Lit When will we get an announcement of the Status of the EU?

Around ten months ago as we all know LucasFilm LTD. was bought by The Walt Disney Company. Since then we have had little to no news concerning the Star Wars Expanded Universe which has been growing almost exponentially since 1991 when Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy hit stores (this should be review for all you). With well over a hundred novel, hundreds of comic issues and a large number of video games and most of them set in the post-ROTJ time period, the EU is in danger for being contradicted the hell out of if they do not respect it.

So my question is when will LucasFilms/Disney/Dark Horse/Del Rey announce what will happen to the EU.

 

I'm glad someone is finally bold enough to ask these questions.

 

I love the idea that there will be an Announcement, with an Answer, and that will be the End of The Issue.

I mean, how many times have the Marvel comics been kicked out of canon now? I can see the EU being a kind of Schrodinger's Continuity for a decade or so.

 

im scared of loosing characters that ive grown to love

 

Well comic books can do that easily because they have been doing the since they were created like that but the Star Wars universe has never had a reboot. Plus it is one of the biggest fictional universe that does not contradict itself on a regular basis (ex: Star Trek).

 

Star Wars is never going to have a reboot. It's going to have movies, and things will likely fall where they may and various creators will fight for whatever little scrap of continuity they can preserve. I can see the EU being in a state where Legacy of the Force happened but Jacen Solo never officially existed.

 

I can see them doing this. Continuity is more important than narrative.

 

My favorite to franchise are Halo and Star Wars for the reason of that they care about keeping one continuity.

 

If there is An Answer to the Great Question, I can see it happening post Ep. 7 release when it hits home video. "Well, we have to see how it shakes out first!" will be the official response for a few years. And then after the release cue 5 months of people scrambling on forums to try to patchwork the continuity together. ("Well, if you read "Heir to the Empire", move it up 7.8 years in the timeline, and take all references to the twins being born as a singular to take into account Sarah Solo in Ep. 7, and change Mara Jade to Skippy who was Luke's dead wife in Ep. 7, then it all fits!") Should be good times!

 

hmmm well if disney screws it up they never be forgiven by any star wars fans for the rest of time. I agree though that star wars has been a constant since the universe was created. On basis of the director though they may go for the reboot.

 

Wouldn't surprise me at all.

 

But the way to keep all a singular continuity I can only see if they "Crisis on Infinite Earths" the post ROTJ-EU and blip back to the Ewok party on Endor. (This would probably be post- Ep. 7) Otherwise, mass continuity patchwork (probably mostly fannon in the end), put out a "Rozencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" style way to convolutedly hammer the EU into the ST narrative (read the story of how Jania Solo had to tragically mindwipe HER OWN FAMILY from history forever to save the sister she never knew she had. How Ben Skywalker and Alana Solo bravely went along with it! On their quest to correct intergalatic date-keeping that has been awry since the battle of Endor!) or simply labeling everything post ROTJ "Infinities". But they can still buy the new books that are in continuity this time. For realsies!

 

I think there's a line where a unified continuity ceases to be a positive and becomes a negative. And frankly, I think the EU passed that point prior to the Disney acquisition -- but if they try to force it with Episode VII, it will be even worse.

 

Word. Haven't read Halo, but I totally agree on Star Wars. My biggest fear with the sequels is that they'll just contradict or overwrite enough of the existing EU that that one continuity'll be done for. And you'll be left with a Marvel/Star Trek multiverse as far as the books are concerned.

 

You some valid points there, but I'm think about in the terms of the way the wind blows, but I assure you no one can say what will really happen until the movie is done.

 

I'm down with the "Crisis" clean wipe because it's the easiest way to preserve the single continuity. Everything still "happened" and then it didn't. So that copy of Jedi Academy book 2 is still in canon for the original time. And they can go crazy and bring back dead characters ("Hey, look, Jacen's back and he's good now and he has to reset the universe!") and timejump and all those insane things that happen when a continuity is burned to the ground. And toss in a little tag like "somewhere, this original universe kept on rolling" or whatever. Then "Ultimate EU" re imagining of the big EU stories wherein we get Thrawn trilogy remade in, say, an animated movie but it has an ST-friendly outcome.

 

Once the first trailer comes out for episode VII, at the latest it will be possible to discern roughly when that movie is being set and if certain major events/characters are being overridden. At that point someone will ask major continuity questions at a Con and very possibly a real answer might be given, because the secrecy will have largely been dropped. Assuming a holiday 2015 release we should be seeing a trailer in about a year, possibly less.

 

"Your EU is dead, son. Accept it."

 

This thread feels familiar..........

 

Well, I've posted these questions several times over the past few months. It just seemed that no one wanted to discuss the points I made. I think Del Rey and Dark Horse are already telling us the answers...just not directly. Why do I think that?

1. Dark Horse - Brian Wood's on-going Star Wars comic. It was promoted as a story set between ANH and ESB that is not taking into consideration the existing EU.
2. Del Rey - Empire and Rebellion books. I recently read an interview with the author of the Luke centric book in which he said that none of the 3 authors of those books are familiar with anything EU...only the movies. The kicker is that he said that is what Del Rey/LucasBooks was looking for. Even those 3 books will not be in continuity with each other. The authors aren't talking to each other. They are just 3 stand alone books.
3. Ever since we've heard about the ST there has been no mention of the Sword of the Jedi book(s). And not only that, but there has been no mention of anything from DR/Lucasbooks post-RotJ.
4. You might say "well, Dark Horse has the new Legacy comics", but think about it...the only thing we know about Ania Solo is that she is related to Han Solo. That's it. And there's links to the first Legacy story, but even in that all we knew was that Cade is a relative of Luke. The only thing that the ST could do to completely contradict those comics is make it that Luke or Han have no children.
5. In a recent interview (I think it was either Rebel Force Radio or TheForceCast) with Shelley Shapiro, she said that they still have no idea what will be in the ST. I really couldn't believe that. Publishing needs at least a year to get authors set up to write the novelizations. And we all know that there will be a ton more books other than just a novelization. So, why wouldn't publishing know anything yet?

Someone above posted that if Disney nixes the EU that all SW fandom will never forgive them. While there are definitely a lot of people that buy and read the books and comics, I think that only a portion of those will really feel betrayed by Disney. I'll be unhappy myself, but realistically think that those numbers are small enough to be acceptable to a huge company like Disney. They probably believe that most people that will be seeing their new SW movies only know the 6 existing movies. A small percentage might also have watched the TCW cartoon, and then a smaller group actually read the books and/or comics. So, from a financial standpoint of Disney/LFL, just making their own ST story will probably be the way they'll go.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm a huge EU fan. I've read almost all of the comics and books. My favorite character is Corran Horn. I'd hate to see the EU be turned into just a set of alternate SW stories. Unfortunately, to me, it looks like that is the direction in which Disney/LFL/LucasBooks/Del Rey is going...doing away with one continuity and more just stand alone stories set in the SW universe.

 

Okay, there seems to be confusion with "fans" and "consumers". The majority of people buying the books and comics are not going to be worried about "forgiving" Disney or LFL, they're going to consider whether or not to spend their disposable income on a media tie-in. Star Wars has always occupied a unique position in that regards, and there is nothing that would say they would be any different than any other franchise's tie-ins in regards to sales if that uniqueness was taken away.
Starting from scratch isn't going to draw people in - the average movie-goer isn't much of a reader. The idea that the majority of SW readers are "fans" that will bitterly complain and then go out and purchase everything with a Star Wars logo on it is wishful thinking on the corporate side. There's plenty of other comics, books, TV shows, movies, video games etc. to spend money on besides Star Wars.

 

The OP is describing a thing that will never happen. Even the most EU-unfriendly version of DisneyLFL wouldn't go out of its way to say "hey guys--all those books we put out? Don't buy them anymore." To whatever extent they do ignore the EU, we'll only know from the picture of VII that emerges--or at the most, they'll give Pablo or Leland a heads-up and they'll start preparing people for it very cautiously.

 

The EU will exist. Just like the Marvel comics didn't vanish.

 

I'll be looking forward to the day when members will be posting--screaming?-- "Concession Accepted! Don't like it? Too Bad! It's Non-Canon! DEAL WITH IT!!!!!"

 

Mourn them do not. Miss them do not.

 

I honour what the EU fights for. I'll let it die.