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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

ST Official Sequel Trilogy / Legends / Expanded Universe discussion thread

Discussion in 'Sequel Trilogy' started by YoureNotJonesy, Nov 2, 2012.

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  1. BigAl6ft6

    BigAl6ft6 Chosen One star 8

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    Nov 12, 2012
    I see where you're coming from and do agree to a certain point but, on the flipside, those marvel cinematic universe tie-in comics sell, like, peanuts or less compared to the big mainstream regular Marvel books. I actually don't know why Marvel publishes the MCU tie-in comics and I own a lot of 'em myself (There's a Black Widow one and a Hulk one, off the top of my head). But they aren't exactly busting up the charts compared to how their actual, Marvel comic book universe Avengers books sell.
     
  2. sluggo1313.

    sluggo1313. Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 23, 2013

    Kind of and to a certain point. The current Avenger comic book story line couldn't be further away from the movie versions and would lose any child trying to read it.

    But you still have people coming out the movie saying "I'll go buy an Avenger comic" (I would bet that happens more then with Star Wars) and they are able to figure out the differences between Avengers Assemble, Might Avengers, New Avengers, Uncanny Avengers, Movie Tie-in Avengers, cartoon-tie-in Avengers, Ultimate Avengers, and the movie AND the cartoons just fine. People don't need or demand a single voice/story/continuity to keep everything straight.
     
  3. Don't grab the glowy end

    Don't grab the glowy end Jedi Padawan

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    Jul 25, 2013
    I don't think Avengers is a great comparison for Star Wars. Comic book fans already were used to not having one storyline. The film didn't really change that. A better example of a film series that doesn't worry too much about continuity is James Bond. Star Wars has more in common with Lord of the Rings or Hunger Games or Harry Potter, but none of those are primarily a film franchise. Ultimately, I'm not sure there's anything like Star Wars - a universe with tons of different merchandise that originated in movie form.

    Rumors seem to be pointing toward ignoring the EU, but I don't think Iron Man and Captain America have much to do with that.
     
  4. sluggo1313.

    sluggo1313. Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 23, 2013
    They are used to it and Star Wars fans will become used to it.

    Ironman and captain America just prove you can have multi. Continuities and not confuse/lose fans
     
  5. HWK-290

    HWK-290 Jedi Padawan star 2

    Registered:
    Jul 29, 2013
    A lot of Star Wars fans don't want to get used to it.

    Your average middle-class individual barely recognizes the existence of such a thing as Marvel 616 ("Spider-Man and Wolverine are supposed to be on the Avengers? What? I didn't even know they were in the same universe as Iron Man!") let alone the rampant number of What Ifs and AUs. Setting up the current post-RotJ era as AU is equivalent to leaving it out to die in the cold: there will be brand confusion, and that means much more with regards to novels than it does to the visual medium of comics. Your average movie fan doesn't even pick up anything beyond the film novelizations as is, now you're suggesting that Disney should confuse them even more? Ep VII will be the first post-RotJ experience for most of these people. "Oh but Han and Leia also had twins and a third son and Luke married a former darksider". Seriously? You expect anything but novelizations to survive that sort of hit to sales while competing with a main continuity? "Oh, these books don't matter, they're not the REAL Star Wars".

    Abrams cleverly dodged a bullet with Star Trek: while his two films relegate the original series and its films to AU status, their events still happened, and those events and those characters still remain relevant. It's a crucial plot point in Into Darkness when Quinto-Spock contacts Nimoy-Spock. I guarantee you there would have been a bigger outcry about Star Trek 2009 had you seen a complete reboot, just as everyone in this fanbase would be up in arms if Disney even dared hint that they'd reboot the original trilogy.

    That's what it comes down to, really. Many Star Wars EU fans find enough worthwhile material in the post-RotJ era worth preserving within mainstream continuity, and would be loath to see that material lost to a reboot or even an alternate universe, just as much as a movie fan would be loath to see the original trilogy lost - need I remind you about the Special Edition? The Han-and-Greedo scene?

    And I'm sorry, but "too bad" doesn't cut it when it's within the producers', screenwriters', and director's power to make that sort of preservative effort happen. I expect to see another clever dodge with the EU that doesn't negate thirty-five years' worth of characters and stories.

    Because really, that's what Star Wars supplemental material has had going for it in comparison to other large franchises: one more-or-less seamless continuity that hasn't been rebooted time after time.
     
  6. BigAl6ft6

    BigAl6ft6 Chosen One star 8

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    Nov 12, 2012
    Unfortunately, the moviemakers didn't sign on to take the EU into consideration, they're making Episode 7, a sequel to Episode 6. The EU is from Lucasfilm publishing so they're the ones who are going to either try to attempt a twisty way to integrate it into the movie, or they label it an alternate reality and box it away, or try the multi-continuity method that Marvel has. I'm actually really interested to see if they try to fix it up with a narrative but I'm not expecting to see that in the film itself.
     
  7. Apophis_

    Apophis_ Jedi Knight star 2

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    Sep 4, 2012

    Is not Lucasfilm our moviemaker? Is not Leland Chee and Pablo Hidalgo in their story team? They are both Lucasfilm employees that know everything about EU and I'm sure they will take care of making new Episode appealing for both casual and EU fans.
     
    ScorpionJedi likes this.
  8. BigAl6ft6

    BigAl6ft6 Chosen One star 8

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    Nov 12, 2012
    Episode 7 is a Bad Robot co-production so it's not exclusively Lucasfilm. The script wasn't exactly just handed to Abrams with Lucasfilm telling him to go shoot it as is and don't change a thing, he was around when it was being written (He said as much in May that the script was still being written). Also the story-team that they mentioned is about things being integrated better on all fronts going forward. Didn't exactly state what's being integrated now. They're in Lucasfilm publishing, not sitting beside Arndt while he's writing the script handing him notes about the Yuzan Vong invasion and the military campaign of Darth Caedus.
     
  9. MillionthVoice

    MillionthVoice Jedi Master star 3

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    Jan 28, 2013
    There always comes a time when the sweet-spot of storytelling for a fictional universe has been passed. It just gets too crowded, too convoluted. And so you have to let something go, so that you might keep something else. In this case we lose the books to gain new films. Come on you people, it's a good trade! Star Wars is best on screen anyway. Those silly books, let them go!
    You must unlearn all that you have learned.
     
  10. sluggo1313.

    sluggo1313. Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 23, 2013

    Except the Hardcores, who support it now, will get the different and continue to support it. It doesn't matter if the non-comic book reading public understands the different continuities, the fans who support the material do.

    As I pointed out, I'm 99.9% sure that more people come out of the Avengers thinking "I should pick up a comic" then come out of Star Wars thinking "I should go buy a 400 page novel". If those non-hard core fans can figure out the comic land scape out, they'll figure out the Star Wars one. And no one says "these comics don't matter they aren't "real Avengers" or the movie or tv shows don't matter they aren't real avengers. Whyw ould people say that about Star Wars?

    Letting the current EU continue along side new material, but not being connected to it, isn't negating it. Its allowing it exist and thrive. And sure the idea was 1 continuity in 1993. But things change. It doesn't all fit now, and we are soon going to have movies that happen int he same time frame as a bunch of novels. Nothing lasts forever, things change and you have to change and adapt.


    No I don't believe they are. Everything I've heard, its Kennedy, Arndt, Lucas and Abrams.....and the other dude. The Indy writer.
     
  11. sluggo1313.

    sluggo1313. Jedi Knight star 4

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    Aug 23, 2013
    MODified: Your EDIT button... use it.
     
  12. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 6, 2007
    I don't know how anyone can be so sure that those fans who have supported the existing EU format for the past 20 plus years will continue to support a massively reworked format.

    Now I agree with sluggo in some ways. If continuity is getting tossed the next best option for its fans is to see it continue in an alternate universe which maintains all the rules of canon and continuity that it always has - but at the same time ignores the films. Would that happen? I have my doubts.
     
  13. aleja2

    aleja2 Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2005


    Books outsell the comics by a significant factor, so let's just look at the books.

    In 2008, post ROTJ timeline EU books sold about 100,000 copies in hardcover. Usually a paperback run is slightly below the hardcover run, give or take certain market factors, but since this is Star Wars let's be generous and say they sold about another 400,000 in paperback. And let's say that each sale = committed EU fan. So you're looking at 500,000 fans (and that's a highly inflated number, IMO) who truly, deeply care about the EU.

    (Meanwhile, sources indicate that post-ROTJ timeline book sales badly dropped after Legacy of the Force finished, to where in 2012 Apocalypse sold only 26,140 in hardcover. Some of those sales may have been made up in e-books, but at best e-books now represent around 50% of total sales. So let's say Apocalypse sold as many copies in ebooks as it did hardcover, which would mean Apocalypse sold around 50,000 in that window. Let's do our usual 400% markup for paperback - again, HIGHLY inflated - and that gives us 200,000 fans who are still committed to that portion of the EU).

    In its first week of release, The Phantom Menace made $105,661,237. The average cost of a US movie ticket in 1999 was around $5.00. Therefore, about 21,132,247 tickets were sold. Let's be generous and say half of those tickets were repeat business, so perhaps only 10,566,123 individual people saw the film. In its first week, mind you, not counting the people who couldn't make it to the cinema until later.

    10 million > 500,000

    If all the EU fans boycott the ST because the films don't follow the novels' continuity? Disney and Lucasfilm don't give a poodoo.

    And Disney and Lucasfilm know that the EU readers are among the most committed fans, and will buy practically anything if it has Star Wars on the label (as it is, I'm convinced DN, LotF, FotJ and Crucible are just one big troll at EU fans' expense and DelRey and Lucasfilm are LULZing all the way to the bank), so they're really not that concerned about losing those 500,000 fans in the first place.


    In other words, I'm not expecting anything to survive except for the occasional Easter egg here and there. As for continuity, Infinities already exists as a label, so sweep the books that don't fit into that, keep the books that do fit, and go your merry way.
     
  14. MillionthVoice

    MillionthVoice Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2013
    ^ The same math has been done upthread, maybe a few hundred pages back with much the same results, I think it checks out.
     
  15. sluggo1313.

    sluggo1313. Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 23, 2013

    Because other groups of fans have and do. Unless you want to argue Star Wars fans aren't as smart as other fan groups or aren't as loyal, there is no reason to think they won't.

    What would happen? Nothing, fans would buy the material they like and are interested in. The same thing that happens now.

    The problem with what aleja is suggesting, keep some material, not other material and keep the continuity going is that tomorrow there will be another conflict, and another one the day after that etc... Thats the advantage getting rid of an all-encompassing continuity.
     
  16. CryGoneGin

    CryGoneGin Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    Aug 28, 2013
    If I may join the discussion, here are my thoughts:

    The nice thing about the Expanded Universe is that it allows Lucasfilm to tell stories not able to be shown in the context of the official episodes. Since up until this point, the film saga was overall following the arc of Anakin Skywalker (yes, I'm aware that this was very likely not the original game plan by Lucas, but with the prequels, it retroactively became so), George couldn't really diverge from that central story to show cool stuff like the Clone War, the Jedi Purge post-ROTS, and so on. He had to stick to an overall plotline, but the EU is not restricted by this, and so that's why we have an overwhelming amount of EU material to compensate for the relatively self-contained nature of the films.

    With the sequel trilogy, Disney has an incredible opportunity here to more-or-less tell an original tale set post-ROTJ, but utilizing elements from the EU that will simultaneously please the fans that pick up on the references and give the EU more validity. If I was in charge, I would try my hardest to distinguish the sequel trilogy as its own thing, and not be a parade of fan-service and mythology gags, but I would also work hard to utilize the better ideas from the EU and make them G-canon. I feel no matter how hard you try to be wholly original, you will inevitably end up coming up with ideas that have at some point already been used in the EU, in which case, why not just use the pre-existing concepts and acknowledge their source? I am looking forward to what solution they come up with, but I definitely want them to try and use the more successful elements of the various post-ROTJ material, just in a clever and unexpected way.

    And if these points have already been made by others, I apologize, as I'm completely new here, and just wanted to give my two-cents free of having been influenced by reading others' opinions.
     
  17. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Jul 6, 2007
    Star Wars fans are smart and are not blindly loyal to everything that gets a Lucasfilm stamp on it. And it is for that reason that it might not work for existing hardcore fans. Heck, Attack of the Clones would have made a lot more money if Star Wars fans were loyal to the product no matter what.

    Look at how The Clone Wars was recieved by existing hardcore fans. At the start their ratings numbers were huge, but 50% to 75% of that existing viewerbase vanished for multiple reasons, including the show moving away from existing LFL policies on how continuity should work. By Seasons 4 & 5 they were drawing half the viewers they were in Season 1, this with the numerous new fans they attracted.

    Some of those losses were no doubt replaced by new fans of course, but I can point you towards numerous people who stopped buying TCW stuff outright due to the issues.

    So if you need a reason and an example, there is one right there.

    But they should. Those half a million Star Wars fans likely spend more on Star Wars tie in merchandise in a year than those 10,000,000 movie goers will on a yearly basis.

    Now no doubt new fans will be attracted, toys will still sell, so on, so forth. But if they those 500,000 hardcore EU fans boycotted and each regularly spent $1000 a year on merch(At one time I spent more than $2000 a year myself, now I'm more in the that $1000 mark) - then that would be Disney telling us they aren't interested in $500 million dollars in merchandise sales per year, for the next ten years.

    They might be able to attract enough new fans to offset that potential loss, but the more logical thing to do would be to try and come up with a concept where they don't lose that existing revenue base, but add to it.

    OF course these numbers are all extremely hypothetical and scientifically unable to be proven. In general someone can make numbers say anything they want to. Esspecially without solid numbers to use.
     
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  18. BigAl6ft6

    BigAl6ft6 Chosen One star 8

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    Nov 12, 2012
    I really think Clone Wars declining in rating has to do with lower viewership patterns across the board in general, being moved around in timeslots, and also how in shows for the most part when they hit their 5th season have a tendency to trend downwards. Not every single one, mind you, but a lot of 'em. Minor continuity glitches with tie-in novels wouldn't be the sole reason for viewership declining, that's just silly. As for the ST, the influx of new fans buying merch would offset the EU fans who REFUSE TO BUY ANYTHING EVER AGAIN EVER BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T USE THE EU!!! Of all the people who collect Star Wars novels, how many of that number are gonna up and ditch on Star Wars forever and ever, not see the movies, not buy products, because Ben Skywalker and Alana Solo aren't the main characters and simply don't exist in this movie? I'm assuming that amount of fans who leave forever based on those very specific criteria would be infinitesimal compared to A) new fans buying freshy branded ST merch B) fans who would continue to buy ST/SW products anyway. The EU is a huge fanbase. The amount of people who walk away from the franchise forevermore because the ST renders all of that irrelevant to continuity will not affect the bottom line. If a hundred people across North America who drop 2 grand on Star Wars products every year never buy a single thing again, that will be offset simply by the influx of fresh, ST-branded cash and the fans that come with it.

    The thing is, every single long-running media franchise undergoes some sort of continuity pipe cleaning at a certain time when the weight of it's own universe threatens to crush in on itself. Now is simply Star Wars' time.
     
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  19. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 6, 2007
    I was specifically using the hypothetical numbers given to me by someone arguing that they made sense. I even mention at the end how hypothetical numbers are a pretty useless measure of anything.

    And I also never said continuity was the sole reason, but it was a reason.

    What it does show is a huge decline in people watching a Star Wars property even when incorporating new fans into the equation. If you think only 100 fans would quit buying new Star Wars products if the EU gets eliminated, I think you are fooling yourself. Heck, more than that have voiced their pro EU opinions on this forum. You just don't believe what we are telling you.;)

    Of course none of the things that happened to The Clone Wars could never happen to the almighty Sequel Trilogy, decreed by the gods it has been.[face_cowboy]

    In other words all the rest jumped off the bridge, so Star Wars might as well copy them.
     
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  20. BigAl6ft6

    BigAl6ft6 Chosen One star 8

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    Nov 12, 2012
    I've seen, like, half a dozen people on this forum explicitly say "I will never buy Star Wars products again if the ST doesn't fit with the EU." There's a huge difference between being pro-EU rah-rah-rah, and flat-out saying that they will never purchase Star Wars again. One does not automatically mean that the other will happen. Ticked off fans will still purchase Star Wars products. Also, of that number that flat-out says that, how many would actually do it? I really simply do not believe that torching the post ROTJ EU in favour of the sequel trilogy would have a significant, or even measurable, effect on Star Wars spin-off product revenue. The number of people who 100% bolt forever and ever until the end of time and never buy Star Wars again will be too low. It's not possible to kill the brand, or even wound it, if the ST does not use the post ROTJ EU. Does not compute. There aren't that many who say it and would actually go through with all the way. Disgruntled EU fan XYZ will, more than likely, continue to buy Star Wars product. Even if they significantly curtail their purchases, the new amount of people buying stuff will counteract that. Then New Fan Joey Joe Joe kicks up his spin-off purchases and takes the spot of disgruntled EU fan XYZ. And, so, the circle of life is complete.

    The thing about jumping off a bridge is that it does create a clean slate. Once you get the mess out of the way, of course.
     
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  21. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Jul 6, 2007
    Some will, some won't. Some will buy way less. Impossible to see the future is.

    I agree that the brand will not ever die, at least not in my lifetime.

    But I'd say a Star Wars film entering theaters and making less than $40 domestically was a wound, if not a wake up call for George Lucas. One thing I will give Lucas is that he wasn't motivated by numbers - Disney won't think the same way.
     
  22. HWK-290

    HWK-290 Jedi Padawan star 2

    Registered:
    Jul 29, 2013
    The Stargate franchise ran for a collective 17 seasons' worth of programming without "jumping off a bridge". It trails only Doctor Who and Star Trek for longest-running sci-fi program, and SG-1 is the longest-running series for consecutive seasons.

    Not every franchise has to "jump off a bridge". Star Wars doesn't have to, either, no matter how much some people may want it to.* It likely will, but it doesn't have to.

    * Please indicate on the doll where The Crystal Scar touched you.
     
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  23. BigAl6ft6

    BigAl6ft6 Chosen One star 8

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    Nov 12, 2012
    It doesn't have to, they can make the post-Crucible compatible ST, but as mentioned a few pages back, it'd be fairly impossible to do that since so much narrative water has flowed under the bridge after the Ewok party in Ep. 6. Dead wookies and dead Sith sons and grandkids and 2 wars and 50 years and Couscant with rings and Luke's new Jedi having been up built back up the PT level council on a different planet and married Solo kid and all that. Also, it'd be kind of a drag to walk into Ep. 7 with the entire past 50 years of the galaxy having already been written without any surprise. And it'd be a rough transition between Episode 6 and Episode 7 if all that happened when, in a few years, we start seeing Spike TV doing those PT/OT/ST marathons. That's a rough jump from Ep. 6 to Ep. 7 with the entire post ROTJ EU crammed in there. Also the guys writing the ST story would have to, theoretically, read every single page of every Star Wars novel published since "Heir to the Empire" and have Chee and Hidlago locked up in the basement so they can yell questions at them after every sentence in the script so make sure it's compatible with the EU. That seems a bit much.
     
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  24. aleja2

    aleja2 Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2005
    Even at its most inflated, the EU novel readers are NOT a huge fanbase. Certainly not compared to the audience for a TV series or a film.

    The Clone Wars' declining ratings are due to a number of factors - aging of audience, timeslot changes, simple attrition, audience fatigue - in other words, the exact same thing that happens to nearly every TV series - and I guarantee you not a single one has to do with the perceived lack of continuity with other, far more esoteric corners of the EU. And as it is, TCW still has a larger audience by a significant factor than do the books.

    And, as declining hardcover book sales are showing (and the hardcover book sales numbers are NOT hypothetical, check the links) - the post-ROTJ timeline books are shedding readers by the tens of thousands.

    Why would Disney/Lucasfilm want to stick to a continuity that long ago fell from the glory days when Heir to the Empire debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestsellers List and stayed there for 29 straight weeks? By comparison, Crucible debuted at #17 and promptly fell off the list in a week. And no, these aren't hypothetical figures, either.

    Finally, for every fan who wants to cling to the EU as it is, there are plenty of others who think the post-ROTJ timeline is a horribly misguided and creatively bankrupt waste of ink, especially since DelRey took over, and are ecstatic about a reboot. ECSTATIC. Every dollar you won't spend - I now will ;) Sure, I'll be sad to lose the elements of the EU to which I am most attached, but it's not like those books are going anywhere. Yoda and Mickey aren't coming to my house, riffling through my shelves, and throwing a book bonfire on my lawn. I can read those books whenever and wherever I like. Since they all have digital editions, they will probably never go out of print, either.

    But I am [face_dancing][face_dancing][face_dancing]that certain other stories are getting thrown on the dustbin of official SW continuity.
     
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  25. BigAl6ft6

    BigAl6ft6 Chosen One star 8

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    Nov 12, 2012
    90s era Bantam fan 4 life here. Got every damn one! And they shoulda kept it that way, too, and kept the main trilogy heroes in a constant state of non-giant status quo changing adventures from Ep. 4 till let's say 10 years after ROTJ. It's a big universe, you can find stuff in there and not have to drop a moon in a wookie and grow up an entire next generation of book only offspring.
     
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