Lit EU fans in high places

I was flipping trough some Bloggingheads diavlogs then i saw this:

http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/12289

Is this the most mainstream source that ever mentioned the SW EU? Does the NYTimes still has a link to Bloggingheads in the opinion section?

I am really suprised by the fact that Jamelle Bouie (The American Prospect) and Alyssa Rosenberg (Think Progress, The Atlantic) are actually fans of the EU.

There is this. It makes me smile.

Any of you posters is Jamelle or Alyssa?

I would love it if we would get any of them for a Forcecast Roundtable.

Press can't hold a candle to actual decision-makers.
Although I am glad that at least some mainstream media knows EU. So many writers act like they are the hugest SW fans ever but they have only seen the movies and don't even know there's stuff besides movies. It's like saying you're a Christian while only having a dim idea that once this guy named Moses was alive, without knowing anything else.

I would love it if a billionare would come forward and started funding high quality SW movies that respect the EU. But that is highly unlikely.

True, but don't think Disney corporate isn't fully aware of the entirety of what they're buying. The EU is worth money, a lot of money. Not as much as the movies themselves and their direct tie-ins but the idea that they would ignore a property that has, among other things, consistently filled at least a full shelf at every manjor retail bookstore in America for the better part of two decades is foolish.

The Star Wars EU is well known among the various circles it operates in. Several of the video games were notable (especially the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series and KOTOR) in that industry, the toys are a merchandising juggernaught that can certainly hold their own against something like G.I Joe, and the novels have, despite their variable quality, can draw surprisingly high-powered talent. Greg Bear wrote a Star Wars novel! The man has five Nebulas and two Hugos.

Now, ultimately the big difference we get from shifting between Lucasfilm to Disney is that Lucas was loyal to his own deeply personal and very quirky vision. Disney is loyal, almost to the point of brutality, to its bottom line. That means they will be sensitive to fan reaction - they would never have made Greedo shoot first - but they may not find the EU to be something worth keeping depending on their analysis.

Here in the UK, too - and pages of them online on that outlet's website.

I still think this guy knows more than he lets on.

The interesting thing about that article is that the EU has already caught up to contemporary events.

The ability of novels, a long TV series, and video game codex-type material, to tell a more in depth storyline has grounded the geopolitics (or astropolitics perhaps) of Star Wars more firmly than the movies ever could. The triumph of the Rebel Alliance through assymetric warfare without a defined territory vulnerable to seizure and the inability of a monolithic centralized state to successfully combat them without losing hearts and minds has been heavily stressed in a number of EU materials, especially in The Essential Atlas and the Essential Guide to Warfare. This is part and parcel of the counterinsurgency strategy and stateless warfare that we've found ourselves embroiled in for over a decade.

In fact, I believe it could be argued that the EU's ability to continually re-interpret without re-writing the ongoing history of the Star Wars galaxy is one of the key facets that has kept a space opera from the 1970s a constantly fresh and vigorous phenomenon over time.

That's awesome. And what makes it even better, is doing as I did, voice it in your head as a crisp upper class Word I War lieutenant in Her Majesties Arny. Hooray Sir!

Alyssa Rosenberg IS a big EU fan, and also ASOIAF/GOT. I especially love her feminist viewpoint on the world of GRRM - another fandom heavily populated by men.

There are EU references on sitcoms from time to time... It's an old one, but Sister, Sister had a surprisingly specific reference to Dark Empire for some reason. And Barney Stinson's Ewok Line presentation, which appeared very briefly on How I Met Your Mother, has some surprising EU references amongst some material created for the show. Who'd've thought Darth Caedus would end up on network TV...

TC

There was a character on Grey's Anatomy who talked about Jacen and Jaina one time.

I think I remember seeing an issue of Empire in an episode of Dexter.

Wow, those are both very odd things to see.

That would be the affect of marathoning two seasons of Downton Abbey on my brain I'm afraid...

GOT is Game of Thrones and the others are what exactly?

ASOIAF is A Song of Ice and Fire, the collective name for the novel series, of which GOT is the first part. For some reason the entire tv-show is named after the first novel, but apparently Game of Thrones Season 2 sounds better than A Song of Ice and Fire Season 2: A Clash of Kings.

GRRM is the writer of the series, George R.R. "I don't kill characters, characters kill characters" Martin.

EU is the European Union, a Nobel winner but it has incompetent Muuns leading its banks.

Yeah, sorry for the confusion. But as you can see, @Lugija took care of it.

Thanks. I tought these were 3 different franchises.

Can't believe I forgot this one, but Chris Carter (creator of The X-Files among others) is, or at least was, a big EU fan. He actually hired KJA to write X-Files books and comics due to his work in the Star Wars EU. Also Exar Kun's name appears in the opening credits of later seasons of the show.

What book is that?