Lit Leland Chee reveals the main reason for the reboot!

Honestly I think it was a multitude of factors. I think they wanted to cater to the casual market (where there's no denying "the further adventures of Luke, Han and Leia" is more marketable than "the adventures of Luke's son") and to the long term fans who wanted to continue the story post-NJO.

The best era to do more big 3 adventures was the OT/NR eras (and let's be honest, Shadows of Mindor is a better Luke novel than anything in the post-NJO era) but that era wouldn't appeal as much to long term fans who wanted to see "where the story goes next". In that era the OT cast should really have been mentor/supporting characters but that likely wouldn't appeal as much to more casual fans. They tried to appeal to both at once.

It didn't help that the big 3 were on a "no kill" list and everyone knew it, the characters had no where to go really. Their heroes journey's were complete but they couldn't give them a finale. So 60 became the new 40 and the next generation were either sidelined or became the villains.

I thought Star Wars was always a good seller for Dark Horse? Could be wrong, I never really followed the sales that closely.

Whatever the case, I'm glad they branched out. I preferred the books in the NJO era but when DR moved to post-NJO the books fell apart whilst the comics (with Legacy and KOTOR) were arguably some of the best comics in the EUs entire run.

I can't blame Marvel for starting small/safe and building out from there. Hopefully once we're past the ST we could see them branching out more. Sadly though I think the days of a KOTOR and Legacy are gone. Anything that "big" in terms of era defining will probably remain ring fenced for TV and film.

 

For Darkhorse it would have been good. But they were also a pretty small company. THe sales for the #1's on some of their best selling series were about what the Aphra series is at after about fifteen issues.

 

Kanan was the lowest seller of Marvels Star Wars' comics, and was on the chopping block.
DHC did just fine, especially in the years prior to the movies - and had the rest of the EU to work with. SW sales are easy - feature movie characters. Woods' Star Wars comic for DHC, arguably the worst ongoing they did, was also one of their best sellers. It's just a difference in design philosophy between the companies... that, and the EU model isn't something that can be repeated.

 

I also recall that Legacy was the second-best seller for Dark Horse after their Buffy comic.

Also, trying to compare Dark Horse Star Wars sales in the mid-2000s for Marvel Star Wars sales now is pretty useless as a metric, given how Marvel as a company, Disney as a parent industry promoter, and Star Wars as a brand are all in completely different places than they were in 2006.

If anything, you should compare something like Legacy's peak sales in 2007/8 with whatever Marvel's flagship was at the time. Civil War or whatever. Before Star Wars or Marvel had their modern resurgences.

 

It's interesting in that I clearly remember the outrage on Legacy's premise. It was actually a lot like the ST reaction. Horror that some villain out of nowhere (Darth Krayt) destroyed all of Luke's hard work, took over the galaxy, and decimated the Jedi.

It doesn't seem that bad now--there were still enough Jedi around in Legacy, far more than half-trained Rey we currently have in the ST. But I remember the outrage and John Ostrander coming on these forums and talking to fans about it.

Darth Krayt was like Snoke, mystery villain. However, unlike Snoke, we did get a fairly satisfying reveal for him.

Cade was way less likable than Rey though. They fixed this a bit with Ania Solo.

The main reason I like Legacy better, despite both it and the ST "destroying" Luke's work, is that you really do feel Luke's legacy in the surviving Jedi--Shado Vao, Wolf Sazen, etc. They had the discipline and the teachings of Luke instilled in them, even though Luke was gone. Luke's presence was felt through these characters.

The Luke in the ST gave up what he fought for (until the end). Rey barely even knew what Luke stood for (considering he flip-flopped in the movie). She had at most 2 lessons and then ran off after a big fight. Luke's "legacy" is a flashy Force projection show that has nothing to do with the patient discipline, courage, and determination that defined the NJO as seen in Legends Shado Vao and Wolf Sazen. Broomboy was using the Force like it was a toy and they look up to Luke like a superhero, precisely the opposite of what the Jedi are supposed to be as seen at https://web.archive.org/web/20050226023825/http://www.holonetnews.com:80/50/jediwatch/1344_2.html

 

It was but it was not ended due to sales (and the sales were definitely not low enough to warrant cancellation anyways). Even though it only lasted twelve issues it still told a very specific story for the character. There really wasn't much more to tell. We already knew he spent much of his time prior to A New Dawn in hiding and then him and Hera team up in a New Dawn.

Darkhorse did do just fine. But again they were a smaller company that did not have the expectations that Marvel and DC do.

 

Those that try to bash the training Rey has gotten are forgetting that that basically was the exact same way Luke was trained.

 

Luke got a lot of offscreen training, that stuff like http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star...kywalker_and_the_Treasure_of_the_Dragonsnakes can at least pretend other training happened.

An entire computer game, Yoda Stories, was based around this concept of off-screen training.

The problem is the dialogue clearly states Rey only got 2 (or 3?) lessons. If they removed that, we could pretend likewise she had intense offscreen training.

 

Man, I know. It's crazy that Luke only got a few lessons from Obi-Wan before going to attack the Death Star.

 

I'm sort of confused. The Death Star was a non-Force military drafting operation. Red Leader, Gold Leader, Biggs, Wedge, etc had no Jedi training at all. What difference does the number of Jedi lessons Luke have before a non-Jedi Death Star operation make?

 

Because he won the day by tapping into the Force, a thing he'd just learned about.

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Obi-Wan wasn't training Luke for a Death Star attack on the Falcon. He only did that after "death" while it was happening.

Luke wasn't going to rebuild the whole Jedi on 2 Falcon lessons. That's why he got sent to Yoda for more.

Rey is expected to rebuild the Jedi on 2 Ahch-to lessons. It's a huge difference. She has some books I suppose, but still...

 

And you are now trying to compare additional things the EU put into his character to what we strictly learned about Rey in the movie. The books and comics will very likely round out Rey's training as well. When you strictly look at the movies Luke and Rey's training were pretty similar.

 

The problem is the new EU CAN'T put new stuff into Rey's training because TLJ clearly says 2 lessons (both of which were seen on screen). ESB didn't have that limitation.

Any new intensive training will be self done through books, to be fair. But that's not Luke's legacy anymore really. Rey's new Jedi will be more based off the Prime Jedi's writings than Luke's teachings.

Which goes to my original point--Legacy NJO had a strong feeling of Luke through it. Rey's NJO will, by logic, really be reflective of the Prime Jedi aside from the few lines Luke told her in his 2 lessons. It's not his legacy really.

 

And you aren't taking into consideration that Rey has planty of time to train afterwards. She really wasn't that powerful in the movie anyway. The biggest thing she did was move some rocks away from an opening to the cave. If they actually had the effects back in 1980 that they do now they likely would have had Luke do the same thing. And heck they had Luke try to go up against Darth Vader after he only had two lessons and he was able to hold his own to some degree. Kylo Ren isn't meant to be anything near what Vader was.

 

DHC did indeed do just fine - without movies, or Disney, or Marvel, KOTOR was selling 23,000 copies 10 years ago. Not bad at all!
As for Kanan, limited series are called such. Marvel cancelled it for business reasons, not because the 'story was done'.

 

I guess you were one of those dying to see Kanan go into hiding and working at a bar picking up chicks eh???? Because A New Dawn said he was doing things like that after Order 66.

 

Vader was toying with Luke. If he wanted Luke dead, he would have done that easily. Luke didn't hold so long against Vader because he was a decent match.

 

Yeah. The fact of the matter is, neither Luke or Rey got a lot of training. But Rey was clearly dialogue-limited to 2 or 3 lessons on film!

I'm not bashing Rey at all. She does great with what she has. But all these arguments that Luke got less or whatever--even if they were true, to quote Obi-Wan Kenobi: "Past mistakes don't justify current ones."

Luke let Rey down as a teacher. His flip flopping made things chaotic, and admittedly Rey didn't help by running off without a plan to redeem Kylo, but hey she's young. Luke however is older and should have handled himself accordingly.

Luke comes around at the end but it feels too little too late. Rey may indeed become a Jedi and rebuild the order, but in the end of the day that's due to the Prime Jedi's books. And remember, if Luke had his way, those books would be burned.

 

In Legacy Luke had been dead and his so was just about all his generation.

If anything Legacy works as a tragedy for Luke-sure he beat most of the bad guys but he didn't defeat all of them.

Some of them slipped through his grasp and came to be a challenge for his descedants.

 

@sidv88 There is probably a good chance that Luke comes back in IX and helps further train Rey as a force ghost. I realize some were extremely disappointed with Luke's characterization in the movie but in the end we need to realize that this wasn't intended to be Luke's trilogy. If Luke came back in VIII and was a complete badass and continued on with that in IX he would have completely taken the spotlight away from Rey. And that is not really what the trilogy needed when Rey seems to be intended to be the one to carry the torch forward. They did have Luke save the day though at the end of the movie.

 

Luke could have been a tough character without taking away from Rey's journey. He can't be everywhere at once. Just separate Rey and Luke.

Gandalf was still tough and facing down the Witch King in Gondor while not taking anything away from Frodo's journey to Mt. Doom in Mordor. And Lord of the Rings was not Gandalf's trilogy, but Frodo's.

 

Frodo was also intended to always be a meek character. Rey was intended to be a Jedi and her story was pretty much intertwined with Luke's based off of how TFA ended. Plus RJ intended for it to be a difficult journey for Rey. If she had Luke Skywalker standing by her side the entire time it would have made her journey significantly less challenging.

 

I think we're coming to the end of the thread here.

It's funny, but when I went to Barnes & Noble recently to buy a book for my cousin's birthday, I couldn't help but notice that, even after all these years, there were still a large number of "Legends" books on the shelves... and I mean reprints with the logo on them. Now that I'm back into SW lore, it's an opportunity to pick up some books I didn't bother with the first time around.
But I doubt we're going to see the EU 'go away' any time soon. Time has already shown that it's an indelible part of the whole Star Wars experience. And really, we were lucky that the PT didn't bring it to an untimely end... or Del Rey, who wanted to 'reboot' when they got the contract. We were also lucky that we had the attempt by writers and such to constantly refer back and forth between the various novels, comics, video games, RPGs and web content, and despite Del Rey's overly-grand schemes, still end on high notes - like Allston's swan song Mercy Kill, guidebooks like Essential Atlas and The Imperial Handbook, the long-running and popular Knights of the Old Republic comic and even RPG books like The Unknown Regions.
To the Star Wars Expanded Universe!

I was sad to see the best of the new comics come to an end, yes - but again, I expected it to happen.
Poe Dameron I would imagine is next, considering the numbers.

 

My local B&N actually has far fewer Star Wars books overall than it had even ten years ago, let alone the 90s when they practically had their own section. Same with the Star Wars comics compared to the period right near the end of the prequel era.