the most anticipated movie ever made. It is highly unlikely they will want to recycle more than the classic characters - that's already 7 characters! They'll want to create their own, new characters and present something that feels fresh while acknowledging the original films and recreating their warmth and good vibes. This is crucial to making SW a permanent presence.

I would have been happy to end it all with TCW and let it continue in the EU but let's face it, that's not sane. People love SW, and they want to love it, which is even more important. Something needs to be done to let all the "wannabe's" in if it is to continue. I know it kind of stinks for those of us who have been here for 10, 20, or 30 + years, but that's the way it goes. Lucasfilm has gone public, SW is going global, we're not alone anymore.

 

We also have to consider things past Episode VII, VIII and IX.

Its likely Disney will continue to make Star Wars past those 3 movies. They would be stupid to hand-cuff themselves forever regarding Star Wars (when they have to make 4 Billion dollars, and thats AFTER the cost of making the movies too) and what stories they can and cannot tell before they see ANY profit from the franchise.

Lets say Gore Verbinski walks in says he has an idea for a new Star Wars movie or series of Star Wars movies, makes his pitch and its great, they feel it would make money, they have a good history with him as a director etc... But it could contridict a novel that was written in 1996. Are they going to say "sorry we can't do that" or "we love the idea but we need change it because of something written in 1996"?

 

Someone on forcecast last week (I forget who, he was in english guy) made a very good point.

Back in 1979 and 1980 fans weren't sitting around going "Empire Strikes Back better include things from and reference the Marvel comics I've been reading the last 2 years. If it doesn't, its not real or I won't like it or they'll be just throwing money away" etc...

 

Obviously to you the possibility that large swathes of the EU being declared/effectively made non-canon isn't upsetting, but you seem unwilling to even try to view the situation from the eyes of those readers/consumers who bought EU material based on the premise that that material was canon (at least on some level) and would remain so. Yes, the possbility always existed that LFL/Lucas would declare some parts of the EU to be non-canon, but even . People saw this, and many who didn't care for, say, comic book universes with no continuity of story and characters, found a home in the EU. You're right that the relationship between the SW franchise and its licensed media is very unique, and it is this uniqueness that drew a lot of its fans. But now, the possibility exists that the entire post Endor-EU, which represents a very large part of the EU, might be made wholly non-canon. Even if you disagree with them, can't you at least acknowledge that canon-conscious EU fans have a plausible, valid reason to be worried?

Mind you, I'm not among those who absolutely want the EU to be integrated to the new movies' storyline/continuity. My preferred solution to this whole mess would be for LFL to declare the EU at some safe point before the PT to be its own alternate universe. In this way, EU canonicity and continuity would be preserved in a way, and the new movies would have a blank slate to work with (and, as you mention, the movies' creators would be free to mine the EU for characters/ships/ideas/whatever they like). Del Rey could use the time until 2015 to tie the post-Endor storyline and gear up to produce new material for the new movies.

 

But does the likelyhood that some novels won't be canon really change anything? The stories still exist. You still read and enjoyed them. None of that changes. And if it does/will upset someone, the likelyhood is they have until 2015 to get used to the idea, because the movies are happening. So whats the point in complaining about it?

Lucas already has declared the EU its own universe.

I'm not sure how long Del Rey will have the publishing rights. Disney has its own publishing company.

 

Here is my latest post from the 'NJO and Legacy Era are toast' thread, which addresses everything you seem to be worried about.

 

Jango_Fett21:

But the fond memories I had at reading those stories will be partly diminished because I bought and read them under the premise that they were and would remain canon. If the EU is wholly decanonized, it creates a precedent within the SW franchise. You say that EU fans should not be worried about the EU being de-canonized. Even if we grant that, what is to prevent the new movies' continuity from eventually suffering the same fate someday? After all, it will have happened once before, and so it could plausibly happen again. Why should fans who care about canon risk getting burned again with the new movies' tie-in products?

And speaking of the new movies, and given your de-canonization preferences, would you prefer that all tie-in material of the "new" EU be declared non-canon right from the start? If LFL decides to go that way, I hope they'll be honest enough to inform fans of this ASAP.

I dearly hope LFL will let it remain its own canon universe rather than wholly de-canonize it... Ah, well. If it comes down to a choice between nuking the EU's canonicity entirely and burdening the new movies with the full EU's continuity, I say bring on the nukes.

But do those new Star Trek tales build on each other within a single continuity and timeline (for each series), the way the Star Wars EU has ever since the Thrawn Trilogy? Or are they more like superhero comics, where any new series can retcon and effectively de-canonize previous issues/series that were published just years before?