ST Official Sequel Trilogy / Legends / Expanded Universe discussion thread

As much crabbing goes on about the differences in the novelizations, the novelizations are pretty bang-on for about 80% of 'em anyway, what's the point of adding new ones? "The Dewback roared in the background as the stormtrooper said 'Look, sir! Droids!'" "Vader yelled 'Nooooooooo' as he threw Darth Sidious into the abyss."

 

Well it had annotations from Zahn and a new short story so not completely identical.

 

Ha! Fair point, though re-releasing an existing book with a few bits added means you don't need to sell a boatload of copies to justify the expense. Rewriting an existing book is a bit harder to justify. Now, tweaking the existing text to smooth-out continuity glitches is a different matter.

 

Yeah I'd be fine with that even. My ultimate dream would be for them to release all new versions of all six novelizations to tell a single story over all of them as if they were a proper book series of their own (to be continued/concluded with the ST of course), but I'm not holding my breath.

 

That statement is true for the prequels but the classic trilogy novelizations are extremely different from the movies. They really are a fascinating read.

 

Will they continue to press up the books as part of the "Legends" banner, and if so, will the authors still receive royalties? It just seems like a terrible waste of paper to print them all up again, I don't think many readers that haven't already discovered them will want to discover them now.

 

They're planning on reprinting Brian Daley's Han Solo trilogy with a new cover, a foreword by Pablo, and a "Legends" banner across the top, for example. But my guess is that only select titles will be reprinted with the "Legends" banner--everything else in the EU will fade into obscurity.

 

New trilogy will bring new interest. Kinda like how they can slap new covers on LoTR and The Hobbit and sell a bajillion more copies even though they have been out for near 100 years.

 

True, let's just hope there's some sort of disclaimer on the book stating that it's an alternate reality and not canon, I don't think a casual fan will be able to differentiate between the normal canon and what the "Legends" banner is, even with a LEGENDS logo across the front.

 

There have been. Junior ones, written by Ryder Windham and released part-way through the PT - in October 2004:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_IV:_A_New_Hope_(junior_novelization)
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_V:_The_Empire_Strikes_Back_(junior_novelization)
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_VI:_Return_of_the_Jedi_(junior_novelization)

 

Most casual fans (and plenty of hardcore fans) won't be buying any of the books in the first place.This is just me assuming here, but if canon and the Legends banner mean anything to you, you're probably a person the frequents the internet and keeps up with that kind of information.



Anyways, I don't understand why people are getting confused about what Disney considers to be in continuity and what they say is not. Starwars.com and that recent tweet literally spelled it out.

The six films
The Clone Wars (including the film and presumably that Darth Maul comic coming out this year, since it's essentially an episode in comic book form)
Rebels
The movie novelizations (except where they don't line up with the movies)
The upcoming books A New Dawn, Tarkin, Heir to the Jedi, Lords of the Sith, and any other future novels

 

And they're about to get even newer updates by some very good kid book authors.

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/book...-on-original-trilogy-in-new-kids-book-series/

 

And at the time the movies came out, there were "Illustated Storybook" versions of the movies - which included scenes that weren't in the movies but were in the novels. Like Luke hanging from the grating in the rancor's lair, in RoTJ.

EDIT: and by the immortal gods of the Sith, one mustn't forget the Marvel Comics versions of the movies!

 

Agreed. That's what I said the other day. There are going to be people for whom Ep. VII is their first Star Wars experience and they're not going understand that there's a difference between Legends and the EU and its going to be really confusing.

 

Simple solution, slap a sticker on the new stuff that comes out around VII release that teases tie in (like curious what Luke did before VII) and pay to have those books displayed all over the book stores (which is actually a way book stores make money).

They can further help by having the publisher reduce Legendary titles and increase the volume of new canon books like Tarkin which should be out in paper back by then. Plus I'm sure Marvel will have trades out by then of their new Star Wars comics and be advertising the heck out of the single issues on their apps too.

Legendary titles will exsist but I can see them being artifically dropped lower in search results online and with reduced copies in stores.

 

There's nothing to "understand". It's got a big Legends banner and if anyone cares enough to argue with themselves or anyone else what part of a fictional universe is more real than another, then I'm sure that's the sort of person who will hop onto Google and find out all the answers to those questions.

 

Marvel can take him back... then toss him with the Guardians of the Galaxy so him and Rocket [Raccoon] can have an ongoing joke of how both don't like to be called rodents.

Maybe even drive Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) nuts while they keep trying to blast her pet cat Chewie aboard her starship Harrison (all the Star Wars easter eggs and jokes in her comics are pure gold fyi).

 

It's not that people are confused: it's that they've chosen to dig their heels in and resist the irresistible and the obvious. They all have their pet book, their pet character, and rather than accept that all is impermanent, they've decided to go looking around for loopholes. Anything to save Thrawn, or Talon Karrde, or Waru, or Sora Bulq, that they can try to do, they'll do. They'd save themselves a hell of a lot of time and headaches by just ACCEPTING WHAT IS.

And what about Pfluegermeister? I'm not without my own favorite EU book or character. Hell, as I've said before, I'd have defended the Darth Plagueis novel to the death - IF I thought it could help. It won't, so I won't try. I'll wait to see if Disney/LFL can show me something BETTER. In other words, no matter HOW much I loved that book, and I truly did, I ACCEPTED WHAT IS. It's not canon anymore; it's just a legend. The difference is that I can live with that; a lot of other people seem not to be able to.

For a bunch of people who claim to like a franchise, they sure don't pay attention to what it's trying to tell them about life...

 

Yes, it's very easy to stop the sun from setting with something that's non-canon and therefore doesn't exist...

Yes, there's no Sun Crusher, no Natasi Daala, no Kyp Durron to make a complete moral hypocrite of Luke Skywalker, no special torpedoes to blow up suns. There's a very unique reaction when I finally realize that NOTHING WRITTEN BY KEVIN J. ANDERSON HAS SURVIVED. It looks like this:



Two can play the picture-show game, Hammer.

 

And good riddance to that absurd thing.

 

Does the ROTS novelization reference anything or anyone that/who occured or existed in the Old Republic era?

 

Goodnight, Hambly
Goodnight, Zahn
From all your books we now move on.
Goodnight, Denning
Goodnight, Karen
Goodnight, hack work everywhere-en...

 

You ,miss the point. It's not that entire existing Expanded Universe is gone, its that it was dropped in the most abrupt and disruptive manner possible. We knew when the acquisition of Lucasfilm by Disney and the production of a new trilogy was announced that at least some or possibly even most of the EU would get probably axed, but we also expect that at least some of it would be retained, probably not a lot but at least some, so that there would be something recognizable left over, and that hasn't happened. In fact not only has that not happened, but the Fox/Lucas era EU literally just stops, and to make matters worse in ends with a cliffhanger that involves Han Solo getting beaten to within an inch of his life. That's not how Star Wars is supposed to end under any circumstance. It's not that they've blown up the universe it's how they've done that has engendered a lot of hostility. Lucasfilm, Disney and Del Ray had eighteen months to come up with a way of wrapping up the loose plot threads. If they had done that and then rebooted the universe, I think we would be more OK with this.