Lit If you could return one EU work to canon...

I think I'll have to say the Republic comics, especially Quinlan Vos's storyline. I know it doesn't have a huge impact on the rest of the franchise, but it's one of my favorite stories and shows a different side of the Jedi Order. Also as far as I know it's not explicitly contradicted by anything in TCW.
I also kind of like the idea of bringing back TIE Fighter. I've been playing it lately, and it would incorporate Thrawn while still being far enough removed from the events of the movies to not mess with the new canon too much...

 

I think most books in the pre-ROTJ eras would need to be slightly rewritten to remove references to non-canon things. That said, some books so blatantly contradict the things we expect to be seeing in the ST that they aren't even relevant to the discussion.

I think, if I had to pick one to recanonize, it would be The Han Solo Trilogy by A.C. Crispin. Well, this trilogy without the parts that refer to the Han Solo Adventures. I think this is the ideal way to delve into Han's backstory and his journey leading up to ANH.

Of course, this is with a few caveats: I think KOTOR, Darth Bane, and Kenobi should all be adapted into the new canon by being made into movies instead of just forcing the works as they stand back into the canon. There are other books that I'd like to see rewritten for canon: The Thrawn Trilogy, Jedi Academy Trilogy, and Darth Plagueis fit into this category for me (I never liked that Plagueis was around during TPM and I still feel that doesn't fit with the canon Sith order as I understand it.) And I would like to see most of the Clone Wars novels--especially Shatterpoint--reintroduced with TCW series happening in the background.

 

The entire Republic comic series. I don't care what it contradicts; I've done my best to wipe TCW off my mind anyway.

 

The Dark Horse "Darth Vader And......" Series. Four brilliant separate miniseries showcasing the early missions of Darth Vader. Personally I would love for them to be adapted in Netflix miniseries. A few tweaks to the story and "The Lost Command" would be a great take on a tortured Vader and his past. Imagine seeing a broken and scarred Vader tearing through an insurgent fortress on screen screaming "WHERE IS MY WIFE?!"

 

In an alternate universe where quality is the main criterion, TCW is considered Legends...

 

OT: YJK was my first EU exposure. I chose it because I like the characters back then. It's nice it's about young people learning about life. Personally I have nothing against 'younger reader' type stories if done well. These were. I particularly enjoy Jacen, Zekk, Lowie, and Peckham (sp).

 

Quality AND continuity (which ironically, are supposedly the reasons why they got rid of the EU in the first place).

 

Thrawn trilogy. Or Plagueis... Having a few references to Thrawn in VII, allthough not necessarily telling the same story with him as Zahn did, would be fantastic fanservice. One can dream...

 

Honestly, even if a few undetailed references like "This is going to be as bad as that time we dealt with Thrawn..." were all we ever got for a lot of stuff, I'd actually be happier.

I mean, if I want to read those stories? I still can. The books still exist. Nothing stops me still re-reading it.

Like you said, in the Disneyverse, would it be the "same" story if they actually retold it? Not entirely, there'd be no Jacen and Jaina for a start, even if the campaign against some blue admiral remained mostly the same... but I'm not someone who always needs to see every tiny detail covered-- that'd be impossible anyway-- and I enjoy having some blank parts that I can fill in in my own mind. (How many people would rather KOTOR3 had just stayed in development, and all our personal dreams remained possible, rather than overwritten by TOR?) But still having the odd name drop, that in the NEU was no more developed than the dozens of off hand references that characters dropped during the Original Trilogy? That'd make me happy.

Rebels is doing a lovely job of that kind of thing, with species appearing, or characters mentioned in dialogue, etc, and even if we never see those characters explored, we know who they mean, and which story they're name dropping, even if to everybody else they're nothing more than a random line of non-memorable dialogue.

 

KOTOR Comics series if we are limited to one work/series.

Much of the content I liked besides that was at a roughly completed point, in a position where they'd be competing with new characters, or produced a world that too small or too dark for it to feel like Star Wars.

As the lone item in the Old Republic era KOTOR would be a decent base. Arguably part of the reason the comics ran into trouble is because the war gets a bit too dark due to the initial design of the Mandalorian Wars to fit the games. You could probably toss in a few minor retcons and have Carrick and crew leave the war effort after freeing Taris and possibly side step the end of the Mandalorian Wars and the Jedi Civil War.

The problems with using the video games is that most of them leave a huge pile of dead characters and few antagonists. Additionally, writing about video game characters that have much range in dialogue or behavior choice is quite hard.

I liked Vrook Lamar and Atris a lot. I suspect most fans of KOTOR would disagree. My personal head cannon exile and bao dur ended up losing force sensitivity because for me the truth was we were wounds not a functioning force users (You'll notice that the Jedi can't feel the force in you. Kreia can feel you but can't read Bao Dur yet you can.To me this suggests without a bond wounds can't be read or seen). With Kreia and Malachor gone the connection to the force went away. Needless to say maybe 1 in 100,000 or 1 million think that. I'm sure others have equally zany theories.

You also have gender issues, romance issues, motivation issues, combat style, equipment, balance/capability issues, and age issues.

The games can pretend to be all things to all people but written works will have an incredibly hard time doing that.

 

KOTOR 1, and all the history it contained.

 

The New Essential Chronology. Gives us back everything except Legacy of the Force, Fate of the Jedi, a few standalone novels, and the end of Dark Nest. I win the thread now, yes?


EDIT: Oh, and it gets rid of TCW. Even more winning.

 

Tales of the Jedi

 

Tales of the Jedi or Darth Plagueis

 

This, utterly this as these two are my favorite EU works.

Kenobi I love because it manages to give a interesting look at Kenobi and makes some of the best new characters in any EU work I've read. Like a lot of people, Annileen is my favorite new character in this and most of the other characters are interesting as well. I won't spoil anything, but I also found this book to have one the more interesting star wars villains I've seen.

Plagueis is when James Luceno is at his best with a very interesting origins of Palpatine and Plagueis. The fact that I grew to care about this two sith of all people says a lot about the writing. The book also does a good job of weaving in the ways these two set up the ground work for sith retribution. Almost making this book a political thriller with space ships and laser swords.

I also have to give a shout out to the Republic comics as there my favorite star wars comics, I think they could fit in a few stories.

 

I'm having a much harder time answering this question than I thought I would, because while I can think of a bunch of examples, these books in turn are tied in with so many other books that it would make no sense to reintegrate them without the others.

Probably my favorite Star Wars novel is "I, Jedi." But returning that book to the EU really means that I want the X-wing series and Jedi Academy Trilogy returned to the EU as well, since it makes no sense without them. Same with the Han Solo Trilogy - it's one of my favorite pieces of EU lore, but I can't really pick one book that I'd want returned, to me the three of them go together.

Edited to add: I can think of a few books that are stand-alone enough that I can want them returned without needing to involve anything else. But these books by definition are unobtrusive enough to basically fit into any canon anyway. (Hard to imagine a version of the NEU that doesn't allow "Kenobi," for example).

 

Quite right. (Although he gets better in other portrayals. Like the Han Solo Trilogy).

But I forgive it all simply for giving me one of my favorite Darth Vader portrayals in the entire EU. His last conversation with Xizor is an absolute joy every time I read it.

 

One story? Just one? Then no doubt, LSATSOM. It's small-scale enough to (probably) fit in the new canon, it is less than a year post-ROTJ so it'd be before the Battle of Jakku, and stuff that happens to Luke in that book could explain some stuff about what rumors we've heard about him in TFA. Plus, it's just a bloody beautiful story and probably my favorite standalone novel in the EU, period.

 

May I ask what may be a silly question? So, is the entire EU now non-canon? I thought it was only the stories set post-ROTJ.

 

X-Wing Iron Fist, because we all know why

 

Officially story-wise that appears the case, yes.

 

Shadows of the Empire. As much effort that was put into it, it was basically a movie without the movie considering the amount of promotion work done. Plus, I don't see any reason it was interfere with the "new" canon.

 

Yeah at the present basically the entire EU is non- cannon, however the content that is still active like SWTOR still needs to get approval before being announced if I recall correctly despite comments from Disney saying they were not going to interfere much. That implies they have either low trust in Bioware's competence and don't trust them to run a non cannon work that shares the Star Wars name to a degree or a chance exists that SWTOR may make it back into cannon. If SWTOR gets back into cannon it'd likely bring KOTOR I with it due to all of the Revan references and possibly Dawn of the Jedi due to the Tython and Rakata stuff.

However, I doubt that SWTOR will make it into cannon as the game appears to be winding down. The 12x xp will mean most subscribers will be done with all the class stories entirely by the end of the summer if they weren't already. As the endgame story line is reaching a point where it is mostly the same their isn't much of a point to stay with the game unless you are playing for end game or have lots of friends that play. Thanks to Dulfy and other sites you can view full footage of the story before it even hits live servers when they do update the story. SWTOR's characters also tend to have more extreme appeal than the predecessors. I'm not sure I could think of fifteen characters in SWTOR I actually like including player characters. However, Lana, Theron, and Marr do have quite the following and some very fervent supporters

 

If that's the case, I can't just limit it to one work. I refuse to let the Brian Daley books or L. Neil Smith's Lando novels get deleted. Of course, I also consider Valance and Jaxxon to be part of the story, so I'm going my own route here.