Books Canon "Complete Locations"

But, I mean, Starkiller Base was destroyed. It's no longer an ongoing plot element. It'd be filling in the gaps more than a "twist".

 

Vader and Palpatine (and Han?) are examples of characters who died while still having significantly interesting stories and surprises to come.

 

My only guess would be that, whereas back in the old days people wouldn't confirm something because they assumed Lucas might do something with it eventually or Lucas flat-out told them to hold off, now they won't out of concern that someone else (Rian Johnson, Colin Trevorrow, etc) down the line might have something planned. They might have jotted down a lot of potential ideas for later stories (movies, games, books, comics, etc) and just the ideas alone, even if they never use them, are surrounded by red tape.

 

Or the difference from the Lucas era is they know exactly what's being planned. If Ilum was hollowed out to mine crystals for the Death Star, and we have a movie all about the Death Star coming in less than three months, it's completely possible that that will be giving us these answers--in a place where, unlike a reference book, even casual fans would see it.

Anyway, I just got back from a scan of my own at B&N and Starkiller has a visible "crystal substructure" within the planet--the thing is positively rife with kyber. That's not absolute proof of anything but it's enough for me. If anything I kind of like the idea that they'd put these details out there for hardcores to piece together but not spell out every little detail, whether it plays into a future story or not. Like Jello said, it's more fun than just checking a box under "confirmed".

Meanwhile, another very important detail I noticed--the giant statue of Maz on her castle was not something she had made herself, but was...wait for it...a gift from an ex-husband.

 

This. EXACTLY this.

 

A good reference book is a form of storytelling. (See: Essential Atlas).

Having a reference book that does nothing except regurgitate what's already known is no different from buying a book of movie stills and captions. It's fine for coffee tables and hardcore collectors, but as far as a 'book' goes, it's rather pointless.

 

The book does have the occasional error - in this case, a new error that wasn't in Inside The Worlds of Episode I.


Specifically, the number of moons Naboo has, is given as 1, when AOTC: "disgruntled spice miners on one of the moons of Naboo" : made it clear that there were multiple moons.

 

Nice catch.

 

I like that the data for planets from The Essential Atlas was reused. Sizes, lengths of years, numbers of moons, etc. Tatooine correctly has 3 moons and not 2 as in Inside The Worlds.

 

I don't know what copy of Inside the Worlds you have, but my example - the version from 2004 - has Tatooine with three moons (as does Complete Locations from 2005).

And even if not, The Essential Atlas as a later source wouldn't take precedence over ItW according to the old canon-hierarchy.

 

It was the October 2000 issue that erroneously had Tatooine with 2:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Inside_the_Worlds_of_Star_Wars:_Episode_I

It would therefore appear that that was the only one with that error.

Actually, later sources always took precedence over earlier ones - since they could include data that had been introduced in stories sat between the earlier-published reference work, and the later-published reference work.

 

It wasn't an error in 2000. Three moons showed up in AOTC, in 2002.

One was natural, the others were captured asteroids.

 

Captured asteroids still count if they're large enough - hence every astronomy book I know of mentions Mars's two moons.

 

Yeah, but my point was they were not "natural" any more than the ISS is one of Earth's moons.

 

I won't renouce either Rori or Ohma-Dun.

 

It is about size, not about if it is natural or not.

 

twss

 

twss = that's what she said?

 

Not true, 1) because ITW is more movie-related than the EA and 2) "data introduced in stories between the earlier-published reference work and the later published reference-work" just shows, that the author writing the in-between story couldn't be bothered to do his research and that the editor was sleeping. Who is the one, who made a mistake here? The original author or the one, whose work overwrote the first author's content? And what will you do, if a third author reverts things to what they were with author 1? By your logic author 2's work has to also be overwritten.

 

Or it would have forced the authors to come up with new places and new people in new eras and not Tatooine for the umpteenth time. The GFFA certainly is large and old enough for that.

 

It's still a form of storytelling, and all the guides - more or less - have had some new information.
And there was no indication in 2009 that 'most of the storytelling was done'. It didn't limit any of the books that came after it, other than the sense of having a consistent background to the universe.

What, like WEG's Thrawn sourcebooks? 'Sourcebooks' rarely tell stories that interfere with the novels and comics - they complement them if there's an actual interaction between the various forms of media, and in some cases, inspire storytelling (i.e. Stover's "Mindor").

Ultimately it may just boil down to aesthetics, but I don't see the point in spending money on books that provide nothing new to the universe. I'm not specifically referring to Complete Locations - for someone new to Star Wars, or interested in the changes from the Legends version, it sounds like a decent buy.

 

And I stated that I wasn't referring specifically Complete Locations.
The problem is this - you seem to be automatically assuming that anything not mentioned is going to explained later... or you're saying that even the possibility that might appear in a story - the 'storytelling possibilities' you referred to - should be off limits. And in the latter case, it's very much a complaint that I've seen come up before with the NEU. If it's the former, I guess we'll see.

"Everything" is a broad statement. There is always room for new stories - Wedge's Gamble didn't prevent Force Commander or Galactic Battlegrounds from telling their own stories. And the time-honored tradition of 'retcons' still holds true.

Look, Jello, if you're just talking very specifically about Starkiller Base, or even just the CL book itself, I've got no horse in that race. I'm talking about the generalized statement about avoiding making any sort of commitments in reference material to allow 'total freedom' for storytelling, which in my mind leads to reference material that isn't worth getting. Complete Locations is a different animal altogether - it's a recycled Legends book with the same artwork. It's not an actual NEU reference that completely new.

Because I'm looking forward to Rogue One, I'll give them a chance with the (presumable) releases of related source material. But I'm not interested in reference books that don't actually have anything new to say about the universe.