ST Official Sequel Trilogy / Legends / Expanded Universe discussion thread

Something tells me that when LFL used the words "demand will keep them in print" with regards to Legends, they meant to imply that only Legends products which continue to sell really well will continue to be sold at all. And when the new movies, books, video games, etc. get off the ground, Legends will become less and less in line with the canon universe and sales will drop precipitously.

Basically, I think the whole "Legends" brand is just a ploy to placate EU fans for a few years until the majority of them have moved on and embraced the new timeline. By then, Legends will most likely all be defunct and no longer sold under any label.

It's difficult to underestimate the degree to which the new movies will propel the fan base in their direction. As well as the degree to which a lack of new material will render the Legends timeline obsolete.

 

^Fully agreed, I can see much of the EU going print on demand or just a few back copies in wearhouses within a decade.

My point was there was no need to call him grandmaster or assume after 30 years Leia couldn't be at his level. You put it as a given.

Yoda was also never refered to as grandmaster in the movies or TCW (to my recollection there anyways), he was always just the oldest and wisest so the others respected his words but Yoda never pulled rank like Luke did in the EU. Yoda was even kinda imprisioned by the rest of the council in the final arc of TCW.

So back to my point, maybe we should question if this term will carry over or not into VII since their is no reason of current canon material to suspect it will. I get that EU terms will be used, and fully support it, but since this thread deals with the EUs impact on VII I feel we're supposed to question those terms here, no need to be so hostile.

 

The prequels have already contradicted quite a bit of the Zahn Trilogy. He wrote about a bunch of things involving the Clone Wars which were thrown out the window, not to mention Yoda going to Dagobah in hot pursuit of some Sith Lord or something like that..... He sounds like he is quite a bit of denial. Probably just trying to keep his books on selling.

 

Lucasfilm/Disney's vision for that time period might be completely different. Lucas's own vision of the ancient Sith was always vastly different than the EU's, to the point that they were forced to retcon his ideas beyond recognition to make it work.

If they stick with Lucas's version, the Sith were just a couple thousand years old, the founder of the order (the EU's Darth Ruin) and Bane existed at the same time, and Bane took on a male apprentice instead of Zannah. If they stick with this going forward, KOTOR just wouldn't make any sense.

 

Unless they stuck every Sith in the 1000 year Sith War period.

 

What's to say that Darth Ruin and Darth Bane didn't exist at the same time. When Bane turned to the Dark Side and became a Sith Apprentice, the Sith were basically just really dark and warped version of the Jedi Order. It was Bane who reinstituted the Rule of Two after killing off all the other Sith Lords.

As for the Disney vision of the Star Wars continuity, the pre-Ep. I content all could have been retained, IMHO, because most of it was designed to set up the PT, and the Old Republic content is set so far in the past, that there's more than enough space for Disney/Lucasfilm to insert whatever additional content they want to cook up without affecting the pre-existing material. Same goes for the Han/Lando Adventures and the Han Solo Trilogy.

 

The Han Solo trilogy is tied into Han's origin fairly tightly and a possible Han Solo: Origins spin-off movie could invalidate a lot of that. On the flipside, the Han Solo Adventures by Brian Daley are self-contained Han Solo and Chewie romps during their smuggler years. Unless a Han Solo spin-off covers every single moment of his life right up to him telling Old Ben and Luke "I'm Han Solo, Captain of the Millennium Falcon" at the Cantina, the Solo Adventures trilogy could still fit. A.C. Crispin's Solo origin novels, not so much.

 

Not necessarily. If they want to explore the origins of the Sith, and we have reason to believe that is possible, then they might have to de-canonize The Old Republic.

 

Especially if they make Darth Ruin 2000 years or later before the movies be the first time the Jedi and Sith fought each other.

 

No they don't. What we thought Obi-wan meant when he talked about the Old Republic in Ep. IV and what he actually meant when we finally saw the Republic in its prime in Ep. I turned out to be two totally different things. Besides, the Republic is explicitly stated to be over 20,000 years old and has been reformed at least twice its history, and we actually only know a little of that history anyway, so there's plenty of room for new content without worrying about contradicting the EU content.

 

I agree with you. I can remember going to the Star Wars section in the late 90s/early 00s and it was all post-ROTJ books. If you go to bookstores nowadays, it's full of the most recent Star Wars books, as well as the "hits" of the older days (Heir to the Empire, for example). You don't see any of the X-Wing books anymore, or I, Jedi, etc. Eventually, these EU books (especially those who aren't labeled as legends) will become collector's items.

 

It really depends on what they have in mind. For example, if they decide that the Sith came into existence 1,500 years ago and were thought to be extinct 1,000 years ago, then that pretty much wipes out all the Old Republic Sith Lords we thought we knew.

Not anymore...... You must unlearn what you have learned, my friend.

 

I'm guessing he meant by Obi-Wan in ANH (over a thousand generations...).

 

I actually see I, Jedi every time I visit my bookstore... its stuff like New Rebellion or Crystal Star that I don't see. I typically see the first four X-wing novels too, not that later ones featuring Wraith Squadron save the resent one which is kinda a shame since they're funny as can be, I also often see the Hand of Thrawn, Shadows of the Empire. I usually see the first 3 New Jedi Order and Clone Trooper books too. Its rare when I see more than 3 prequal books excluding the movie novelizations or a book with Darth in the title.

The other series I always with many copies are the series I also often see on major paperback massmarket displays are Heir to the Empire, Jedi Academy, Darth Plagues, Darth Bane, Choices of One, Scoundrels, Kenobi, Revan, Legacy of the Force, and the Fate of the Jedi series. For the most part the bulk of it is just like it was in the late 90's/early 00's all post RotJ stuff with a few set before thrown in (some TOR, the Darth books, prequal novelizations). So yes, recent books are more popular but I do usually see quite a bit of early EU post RotJ greatest hits too at my book store. Mind you books sales are tracked by local market demands so that does explain why you and I see different books where we each live, that said I do see a trend that being the movie novelizations, Darth books, post RotJ greatest hits, and all the latest paperbacks (Solos like Revan and Choices of One, and the latest two series LotF and FotJ)

I also see a few guide books, the Jedi Order/Sith handbook, Darth Vader and Son + Vaders little Princess, and a few gag Star Wars books like Wookiee Cookies, lightsaber thumb wresteling, and Wookiee/Astrodroid translation soundbooks.

Comic Wise I always see Legacy, the Ominbus's, Dark Empire, Clone Wars, and the latest stuff.

Im in a book store at least once a week and I always out of curiousity see what Star Wars stuff they got. All I can speak to is my local market of course. All that said the Star Wars books in my lcal stores since the Disney takeover has shrunk from about a full book bay on average too two shelfs on average but I suspect that's more due to a lack of a new series following Fate of the Jedi and just a few new books beyond that actually making it to print... that should bounce back September when all the fans rush to by the Rebels new book and Christmas when the following one comes out that's part of the new Canon (curiosity will bring the fans back all hoping for hints for VII or at least Disney's direction for the franchise).

Its after the new Canon books have been out a while that I suspect the old EU books will start seeing declining demand. Followed by them disappearing from most locations, to becoming order online only (or ebook status), a while after the out of print save ebooks format.

 

Ohhhhhh..... I never took that statement literally.... after all, in E2 Palpatine says "I will not let this Republic that has stood for a thousand years be split in two." So his timeframe is entirely different from Obi-Wan's.

I always considered both statements simply to be euphemisms meaning "a very long time" and not meant to be taken literally, especially since they contradict each other.

 

I don't see it as a contradiction. I take it as meaning that the Republic has stood in a peaceful state for a thousand years, but that the Republic and the Jedi existed for a lot longer before that. There's also the lines about how "the Sith have been extinct for a millennium", "the oppression of the Sith will never return", "once more the Sith will rule the galaxy", and "at last we will have revenge", which lead me to believe that a thousand years prior the Sith had gained control of the galaxy but were defeated by the Jedi, and that the thousand years of peace which followed were what Palpatine was referring to.

 

I think that is a convoluted contortion at best.

Eh, it doesn't matter. The Old Republic from the books and games is now history, pun intended. We will just have to wait and see what Disney has planned.

 

No, no, no. KOTOR is just a game lost in the scramble for its own gratifaction. It can be retconed, or not sold anymore. But if it makes itself more than just a game, with fans devoted to its ideal, and if retconning doesn't stop those fans from loving it, then it becomes something else entirely.

A Legend, Mr. Beezer.

 

That's a very kind interpretation. More likely that it was a good old fashioned continuity error.

 

How is that convoluted? Seems pretty straightforward to me, and clearly inferred from several lines of dialogue carefully sprinkled throughout the saga.

I'm looking forward to seeing the new official take on this time period though, and I hope we get something of it in movie form. There's a lot of potential there, and I know a lot of people loved that era before, but the way it was handled never caught my interest.

 

There is absolutely nothing straightforward about your interpretation. You are imputing all sorts of history that is not even remotely implied in the films.

It just doesn't make any sense to go by what Obi-Wan says as being literal. He says the Jedi Knights were the Guardians of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy for roughly 20,000 years (assuming 1 generation = 20 years) before the Empire. We know that the Empire is the First Galactic Empire and Obi-Wan doesn't mention any breaks in that 20,000 year span. His statement can not be reconciled with the statement that the Sith formerly ruled the galaxy, unless we assume they ruled the galaxy greater than 20,000 years ago. But then Palpatine's statement of "1,000 years" throws all that into whack.

I prefer to employ Occam's Razor: the simplest answer is usually the right one, and in this case the simplest answer is clearly that their statements were not meant to be taken literally.

 

We don't know what the state of the galaxy was back then. Probably a lot smaller than it was now. Maybe they both had equal control of the galaxy? Republic still stood after all.

 

Strange, because from my perspective I'm employing Occam's Razor to come to the conclusion that I have. Various statements throughout the PT make it clear that the Sith were once in control of the galaxy and that they were thought to be wiped out a thousand years before. This also lines up with Palpatine's statement about the Republic standing for a thousand years. Since there is such a huge discrepancy between a thousand years and a thousand generations (which is actually more like 30,000 years than 20,000), the only logical conclusion I can use to interpret Obi-Wan's statement is that the Jedi had already served the Republic for tens of thousands of years before the Sith took over. Yes the Empire is the First Galactic Empire but we don't know what kind of government the Sith had in place before, or even the nature of their rule. It could have been that their rule wasn't through the actual functioning government of the time as it was with Palpatine. It could have been that there were just many Sith before the Rule of Two and that they held the Galaxy in fear for a period of time like a powerful terrorist organization. So the Republic could have still been the Republic all the way through that period, but the government was powerless to stop the Sith from terrorizing the galaxy until infighting dwindled their numbers enough for the Jedi to eradicate them (the only EU source I'm using for that bit of speculation is the TPM novel due to the fact that this part of history was laid down by Lucas himself). Perhaps that explanation seems convoluted to you, but for me it's simply the most logical conclusion I can draw.

Anyway, I don't believe in just writing things off as continuity errors (with the one exception of the Death Star plans in ANH. There's no getting around that one), so if I can find a logical interpretation based on the information presented in the movies, I'll go with that every time.

 

I haven't glanced at this thread for almost a week, and I don't feel like reading through the thirty-odd pages here since the old EU-is-now-'Legends' announcement. So I'll just go straight to my own thoughts.

I've spent some time thinking about the repercussions the announcement has made for the universe and the fanbase as a whole. I don't have to read through the last four days' of posts to know that the majority here believe that sweeping the old material, especially all the post-RotJ works, aside is for the betterment of the franchise given its current state, and I will say that I partly agree here. But those who know me will know that I am a very big fan of the EU, and love citing Wiki trivia to make my points in many of my posts on this forum. Alas, if so much of the material I like to cite is no longer relevant to the universe that we all know and love, what do I have left? Meh, I'll probably still keep talking about the old stuff regardless, especially the pre-RotJ EU and prequel/Old Republic EU that I am a very big fan of.

Anyways, sorry for the tangent, but ultimately, I want to say that I feel for those fans who have long held on to the belief that the Star Wars Expanded Universe was indeed, as marketed, a part of the larger universe created by the films. I'll fully admit that I may not ever have been such a hardcore Star Wars fan had it not been for the EU really drawing in my interest and taking a good chunk of my free time exploring, time that I don't regret spending, even in light of this announcement. Whether these stories actually happened or not ultimately doesn't matter too much so long as you enjoyed the stories. Stories that took place in a fictional universe. I admit, in the past I preferred to defend the idea that Star Wars could and maybe even should keep as much of the EU intact as possible as I felt that, with the exception of most of the post-RotJ stories, most stories could still fit seamlessly into the SW universe of the films and television shows, which are all that's left for certain as part of the new, single canon. Speaking of which, I am at least very happy to hear that TCW is considered on the same level of canon now as the films, which is neat. It shows that ideas expanded on and developed in that show could be fair game for the ST and/or future spin-off films.

The wise Master Yoda once said (in a PT-era comic, but related to his one line in AotC), "Remarkable, children are. View the universe with wonder, they do. They wonder what a thing is―and what it could be. To see as a child, you must." In this case, I have learned to cast aside my prejudices, my bias for the old EU, to look at this news through the eyes of a neophtye, and discovered that starting anew, beginning from a relatively clean slate, could be a good thing for the future of the Star Wars universe. Whether or not the EU was too bloated for its own good, the direction of the new stories promises to inject new life into the universe, and suddenly, suddenly we find ourselves at the cusp of something truly new; we're getting stories that are no longer beholden to those written before (outside of the films and TV series) and considering how the old EU had practically filled out all the major gaps of the movie universe, it's certainly a breath of fresh air to get something that would bring actual, honest suspense once more to the SW universe. In this case, with the exception of a TV show, a few novels and comics from the new EU, we hardcore and EU fans will practically be in the same boat as the rest of the casual moviegoing audience in that we don't really know what exactly to expect, provided we aren't fully spoiled, of course. It's definitely a cool feeling, to venture into the unknown once more. And I am certain the Story Group will do its best to ensure the new EU is as tight and cohesive as it ever was, probably moreso, and both draw from the vast well of the "Legends" stories while coming up with creative new ideas and stories for us to enjoy. I look forward now to this brave new world of Star Wars EU.

 

Circular Logic