Lit Should we just stop referring to it as the EU?

Since Disney is approaching all media (comics, TV shows, novels, games) as a single, uniform canon, should we even refer to new releases as Expanded Universe? Technically, it's all just Star Wars now.

At least we won't have to deal with "EU is not canon" or "Clone Wars is not canon" or "Only Force Unleashed and Shadows of the Empire are canon" posts anymore.

 

I'm with you as far as new material is concerned, but many people here are stubbornly persistent in their use of "NEU".

 

You're not naive enough to actually believe this?

Yes, we will. We still are, it's not going to magically stop because of an announcement.

 

I can see it's going to be a rough year for the die-hard old-school EU fans.

 

The way I see it, there's not really any reason to do so anymore. That we're used to thinking that way reveals the truth that some part of us always understood that the non-movie stuff never really counted in the same way the movies did. I'm still cynical enough to believe that a movie will inevitably mess up a book someday, but for the time being I'm content to take them at face value and assume it all counts equally rather than try to mentally compartmentalize everything based solely on format.

 

You clearly didn't spend a lot of time in the old EVII forums.

 

I've been using the abbreviation NU ... New Universe. It's more streamlined than NEU, parallel to the two-letter LU/Legends Universe, and it avoids the dreaded adjective "Expanded".

 

This. We needn't kid ourselves. There will still be the movies, and then everything else. I vote for calling everything else the "OJ." It stands for "Other junk."

 

A) we are.
B) allow me to direct your attention to every single time in the last three months someone has said "but they said it was canon last time!"

 

But it wasn't G-canon, it was C-canon and T-canon and S-canon and probably Q-canon for all I know.

 

I'm not blaming anyone, but I'm referring to people who talk about the new system as if the language LFL is using now is the same language they used last time and they somehow betrayed that by rebooting--it's fine to be disappointed, but not to pretend we'd been lied to for the last twenty years.

But now that you mention it, can I just blame you, like, personally? These conversations would go so much more smoothly that way.

 

LFL already made such declarations of canonization like we were given back in April, inherently meaningless when Darth Maul was revived in TCW, or arguable with the creation of TCW itself. It seems to me like we actually were lied to, at least by the LFL marketing machine, because Lucas was the only one who ever really said the EU wasn't the real story. I mean, it was always the prerogative of film and TV to ignore the EU as they saw fit, so why even bother formally declaring what is canon?

 

You have my support, as long as I get to call it "the juice".

 

.... Oh, you were serious?

 

All those years, I never used Expanded Universe as "Alternate Universe", or "Not Really Counting Universe". Just as Expanded. And that it did. So for me, it was more of a complimentary universe/bag-of-fiction. This time around, this bag-of-fiction is supposedly reigned in much more, because there's new borders this time around.

Last time Zahn wasn't allowed to delve into Clone Wars lore because there were possibly going to be movies about that at one point, but giving kids to the Solos and eventually to Luke was okay. As was killing off movie characters like Chewbacca. Then the rules changed and the future of the movie heroes (including potential children) was off-limits as well, so now they start over again. If, at this point, we only had EU sources up to ROTJ, or if the pre-OT EU had been more clearly seperated from the post-OT EU, they might have only declared one part non-canon, but it was too much hassle so they kind of started over from scratch.

So, it's a different thing - I wouldn't give the same name to it (therefore people come up with stuff like NEU). I agree that the complimentary nature is somewhat different this time around, since the movies and TV shows will do so much expanding of the universe that comic books and novels will not be so outrageous in their invention of new stuff. But it will still kind of expand the SW universe in secondary media, so I don't really see a change in "this time they swear it's canon". The canon aspect isn't determining whether it's expanding or not.

So, if anything, I think it needs a different name because it's a different thing. Kind of. Seeing how much might be salvaged after all (lots of concepts, less actual stories). "Other Junk" sounds quite catchy, I would have gone for "Novels, comic books and video games, you know, that kind of stuff".

 

True, because this time when G-Canon Canon ignores C-Canon Canon, Disney will have no excuse to fall back on other than admitting: "Er, yeah, so, about all those books being equal to the films...? You believed that? Hahahaha."

 

Well, they'll probably say nothing at all because the stuff sells either way, will they? "So, yeah, the move novelizations are canon, that should be clear. If they do not contradict what's on the screen. We're not actually saying it, but the meaning should be clear. Well, we do not actually mean it, but..."

 

I think it depends on how you interpret the term EU. If it means things that are of lesser canon than it makes sense to abandon it. If you interpret it as things outside of the movies -- regardless of canonical status -- that expands outside of what the majority of fans see, then keeping EU is logical. I have always preferred the latter, mainly because that's how I interpreted the label. The books and comics just happened to be at a lower canon level, which I never perceived as the reason behind the EU category. Thus I'll keep using EU; these books and comics still go beyond what the main Star Wars audience will see and thus the yexpand the universe. Now the EU just happens to be on the same level as the films and TV shows.

 

Are we beginning to question our entire existence? I feel like we are.