ST Official Sequel Trilogy / Legends / Expanded Universe discussion thread

Disney just spent 4 billion dollars acquiring all this stuff... Not just the movies... They bought everything. From the Courtship of Princess Leia to Super Bombad Racing. Look in your books... Del Rey doesnt own them, Ballantyne doesn't own them.... They are "liscensed under agreement". Now Disney owns them. They could republish new editions of all the old books if they so wished with new distributers if they so chose... But likely they will just let them go out of print... But its not like there was a previous plan to reprint the Truce at Bakura.

Disney now makes the lions share of the profits from every bit of EU sold. They are a company with great respect for there own history, and they aren't going to slash and burn their new golden goose or try to rebuild it from the ground up. The post ROTJ stuff will be changed in service to the new films, perhaps very little, likely a lot. But it is not because Disney is trying to streamline the EU into a more coherent official story. Likely with their penchent for marketing everything, the EU is likely to get bigger, weirder, and more encompassing.

Likely, the stuff that has to be changed will be recollected and remarketed as "EU Classic"... It will be a decade or so though. Disney plans to sell us Star Wars for the next hundred years at least... You will get to buy whatever style you fancy...

Also, Dark Horse published a ton of Marvels storylines..... Marvel will return the favor. There is money to be made, and the demand will be there.

 

The same people who will be working on episode nine,will be in contact, with the people who wrote the comic, otherwise, why have a story group?
The Story Group was appointed by Kathleen Kennedy, the head of LFL, she's the boss, the writer will have to follow the same guidelines as anybody else, also the treatments tor eight, and nine are done, as are the main scripts, all they need, is to be turned into shooting scripts. The Story Group already knows what happens in those movies, and they won't approve anything that conflicts. They couldn't do their job, if they didn't already know what was happening.

 

Also, I'm sure the story group are mindful of where to limit the EU so as to avoid contradictions down the line.

 

I'm not so sure about that. The book publishing rights are probably similar to the movies rights in the sense that 20th Century Fox owns distribution rights for the movies for another 6 years (and E4 permanently). The books probably have a similar deal in that they can't just reprint a Del Ray book without paying Del Ray licensing.

Disney is not an all powerful deity. They still have to honor any agreement LFL made beforehand, much like they have to honor agreements Marvel made (which is why you won't see Marvel rides in DisneyWorld anytime soon). I doubt Del Ray made a deal with LFL that allowed LFL to just reprint the books anytime they wanted to under a different publisher. LIke I said above, there might be an expiration date somewhere way in the future (but maybe not).

 

The Dark Knight Returns was never canon in the first place...

 

Hmmm I could have sworn it was for a few years. But the point is still the same. Just because it's not canon, means nothing. It does not take away from a great story.

 

You kinda hit it on the head. I mentioned this before, after the merger.

Actually Bob Iger said it! I'm paraphrasing, but he said in one of his first interviews "Disney has acquired a brand that has thousands of characters, places and storylines". I don't see why they would "dismiss" everything outside of the OT. Well with the exception of giving new directors and writers the freedom "to make whatever". But that goes back to "rebooting". That is the "Star Trek" cop-out.

I personally think PT, OT and TCW cannon will all be kept. I can't imagine them "rewriting" Anakins history just to allow some "Film Festival Director" to write his vision of Anakin's past.

Now video games, books and comics may have a different fate. I actually don't want to see them go. No lie, almost EVERY night since 2008 I've read Star Wars books before bed. I really don't want to keep them separate. Even though the six films are considered cannon, the HOURS of TCW and pages and pages of EU kept Star Wars alive.

I really hope this whole "Disney Story Group" is only discussing this because of Rebels conflicting with Force Unleashed etc. Actually if they didn't give a damn about canon, they wouldn't "form a group", they would just steamroll over it.

There are only TWO types of EU fans: those who love it and those who have never read it....

 

Even if they decided to steamroll over it, their primary goal would still be to keep everything consistent moving forward.

I've read about 20 or so EU books (and a number of comics), which I know is relatively few, but it's still enough to know that I'm not missing anything I'd care about by not having read more.

 

It depends on what EU stuff we're talking about. For instance, anything to do with Thrawn is awesome, and I enjoy some of the pre-Phantom Menace stuff as well. But other material isn't very good in my opinion. It's a mixed bag, which is to be expected.

 

Exactly my position. I've dipped into the novels and read quite a few of the comics, and I really have no attachment to them at all.

ETA: What I've read of Kenobi was very good, FWIW. That still doesn't make me a fan of the EU overall.

 

Interestingly, the only EU I've liked is the stuff that complimented the movies in the Prequel era. I still haven't finished the Thrawn trilogy because I hated it so much, everything I've heard about the NJO and beyond sounds terrible to me, and I have zero interest in the Old Republic unless we get some movies in that era that aren't beholden to the current stories.

 

Big fan of the EU here, read/played pretty much all of it save a few Clone Wars stories that I never got around too due to being scared the later prequals would just override them then forgot to read them, lol (and error I've mostly fixed now). Its a mixed bag, some horrible & deserving of death/retconning while some of the EU had vast potential that it mostly lived up to it though was never quite perfect. I'd be fine with all of it being retconned... just as long as they adapt in the best characters, concepts, organizations, starships, etc... into what survives the cuts.

Simply put by whipping it clean they free themselves up to retelling many (if they so choose) those stories more in line with all the canon and free up tons time line for new stories that replace the bad EU stories.

If you seen the Clone Wars you should know what I'm talking about, so many things and characters where borrowed from the EU but adapted into the Clone Wars in new and exsiting ways... that is how Disney should treat the EU (especially the post RotJ EU). Id be happy if more EU survived sure, but I don't wanna hold my breath it will either. After all so much of the early EU just got the Clone Wars and Republic era stuff wrong... the Story Group should at least take this opportunity to fix it to all working together in a streamlined fashion, why waste such a perfect time to do so?

 

Kenobi was such an awesome book. That is one story that I am sad to see not be canon. That is one that I would cherry pick to be canon.

 

Like everything spoken on the net, Some will love it, others will hate it. I grew up watching star wars but i wouldn't of considered myself a huge fan or anything until i got into the EU Novels/Games. Now i have a book shelf loaded with em and would be sad to see it just wiped out, Which i don't think they will do anyways.
I would say the Clone war era books are usually my least favorite for whatever reason.

 

I expect that this is exactly what will happen.

And yeah a lot of the early prequel era EU, even that I've read, ended up being way off base. I won't forget, for instance, the Star Wars comic where it was revealed that Ki-Adi-Mundi wasn't actually a Jedi Master. I believe I've heard that he was said to have a wife at one point too? Avoiding these kinds of discrepancies is exactly what the Story Group is for, and if we're lucky, they might even offer an unprecedented level of quality control as well.

But even when I've enjoyed the EU, I've never considered it part of the same universe as the movies. It really isn't difficult to separate the universes in my mind, so I don't get why it would be so hard for those who are really invested in it to do the same. After all, Lucas has always said as much anyway. Now I'm really looking forward to being able to place everything I see or read on the same level of canon without being burdened by all those other stories that never really existed for me in the first place.

 

If there is going to be a reboot, I suspect it'll be one that isn't officially spoken of aloud. Fans will get the idea soon enough, but things like Kenobi, which are being released during a period of transition, may fall on both sides of the reboot line.

Given that Sword of the Jedi may get axed, my guess is that most things reaching publication from now on will be part of the new canon.

 

Dude there are things in the old republic that is awesome way more awesome then anything in movie ara. Also Malgus and Revan wants a word with you.

 

Oh the discrepancies are endless... btw Ki-Adi-Mundi had a kid too.

But I got into the EU VERY VERY young... my dad read Heir to the Empire to me as a bed time story when it first came out, I was about 7 at the time. So my moment of truly realizing the EU was seperate wasn't to years later and was a bit heartbreaking. Even still, there was early EU stories I just hated and choose to ignore way back then. I admit I too am greatly looking forward to knowing everything upcoming is all top level cannon and tied in to one another, to me it implies far greater quality control and a wider universe with many more characters which was always arguably the two greatest weaknesses of the EU up tillnow.

Spoiler: raging about TOR... but cut to the chase...its far too long and all over the place to adapt into any other formate Story Group... so RETCON it with PLASMA, plus its writing was the worst of the franchise, ok on the macro, bad on the micro vs KotOR 1 & 2

Malgus was best in the Trailers, he's only small fry in the actual game... Revan when he was still a mystery (honestly though I prefered the intro of KotOR as Revan as female though but ending was clearly more thought as as male though), since I have nothing kind to say about his appearance in TOR I'll leave it at WASTED OPPORTUNITY (not to mention the butchering of the Exile that they did ... and yes, I'm still 'raw' about it... far more than I ever was about the prequals... which says a lot)

And the 300 year time gap...

KotOR II (unfinished as it was the writing was the most intelligent ever in all the EU to date, and most interactive companions in the franchise) > KotOR I (most mass appealing game) >>> TOR (8 mini kotors with far less companion interaction (a big negative) and only really 2-3 ok main characters vs Revan and Exile, the weakest writing levels of the series overall, only able to compinsate though 200+ hours of game play vs 60-80 of KotOR I & II (which makes TOR really only -3 long and not the 8 promised).

 

Killing off Chewbacca in the EU was the single biggest mistake in the history of Star Wars even bigger than Jar Jar Binks cause if they hadn't killed him off then it would be a lot easier to not get rid of to much of the EU....they could have gone in at 50 ABY & kept most of the characters intact.......

 

How do we go from "new group to decide what is canon" to "Star Wars being rebooted"? I know it's not acceptable to call other fans fandom into question, but I really can't see a diehard fan agreeing with or accepting a reboot. I mean what are we, Trek fans?!?!

Even though I'm a oldie who's seen the OT in the theater, I'm relatively a noob when it comes to EU. In 2008 when I realized that ROTS really might be it, I started reading EU. However I purposely stayed away from post ROTJ EU because I always had the suspicion that there may be more movies.

As far as pre ROTJ EU, there are two types: those that deal with primary characters and those which don't. The ones that don't deal with primary characters shouldn't be at risk.

Will we lose the history of Han Solo? What Fett used to do after seeing his father killed? Hell I literally have "Razors Edge" next to me, is that a waste? Only time will tell. I think it would be awesome to get some EU on to the big screen. Lucas used to do it, maybe Disney will.

 

"New group to decide what's canon" is a bad interpretation of a tweet from Leland Chee. Nothing he or Pablo Hidalgo has said as yet has given any indication that anything currently in existence other than the movies and TCW would be a part of the new canon. In regards to anything else, they've consistently declined to comment, although all the hints they've given point to a total reboot.

 

What? If it's true that they are using Lucas' "Treatments", I doubt they would be a total reboot. Unless you mean anything outside of the OT, PT & TCW will be "rebooted". I prefer to say steamrolled, not reboot. Reboot implies Luke will be a girl, Han is robot and Chewie is a bird now.

But back to my personal feelings on EU: I had a debate with a PT hater a year ago, and he actually ended up agreeing with me. Not that I had changed his opinion on the PT(he still hated it), but that I mathematical y enjoyed "more hours of Star Wars" than he did. He only liked a little over 6 hours of Star Wars, and I liked about 13 hours. Actually I liked TCW, which brings my Star Wars enjoyment to about 50 hours!! Now if I calculate each Star Wars EU novel to a 2 hour film (thats 40x2) that brings my total Star Wars enjoyment to130 hours, compared that of a OT fan that only has 6.

My point to all that is some people are more "invested" in Star Wars than others. I don't really like the idea of 100s of hours of Star Wars entertainment obliterated in to nonexistence.

 

Oh no. I said "other than the movies and TCW". They're all perfectly safe. I say "reboot" for the rest of the EU simply because they will likely be starting it over from scratch, but you can use "steamroll" if you prefer.

 

130 hours is equal to 6.5 Star Trek seasons (~26 episodes)... its actually not as much as you'd think especially if Disney follows of having 4 netflix shows at once of Marvel with Star Wars

 

I would like after reading " The Fate of The Jedi" and currently reading "Crucible" that they use the Alter of Mortis, Abeloth and the sith planet in the next trilogies. This would help tie in with PT,CW, ST and EU.