Lit Why do people think Disney is going to stop making books/comics?

It is clear that the total number of adult novels in the traditional sense that are released per year has dropped, but that was the case even in the LOTF/FOTJ era which always baffled me as they were the primary medium at the time.

The reason this is cropping up is we have WAY less lead time on announcements now. Back when Sue Rostoni was on TOS forums/blog we'd find out hints about new novels up to a couple years in advance. We'd have general plot summaries up to a year before. Now, Disney keeps things under a much tighter wrap and we find out at best a few months in advance. So that can make it seem like even fewer things are in the works.

My bigger issue is that the novels are now quite restricted in the type of story they can tell, because every major story will now be told on television or movies. It really takes away from the "multimedia" universe aspect when only one medium tells all the truly impactful stories.

That said, Bloodline, Battlefront and Thrawn have all been excellent, so quality has been pretty good. (Aftermath series had a good premise as well but terrible writing)

Given the relatively reduced output, I don't understand why they couldn't release a "Legends" universe novel once every 6 months. More revenue for them and keeps us traditionalists happy.

 

Lol. Well, I hope you are happy with yourself. Look what you started. What have you done. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!

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I agree with everything you're saying. Really hit the nail on the head.

My days of getting excited over a new SW book seem to be more or less over. Or at least a lot rarer.

Made up for with new movies, of course, but that's an entirely different discussion.

 

For me? 12. One per month would be a nice distraction, I feel.

 

The books perform a supporting role now to the movies and television. They used to expand the story. What I like about the supporting role is that the information we get actually has meaning to the core story. I have a feeling this will continue like this for years to come. Disney is all about what we see on screen.

 

Exactly, and the problem that I have with this is that at some point the general audience will no longer be interested in seeing another movie because at their core they are casual fans, which means that if they keep going in this way, the movies will start to die down because not as many people will be interested in them. At some point, the future of the series will have to go back to books, comics, and video games, and maybe have the occasional TV show here and there.

 

This reminds me of all those comments predicting that the Marvel Cinematic Universe or the "super hero movie bubble" will burst "any day now". There's no sense worrying about some nebulous future were your favorite franchise might stop appearing on the big screen. Especially when in this day and age 1) reboots and sequels are so common 2) there's so much tie in media for big name franchises.

Also what you're describing pretty much already happened in 1983 and 2005, both periods when people thought the last Star Wars movie had been made. We survived some how.

 

I expect Star Wars and super hero flicks will be the big draw until something else comes along to grab our imagination.

 

You want to know what happens when they make movies strictly for a hardcore audience??? You end up with the Star Trek series prior to the reboot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_(film_series)

Box office results like that just aren't going to cut it given the amount of money they put into movies these days.

 

Y'all gonna laugh but I just checked and at least one Star Wars book on my shelves has been touching Dumas' Ten Years Later for a decade or so. Delurking to tell you're really good people to read on a gloomy autumn afternoon because cops are most certainly coming for me now and I might not get a chance.

Oh no, books noticed me noticing them and started making out in the open!

 

What I was mostly getting at is that they shouldn't save all the really cool stories for the movies, that they should have a series of novels that would rival that of the movies.

 

The novels are very good. I'm just not seeing that argument at all.

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A few things I wanted to add after reading this entire thread:

When reading the first page and a half, I assumed that we were talking about Del Rey / the Adult novels as they look the best next to each other on the shelf. That is why I prefer displaying my Del Rey books.

That being said, Lost Stars is my absolute favourite Star Wars novel. (Singular novel, Darth Bane is best series.) I love reading YA novels like YJO, and I even named my dog Ikrit after a character I had only known from the YA books about Anakin Solo. I mean, he did later appear in Vector Prime, but I did not know that at the time.

I am hoping for more Star Wars books a year though, and have no doubt that the novels will keep going. I would prefer more Del Rey books in general, I am satisfied with the YA I get, read, and they become some of my new favourites. But I would like more Del Rey as I am fine with the quota of YA that are coming out. (Except Lost Stars 2 needs to be confirmed, I would rather have this then a years worth of any other Star Wars books.)

Also in reguards to the person who said they read the ya books but does not think they feel mature enough (it may have been worked) I think they are very mature books, but just in different ways. Kids trying to become adults (Cienna, Thane, Ahsoka, ect) is just as thrilling to read about as the adults who go through their own struggles. I am 21 so I may be bias because I am younger, but that is how I see it.

Anyway, to close out my long response, the books will keep coming but I would still love to see more.

 

If any of those YA books had been released as "adult" books, no one would have known. The sole distinction is marketing.

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I'm in the group of people that consider the film novelizations less than ideal simply because I already know the story. I still read them, I just prefer new stories. I don't mind the current pace which feels like a novel every other month, but I think 7 books a year, where one is the film novelization for that year, would be my preference.

That's... not true. I like the YA stuff, don't get me wrong. But if you read all three of Claudia Gray's books, you can tell that they're targeted to different audiences. The prose changes, the exploration of subjects is different, and the storytelling angles are less varied in the YA literature. She herself has commented that there's a difference in the writing (I think maybe during an interview with Collider? not sure about the source). And this is what I see in the other YA novels: a simpler prose, a singular approach, a more linear story. Again, it's not bad and I buy it and I read it--but I don't agree that the only difference is marketing.

 

One of those three was an adult book. All books have differences of focus. But genre distinctions like that are completely arbitrary. Reminds me of people who advocate for what is "real" literature vs. pop trash.

Good story is the only distinction I care about.

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I clearly don't care either. I read all the YA books, all the Junior Reader books, and all the adult books. But YA isn't a genre, it's a target audience. I'm just saying that there is a difference in how it's written, and that even the authors realize this. It's hogwash to say the only difference is marketing when there are, in my opinion, obvious literary differences in approach. Also, I'm not sure what you meant by this, but I realize that Bloodlines is an adult novel and that Leia is YA. My point was that the author of both of those said that Leia is "full Young Adult" and that Lost Stars had "one foot in Young Adult" while Bloodlines was a regular adult novel. To me, this indicates a difference beyond marketing.

I don't much care about those differences. Just to be clear on that point. Star Wars is Star Wars and I love the world and I read the books and mostly I enjoy them, regardless of where in the bookstore they're found.

 

There are some books that are more simple. YJK and JJK for sure. But Bloodlines and Leia were as nuanced and complex as any Star Wars book. I'd say Leia is one of the better Star Wars books we've ever gotten.

So...I hear what your saying and agree to an extent. But that distinction can also be just...rubbish. Harry Potter and Hunger Games were excellent stories. Damn the marketing label.

I read a lot of pictures books with my kids as well. Some are just beautiful and brilliant.

Some adult Star Wars books are childish and rediclous.

But it really is just mostly marketing. Comic books come to mind as well as an example of this.

I'll extol the literary value of comic books to my last breath.




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Yuck, good luck turning the pages in future!

If they co-ordinate it right, this can work very well, two quick examples:

• Watch Rogue One on its own and Krennic's OK as a the disposable villain, as both Tarkin and Vader have Plot Armour. But watch it having read Catalyst and certain scenes play very differently.
• I recently watched Rebels S3 having read Thrawn a few months back - it worked very effectively. The series would work fine without the book, but the book elevates it that little bit more.

I've promised Sinny a dedicated thread for how I get on when I watch the ST in a blitz in about 3 years time because it'll be a much bigger, more complex version of these two illustrations.

There are exceptions to the rule - Twilight Company comes to mind, but probably not many.

 

God, stop reminding me that Twilight Company is so under utilized.

 

The first few canon books that were released feel more like EU books than canon. I'm referring to Lords of the Sith, Tarkin, and Heir to the Jedi. I'm convinced those books were already in the works before Disney took over. Even Dark Disciple came in as an after thought. But everything else definitely supports the flicks and the toons.

 

Well, we know Heir was.

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Only Heir was in progress (and not too far). The others were not. (This is a fact)

 

Why do people keep saying this? It's absolute garbage. The YA books are very, very YA.

Even though most SW literature (even the "adult" novels) are pretty much YA, the marketed YA novels are noticeably more "childish". Just purely talking about the writing.

Then it seems you're commenting on the wrong thing. The subjective quality of the story is not a factor in determining whether or not something is YA.

 

Yes, it seems clear that you are actually talking about something completely different from those people you are discussing it with. You're focusing entirely on an inference you've made that people are saying "YA = bad literature", when it doesn't seem as though anyone was saying anything of the sort.

You're clearly wrong if you are claiming that the only difference between YA and Adult-oriented novels is marketing. But if the point you were making was that a YA novel can be just as good or better (and often are better) than Adult novels, then yes I'd say you are just as clearly right. And I don't think anyone was disagreeing or would disagree with you.