Lit A/V The Force Awakens and the EU [TAGGED spoilers.]

A good joke must be able to survive the rigors of critical thinking. A logical error can ruin a joke as much as plain unfunniness.

Mr. Spock would agree with me.

 

Back on topic, ladies and gentlemen.

 

I haven't heard any real news on the Episode VII front lately, so I'm gonna go ahead and start a rumor that Harrison Ford's going to show up in the movie having inexplicably gotten blond highlights.

Like, he'll just walk into a mission briefing room and the camera will pan to Luke, Leia, and their children's individualized reaction shots.

Leia turns to the intelligence briefer. "Top that. Aaaaand GO."

 

Will his blond highlights create a lens flare?

 

Hey guyz I have a question for those of you who have seen/are familiar with both the new Star Treks and TCW:

I have not yet seen the newest Trek (although I'm aware of the major spoilers), but I'm under the impression based on that one and the first one that Abrams essentially is pulling a Filoni on the OS Trek. You know how Filoni would take a bunch of stuff from the EU and toss it into TCW helter-skelter? Isn't that basically what Abrams is doing? For those of you who've seen the newest Trek, did Abrams basically do what he did in the 2009 one and include a bunch of random OS references that don't always coincide with their original idea?

I ask because if this is Abrams's system, I suspect he'll use it with the EU as well.

 

He uses things from the original show and even some elements from the TNG era, which I don't like, but it doesn't dominate the narrative. He's a bigger fan of SW. I'm sure he'll keep things ambigious, but if he doesn't, nothing of value is lost, imho.

 

I suspect the part that will make "using it for inspiration" harder for Episode 7 than his Trek reboot is how the Trek reboot is starting at the beginning again, whereas Episode 7 is pushing forward, which... makes references more tricky, as if you reference a character... from a story that is no longer even possible... what are you referencing?

In Trek, that's not as hard, as the story wouldn't have happened in the new timeline yet either, so you're just showing Young [Character] at the start of a different life. But say Mara Jade makes a cameo. But she isn't Luke's wife. Who is she? Still an Emperor's Hand? Or won't there have been any Emperor's Hands? In which case, what does that then make her? Just some random redhead whose name happens to be the same?

It's the awkwardness of throwing in gratuitous cameos that makes me somewhat unsure whether to really get hopes up for them if it doesn't stick to the EU, as cameos then just become Cad Banes and we all know what Cad Bane does.

 

Yes. Star Trek Into Darkness felt very, very much like a TCWification of Star Trek, with lots of quoting and "homages". (Grain of salt: as you may be aware, I am a Star Trek layperson.) At this point, I'm pretty sure that the destruction of Vulcan (etc.) from the first film is not the only major difference between the New Trek universe and the Old Trek universe.

However, like TCW, there was a mix of hamfisted references and well done references. I appreciated some of the more subtle references (a blink-and-you'll-miss-it callback to First Contact, for example). If Abrams can just do away with the callback quotes and fourth-wall-shattering "homages", I think it would be good.

We know Abrams is a Star Wars fan, but have we ever gotten any indications that he's an EU fan? Filoni was a casual EU fan when he was tapped for TCW---he's read (or, minimally, is aware of) a lot of the EU, even if he tramples over it ["because George told me to do it"].

 

Well, there's an interesting line there about "pet characters" this time around, particularly since we more or less know that the movies will be starring the children of the big three. It's almost guaranteed that they will be stealing focus from the original characters. The trick then, I suppose, would be to do it in a way that does not diminish the importance of the original characters, and clearly illustrates that everything the new characters accomplish is only possible because of the originals.

 

In the end, I expect it depends what "theme" they're going for. If the PT was death and decay, and the OT about uncertainty and transition, then the ST could be about newness and growth, in which case the original characters still have a role. However... that might also run the risk of making it too much like a children's coming of age cliche, with Harry defeating Voldemort because everyone else is simply too stupid to see what's right in front of them, so... depends what they plan to do really.

Whereas if they just want the ST to be the new OT, with the same themes, blah, blah, then in that scenario I can see the original characters all going the Obi-Wan way to make room for the new ones.

 

I enjoy a good passing of the torch story, but I absolutely hate it when those kind of stories, as they often do, push the idea that the new generation needs to come in and save everyone, but fail to acknowledge the importance the previous generation had on the current. In other words, it's usually "oh, your ways are archaic and have become ineffective with the passing of time, time for the spunky young people to come in and show you how to do it", and not "thanks for everything you taught me, I'm going to use that and take another step forward".

There are too many examples I can think of when it comes to the former, but I won't mention any to cut down on the complaining. I can, however, give a fantastic example of the latter: in the Batman Animated Series episode "The Gray Ghost". That episode is... layered, to say the least, but it can be adequately summed up as an acknowledgement and a thanks to previous, campy versions of Batman. It may not have much in common with the current version, but that doesn't make its influence any less integral. That's probably the best pure "passing the torch" story I can think of.

So, just don't have Han, Leia and Luke come off as out of touch old people, and we'll be cool. Frankly, I don't expect Abrams to go that route, but you never know.

 

Funny; that's the exact opposite of the conversation we've been having about the EU since LotF.

 

The difference there, I guess, is how LOTF and beyond are more like the hypothetical trilogy after the ST, with the torch having been passed, whereas the ST would for film audiences still be back where NJO was the passing of the torch.

 

There will be EU in this movie. Mark my words.

 

I'm not sure that Abrams was talking about the EU when he said that, and the article only makes it seem like he was. Here's another article that presents the quote differently:

http://www.deadline.com/2013/06/pro...-star-wars-to-start-production-in-early-2014/

“I think that the thing is so big and so massive to so many people that the key to moving forward is honoring but not revering what went before,” said JJ Abrams today about the challenges of directing the new Star Wars movie.

...

Two paragraphs later

Not that the director was saying much more about his upcoming Star Wars gig. “No comment,” replied Abrams with a smile on his face to a question from Hudlin if the new Star Wars movies would be based partially on the dozens of novels that have come out over the years bridging various unexplored aspects of the films’ characters.

Not getting my hopes up because the article seems misleading.

 

This is why I think Avatar handled this perfectly. Rather than moving on to the next generation -- which can give rise to the kind of complaints Instantdeath mentions -- they skipped ahead to the NEXT next generation.

So, instead of people moaning about the Gaang's young adult kids stealing the spotlight, they get to love them as middle-aged badasses in their own right. And, now they're attached, they WANT young adult stories about them.

 

Well I certainly don't think the movie is based on any EU, but if he's asked specifically about the books and hedges even a little bit, that says to me that he's at least taking them seriously. A worrying answer would've been, "books? You mean there are books, too?"

 

My assumption is that the EU will be handled like it was by the prequels or the TV show. Stuff like Coruscant will be used instead of renaming the capital planet, but stuff like Boba Fett's backstory won't be. For instance, something that I can see them doing is using Thrawn as an antagonist in the sequel trilogy. It's going to nullify the Thrawn trilogy, but it's going to use the Thrawn character in a new story.

If this is the case, it's going to be a lot more painful than the prequels, because that era was largely untouched prior to their release, whereas the sequel trilogy era is where the largest bulk of EU material is set.

I think this might prove to be a good thing for the EU in a decade though, because the sequel trilogy is going to introduce new characters that can star in books on their own merit instead of Leia, Luke, and Han and that transition can be made, and if they do wipe clean the slate of stories after Episode VI, they can even revisit that time period to tell more stories about Han, Luke, and Leia. On the other hand, I really can't envision what the post-Crucible EU would be in ten years time without a sequel trilogy.

 

Thrawn can be an antagonist in the ST without abolishing TTT - as there's one clone in HoT, there can be others! Already speculated about in SQ.

 

Well, I don't think the films would make that distinction, but I suppose the EU could afterward.

Honestly though, I'm expecting there to be an entirely different next generation than what the EU has presented. I don't think the EU has given them a lot to work with at this point TBH...

 

I'm leaning toward the ST being a different timeline than the EU altogether, but at the same time, I think there's a very good chance we'll at least have a character named Jaina Solo--she's by far the easiest major EU person to extrapolate from what's already there in the movies. Will she be the right age/look/personality is a harder question to answer.

 

I wouldn't be surprised to see a Jacen Solo either.

I dunno if they would avoid Anakin Solo for the same reason that they allegedly killed off the character; I think this would possibly apply to Ben as well?

Unless they say otherwise, I expect there to be brand new characters entirely though. I really don't think Disney or Kathleen Kennedy is going to reject Arndt's script because he created a new Solo-Skywalker generation and didn't use the one from the novels. Maybe they will change the names to match, but I doubt Arndt is reading the novels or Wookieepedia to inform his writing. We already know Lawrence Kasdan isn't for the script he's penning.