ST Official Sequel Trilogy / Legends / Expanded Universe discussion thread

When were they told that? Lucas was pretty clear about the fact that he didn't consider any of the EU to be a part of his movie universe. Primarily, but not entirely, for that reason neither did I. And this is a different situation because the story group has a hand in keeping everything consistent and intertwined, and this is the first time that the EU has been called "official canon on the level of the movies." Plus there's the simple fact that I just found the EU pretty much impenetrable before... not only was the sheer volume of it daunting, but so much of what I knew about the stories contained within just struck me as false and not at all how I wanted to imagine the universe beyond the films. Will it get that way again? Perhaps, but at least there will be more of an effort made to keep that from happening now. And if it all gets rebooted again somewhere down the line, well that doesn't really bother me either. It just means another opportunity to start fresh if I still care enough to when that time comes. The EU was just too bloated for my taste before, and if it gets that way again then maybe another clearing fire will be in order then as well.

But all in all I think you're making a mistake in undervaluing the job of the Story Group here. This is a coordinated effort to specifically prevent the type of situation you're referring to. JJ can't just do anything he wants, and the Story Group will be there to prevent him from contradicting established continuity. It just means that the books and TV shows will be treated with the exact same deference as the movies themselves when it comes to keeping the continuity straight. It's a big job, but that's why they had to put together a whole group to pull it off.

 

Exactly. Thankfully the Lucasfilm story group, after exhaustive research, decided everything old was not canon. But the new stuff is. Disney lucked into that one. They might just end up making their money back.

 

Anticipated this. Was hoping for it, in fact. Best possible news.

 

See, I had a feeling that the "jumping on point" was a big part of your interest, and I totally respect that! And you've got the right attitude about the likelihood of it being overwritten in the future.

Yes, George was rather clear about his feelings, but there was plenty of LFL language to give EU fans enough belief that there was consistency (the different levels of canon, etc.). It was the kind of false hope stuff that led to this thread being almost 420 pages!

I disagree with you about the story group's likelihood of future success. I don't think it's even possible for this stuff to be completely "canon on the level of the movies" when movies are in production for the foreseeable future. The fact is that, no matter how much Disney and all TPTB plan it, there are going to be things that show up in the movies that weren't planned years ahead of time. There's going to be that cool little idea that JJ doesn't think up until a random September morning in 2017. Just like the weird Luke and Leia semi-romance in SOTME was written by an Alan Dean Foster who had no idea where George's storytelling whimsy would take those characters in ROTJ. No, that doesn't mean that it's going to be some huge disaster. But there's going to be someone getting their panties in a bunch about some future movie storyline retconning some minutiae from a future Del Rey, Marvel or EA product. And they're going to make a lot of movies, probably for a very long time. It's going to happen, and I think we shouldn't get uptight about it, or get hung up on illusory concepts of canon.

 

I'm honestly fine with this. I'll admit i haven't been keeping up with the EU. I barely know anything about it at all.
To me the movies were always the only official part of the saga and everything else is just side stories. I don't think George ever considered anything beyond the movies Canon. At least not to my knowledge. I just hope the new movies don't turn into something that is ragged on and hated even more than the prequels.
I personally love them all for different reasons and as much as i adore the original trilogy they aren't completely flawless either.

 

Is wookieepedia going to have 2 time lines ? they have 1000's of years of time line good luck with that .....

 

Sorry dude. I did read some and it was crap.
Well done disney!

 

I only hope they somehow manage to avoid the "new crisis every week approach". It really got too bloated at one point. It's a huge galaxy, branch out into different time periods.

 

I think I'll also fix up my own contribution to that little exchange....

 

It's not so hard. Relabel every old article "legends". For the new canon for all movie characters copy paste what happened in the movies and cut the rest. Same with TCW stuff.

I mean sure it's work, but we're talking about wook-fanatics here. Can't take them longer than a couple weeks.

 

I think this news of PT,OT,TCW are canon going foward is not new news at all. The mention also of VII-IX going foward will not retale the EU going foward makes sense because VII is past all that and will be a all new story no matter. I think just like TCW and I"m sure Rebels that anything created names places things in EU will be used to help the continuation make sense. So intill we get a plot for VII no body can say I told you so because what ever JJ desides to come up with for the big three 30 years later gap may be worse than EU.

 

I think my main gripe is that Lucas DICTATED that some stuff not be done (don't kill off Quinlan Vos, we want to use him in TCW), and other stuff was plumbed straight out of the EU, Dathomir and the Nightsisters, Coruscant...ect. So it's almost like he was using the folks who put blood, sweat, and tears into wirting for all those years as some kind of fertile story idea ground. Which now feels brutal.

Now, I'm not one to defend the entire EU. It has/had a LOT of chaff. But there are things about it that are perfectly ported into the new movie line: Thrawn, Jaina (pre LEGACY), Mara Jade (obviously) and their back stories don't really have to change to fit into a REVISED timeline.

My hope is that the story group is reverent enough of the material in the EU (they seem to be...?) that they don't throw out everything.

Now, I'm also not someone who feels like I wasted my time and money...canon is a tenuous and silly thing anyways, seriously have a gander at DOCTOR WHO fandom when something from the Big Finish Audio play line-up gets canonized on the show (this happened when Paul McGann reprised his role as the Eighth doctor in a short that preceeded the 50th Anniversary ep, during which he mentioned and canonized all his Audio Play companions) fans of McGann and Big Finish went absolutely insane with excitement, but an even larger quotient of Classic DW fans REFUSED (and still refuse) to belioeve that those people are now canon...like to a RELIGIOUS degree....I DO however, feel that soemthing I thought had a decent continuation is now considered an elseworlds tale...that kind of rankles...BUT....I hated the Yuzaan Vong, so at least good riddance to them?

I'm torn. This does feel a bit like them twisting a knife in the back while they attempt to eulogize the old EU. But we'd all be kidding ourselves if this doesn't create an Old Testament / New Testament schism in SW fandom. It will. End of.

 

That's because you bought into the ridiculous notion of "canon". There is no such thing as "canon"; in this context it's just a concept created by corporations to help sell a false legitimacy that helps push merchandise. It's easier to push more copies of Shadows of the Empire if you tell people "oh, this piece of fiction is what REALLY happened between these other two beloved pieces of fiction". It's a marketing ploy, nothing more.

All of those video games, comics, TV shows, and books are still out there. Their content hasn't changed one iota just because decades later a corporation decided to call them "legend" instead of "canon".

You are as free to include the happenings from that EU material into your own personal Star Wars fan experience as those who never did, even when they were apart of the "canon". You are free to do whatever you want. Hell I met a fan online years ago who discounted TESB and ROTJ, choosing to look at the original Star Wars as a totally stand alone experience (they might have posted here actually). It's all about what you choose to include in YOUR experience, if you just stop drinking the corporate kool aid and learn to separate the art from the business.

 

The overwhelming majority of people who have, at one time or another, financially supported the Star Wars franchise are like you. In the scheme of things very few people even know about "canon", much less care.

The average person who is into Star Wars, casual or even diehard, aren't thinking "OMG how can they bring back Chewbacca???! He's DEAD!?!". They don't even know.

 

I would've agreed with you...until now. We're about to get a new trilogy set after RotJ. There are countless EU stories that have been written about this period. Since the ST & the EU are going to contradict each other, what is canon & what isn't canon is important.

 

We all know that the films come first. But I feel like we were happy without having to really face up to that fact. It's brutal to see decades of work from dozens of talented authors, designers and illustrators - all of whom believed they were contributing to a single grand mythology - being swept aside.

We knew, deep down, that all this was just merchandise. But we pretended that it wasn't, that it belonged to some bigger thing. But it turns out it is just merchandise, and they'll keep rebranding it and selling it to us for as long as we'll pay them for it.

It's a shame that the films enjoy such untouchable primacy within the canon, because exactly half of them are garbage.

 

And the difference between you and others is that they want what they are reading to be the REAL in between story...because if it's not, then why bother. It's like having a one-off episode of....let's say SUPERNATURAL....during a whole season of conneted plots they do a whole episode that doesn't exist in the same continuity and doesn't concern what's going on in the rest of the season, it's just totally off-base....aside from the novelty of watching those characters do things you know they aren't really doing...why bother? It's not a part of the story you're being told. that's kind of what canon is.

And dude, calling out others for "buying into canon" is dickish. they are entitled to want the story they are told to be part of the one story they were originally told, filling in the gaps. that's allowed. And up till now a lot of those people believed this to be what was happening. Pulling that rug out from underneath them is going to smart, and you don't have to be a jerk to them about it. k?

 

Subjective opinion on the films.

The EU hasn't been swept aside. Classifying them as non canon doesn't change the quality of them so therefore shouldn't detract from people's enjoyment of them.

 

No video game is ever going to be hindered by a "canon" talk.

If the makers and Disney decide that creating a new game with unreal force powers will push units, they'll create a new came with unreal force power. Then if a couple Star Wars diehards start whining about canon, they'll drop some well worded release filled with canonical mumbo jumbo to quell the "outrage". They'll never come out and say "we put in these unreal force powers because we just want to sell more games!".

 

LUCASFILM is patetic and now alot of fans hate them.All i know is they will not get any more money from me when it comes to books etc.
See all the hate they are getting on the facebook page.Arrogant bastards think they can wipe it all.

 

Hehe. While it may mean something different to everyone, the only opinion that matters is Disney's since they're the content creators.

 

Werp, derp, try again. You don't know me to tell me what the "difference" between me and somebody else is.

I came into my fandom in the 90s as a kid. Fell in love with the Thrawn Trilogy, the first piece of EU I'd ever even heard of for ANY franchise. I loved the Thrawn Trilogy so much that I considered it, like quite a few fans, the official VII-IX.

But life happens. Corporations change their minds. We're getting filmed versions of those episodes, and they won't be beholden to the awesome Thrawn trilogy. But I slip my big boy pants on and realize that nothing has been taken away. I still have my memories of those great books and they're still available if I want to relive the magic.

Because, at the end of the day, none of this is REAL. It's like two kids arguing over whose invisible friend is more "real".

 

I'm sorry, but what? Lucas, he who essentially created the modern model of movie merchandise (holy alliteration!)? He who re-released the OT a gazillion different times in a manner closely echoing the Disney Vault nonsense? He wasn't in it for the money?

Let's not get carried away here.