Saga EU Changes that Contradict the Movies

I had a thread a while ago about how the expanded universe (both Disney and pre-Disney) would never completely line up with the movie canon. It seems like they're making a better effort to coordinate the movies and other media in the Disney age, but Lucas' saga was always up to interpretation by different writers, and often got contradicted as a result. Obviously none of these changes are that detrimental to the movies, but they're still dumb oversights that never should have existed in the first place.

• The Second Wedge - A dumb Disney-era change here, most fans know the story of how the actor who portrayed Wedge was replaced during filming of the first Star Wars. Treating the audience like idiots, the Wedge in the briefing scene was retconned to be a different character than the Wedge in the cockpit... despite both having the same voice actor and being positively identified as the same character (source).
• Lott Dod - This is a pre-Disney retcon that is still canon; the senator of the Trade Federation Lott Dod was established in the Phantom Menace, and later made a brief appearance in Attack of the Clones as one of the senators pledging their allegiance to the Separatists. The character was re-established as a new character, and later, another existing character, Rune Haako. The only problem is that he does not resemble Haako at all, and is inexplicably dressed as a senator.

I know there's plenty more, but those are what came to me off the top of my head. Let's hear em.

 

This is a great idea for a thread. I think this is a good example of one:

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/darth-plagueis-during-the-event-of-tpm.50046660/

 

Hmmm...

I guess one that would qualify would be the identity of Uncle Owen. In ANH, he's presented as Luke's uncle. However, during Ben's "certain point of view" scene in the otherwise excellent ROTJ novelization, Ben says that Owen is Ben's brother. (I would assume this is from one of the early drafts of the ROTJ script.) This idea, to the best of my knowledge, has never been used anywhere else in the movies or any incarnation of the EU. Finally, of course, AOTC settled the matter with Owen being shown as Ani's stepbrother. Not genetically related, but still Luke's uncle.

 

It would appear so.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Owen_(Kenobi)

The idea that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Owen Lars, the adoptive uncle of Luke Skywalker, were brothers, was introduced in the screenplay of the 1983 movie Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, but did not make it in the final cut.[2]

Before AOTC, one EU junior novel did mention "Obi-Wan's brother Owen" - but only in passing - (Jedi Apprentice: The Hidden Past):

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Owen_(Kenobi)

 

Too many to list.

I guess the ones that irk me the most are things like the whole Vong issue with the Force, Jedi marriage, dark Jedi, Plagueis in TPM, Palpatine's clone, fallen Luke, etc... Oops, I guess I'm mixing EU ridiculousness in.

 

Here's a potential one: one reason I'm looking forward to "Solo" is to see how the movies treat Han's military service. The movies, up until now, have never addressed it. Originally, in the ANH-era poster magazine, it was written that Han was thrown out of the Academy for being a reprobate, which goes along with comments made by George Lucas at the time. The Brian Daley novels changed this, revealing that Han had graduated, actually served and was decorated for bravery. Later, though, he was court-martialed and tossed out on false charges, with only Chewie on his side. Later novels pretty much went with this interpretation of the story. Even later, if I remember correctly, the A.C. Crispin novels actually say that Han was dismissed for saving Chewie from slavery.

It's not exactly clear from the trailers which story "Solo" will follow, but I'm hoping that they won't completely eliminate the Daley novels. They feature the interpretation of Han's character that I prefer.

 

They should have just adapted the Daley novels for the screen. We'd all have been better off for it in the end I think.

 

I think Obi-Wan and Owen being brothers is a Kasdan idea that Lucas rejected.

 

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Onimi
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Vongerella
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Vua
Also http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Vongsense
Sort of reads like the electromagnetic spectrum imo. We need tools to see UV Rays, radio waves, etc. The Force is so much bigger than we realize.
"If the Force is life and the Yuuzhan Vong are alive, and you cannot see them in the Force -- then is the problem with the Yuuzhan Vong, or is it with your perceptions?" Quote from Destiny's Way.
The Hutt's and Toydarians seem to have a natural resistance to the mind trick so is it really that much of a stretch to go that next step? Ok, well maybe the Ysalmiri and Vronskr (Natural selection. The Vronskrs hunt with the Force, the Ysalmiri adapt to that. Real life example http://www.mothscount.org/text/63/peppered_moth_and_natural_selection.html) would be the next step and then the Vong.
The whole being stripped of the Force and their symbiotic relationship with Yuuzhan'tar reminds me of the stuff from TPM but take it a step further.
Did Lucas ever clarify when he thought Darth Plagueis was killed?
Luke has a new Order. Why not make it different from what came before?
Palpatine's clone tied into ROTS quite well before ROTS was even a thing. Palpatine surviving death like he mentioned Darth Plagueis could do? Yes.
And if not, Palpatine having a backup plan makes sense imo.

 

Not being able to exert one's influence through the Force in certain species is not comparable and has nothing to do with, as you put it, inherently being stripped of the Force.

To be honest, I don't really keep track at their late attempts to explain the ridiculousness they've established. Don't really care either.

No, but it certainly wasn't during TPM where the only existing two Sith Lords are presented to the audience. Not one Sith Lord and one wannabe.

Why not? Why make it different to begin with? He wasn't trained to make it different. He was trained to pass on what he has learned. And what he has learned was the ways of the Jedi as they have been presented since the beginning. Luke is a Jedi. And Jedi don't get married for a variety of reasons. They already have their own commitment and way of life, and consummating attachments completely goes against what the Jedi are about and stand for.

Plagueis couldn't survive death. He (allegedly) could keep others from dying. Not himself, hence the irony Palpatine points out.

And how exactly does it "tie quite well" with anything in ROTS? It completely undermines and ignore the fulfillment of the prophecy in ROTJ.

What makes sense is Palpatine being blinded and ultimately defeated by his arrogance.

 

Well, I'd have to think Luke made a couple of changes. One would be teaching that, based on his experience, attachments do not always lead to the Dark Side. Rather, they can be helpful and supportive, as long as they're seen in the right perspective, just like any police officer, soldier, medical professional or political leader does. Next, I'm sure he'd do away with the whole "training from infancy" thing, since we've seen that a Jedi can be trained after time living among regular people, and that it can provide experience in how to see the world as they do, and thus understand it better.

Getting back on topic, one frequently-overlooked EU change is shown in the Jedi Search novel. There, we're introduced to a gadget that measures Force sensitivity. If I remember correctly (I haven't read the book in a while), it measures Force energy and was used by Palpatine to find hidden or potential Jedi to eliminate. Later, it's used to find candidates for Luke's Jedi Academy.
I don't recall any big hassle over this gadget being introduced, though I don't know of it surfacing anywhere but the "Jedi Academy Trilogy" books. In hindsight, it's pretty much the forerunner of the midichlorian test from TPM that caused so much hand-wringing from some fans.

 

For a Jedi, it can lead to the dark side. Attachment is attachment, there's no way around it. Mere friendship and compassion don't require attachment and those are fine for a Jedi. The problems that result from attachment were already shown in the OT itself, when Luke let his friendship for Han and Leia become an attachment which led him to make reckless decisions that put himself at risk and the friends that he wanted to save ended up being the ones that had to save him. And again when Vader used Luke's attachment towards Leia to turn him, and he almost succeeded. In the end, Luke was able to let go, and that's when he prevailed.

Marriage represents the consummation and commitment to another individual (and when done out of love, it requires or implies a strong attachment for one another), which goes against what the Jedi are about in more ways than one. The Jedi are not committed to one individual. Nor is anyone more important than someone else. They chose a life of servitude and compassion, not passion or forming/raising a family. It's simply incompatible.

Like who? Luke? Luke was the exception, not the rule, and a very risky exception at that. Also, I don't recall any "better understanding" of the world on Luke's part that made it relevant to the training in order to use it as a justification. Besides, the concept of training from infancy exists for many reasons: for starters, it makes learning and training easier, more efficient and it has less risks.

Yeah, but the midi-chlorian test doesn't measure Force-sensitivity though. Those who criticize(d) midi-chlorians under that erroneous logic completely overlooked or failed to acknowledge the fact that Qui-Gon had already sensed that the Force was unusually strong with Anakin way before he decided to make the midi-chlorian test. The purpose of the test was to confirm (after being informed that Anakin had no father) his belief that he might be the Chosen One, someone conceived by midi-chlorians. And an off-the-charts concentration ended up being a pretty good indication. Of course, midi-chlorians are the biological link that allows one to connect with the Force, so the more one has, the easier it is to do it (and the faster one can develop it). But that's not what the test was made for. After all, one's connection can be developed, strengthened or weakened, irrespectively of the initial concentration.

 

That's my kind of thread, but unfortunately I don't currently have the time to contribute more than I would like to.

However, I recently made an in-depth (really in-depth!) size evaluation of both the first and second Death Star. Now, the official size figures provided for DS I had been "92 miles" (McQuarrie, based on a perfect sphere) and "102+ miles" by chief model maker Grant McCune. EU (Bill Slavicsek)suggested "120 km" (75 miles) but as it turned out the size in real life would be 92 miles (height) and 102 miles (width) given the spheroid nature of the actual DS I VFX model (and ultimately proving the Rogue One indicated diameter of "100 miles" according to ILM's John Knoll to be rather accurate).

My size evaluation for DS II yielded a rather heretic find (it's usually assumed - because of the editing suggestion in the final film - that Vader landed in the small bay right next to the big one). Since we do see the Emperor's Shuttle later parked in the main bay and know its width and height, it turns out that Vader must have landed in the bay further to the right. As a result the equatorial trench of DS II has a height of only 595 meters (or 651 yards) and DS II only has a diameter of approx. 118 km (73.5 miles).

So while EU claimed that DS I had a diameter of only 120 km and DSII one of 160 km, it's actually the other way round...

 

The DS2 being "nearly twice as big" as the DS1, goes right back to the ROTJ novelization - long before exact figures were put on the size of the DS2.

That said, an approximate figure for the DS2 of "more like 500 miles in diameter" goes right back to 1983:

CINEFEX July 1983

Richard Edlund of Industrial Light & Magic

"The Deathstar, I think, will be a lot more interesting than the one in the first Star Wars — mainly because it is under construction ... Plus, it will be MUCH bigger. In Star Wars, it was really difficult to establish the scale. It was supposed to be miles in diameter, but with a full sphere it was hard to tell. The NEW one is SUPPOSED TO BE MORE like FIVE HUNDRED MILES in diameter, but since we're not dealing with a sphere all the time, we'll be able to establish landmarks and get a better sense of scale."

The EU may have used the ROTJ sketchbook for the DS2,


then extrapolated from the novelization's "nearly twice as big as DS1" to try and make the DS1 as big as possible - specifically - by making the DS2 only twice the volume of the DS1 (or at least, would have been twice the volume once complete).

The "200 km" DS2 figure used by the newcanon, probably worked the same way - once the DS1 got confirmed as 160km - they needed to keep the "nearly twice as big" bit- but make that as small as possible while still technically obeying the phrase.

 

That's very silly. As is the apparent retcon that a bunch of pilots in the briefing room didn't even go into battle.

 

Another possible one that might be addressed in "Solo" is how, specifically, Han won the Falcon. TESB established that he won it from Lando, but later materials indicated it was in a Sabaac game. L. Neil Smith's Lando novels later established that Sabaac is a card game, and even detailed how it was played. So far as I know, none of the other EU materials contradict this.

I'm hoping they'll stick with Smith's version of Sabaac. It's a very cool-sounding game. I can just imagine 007 trying it out in some crossover version of "Casino Royale".

 

So far, the newcanon has gone with "It's a variant of Sabacc called Corellian Spike that uses both cards and dice."

There have been allusions to the writer of Solo being a fan of L. Neil Smith's Lando trilogy and including little references to it - and other newcanon sources like Rebels, have shown regular sabacc and it having winning hands like "idiot's array" - so it looks like Sabacc's already going to be a little L. Neil Smith-ish in the newcanon.

 

I would love for Lando to say, "Don't call me master."

 

Well, CGI has reached the point where we can get a faithful portrayal of Vuffi Raa.

 

TPM implies that the Rule of Two was around for so long that Yoda assumed that Sith = Rule of Two, while the EU had Darth Bane create the Rule of Two after the "extinction" of the Sith.

 

You have no idea how true this is!

 

The EU stating stormtrooper recruits bump their heads while both the films and Lucas himself say the stormtroopers have that trait because they are all cloned from Jango who us prone to bumping his heads.

The weird force repealing animals Thrwan uses. If life creates the force, and life can't exist without the force due to midis, then how can any lifeform repeal it without killing itself? Anti midis?

 

Can I just point out how dumb "genetic disposition to bumping your head into things" is?

 

I don't see how that trait can be cloned either, but it was originally meant an easter egg gag. But the EU has the gall tl even change little jokes to suit its version of the story. Kinda sad some EU writer had the need to retcon a gag of all things.

 

They had the gall to... make it make sense?