Full Series Petition of the 2000: Preserving the Integrity of the Star Wars Saga

I don't think he dislikes Star Wars fans, but EU fans can rub him the wrong way. You can tell the guy loves Star Wars, especially when he's getting passionate in the Clone Wars roundtables. But he doesn't hold back when addressing the "concerns" of EU aficionados, particularly in the Clone Wars vs. EU debate.

 

Correct. However, we can and should suggest that his Company do so. It is the job of Lucasfilm to prevent these hurdles. Hence the holocron and the job. We know George doesn't read all of this. Things that he sees and likes he uses. But there is no way that George Lucas has read all the stuff that Lucasfilm Ltd has put out. If he had, I imagine he'd have some major issues with some of Del Rey's novels and he likely would have caught the Coruscant Nights slip up as well.

I maintain that Lucasfilm needs to do as their boss has stated and separate projects that George Lucas has direct involvement in and the Expanded Universe. There is just too much out there now to keep it all one big happy family. And trying to do that has resulted in lost authors, bad stories, and terrible products. Fans are frustrated, employees of Lucasfilm are frustrated, and so are the writers for both the series and the novels. This current status quo is tying hands all over the place and is causing the final product to suffer as a result. Clone Wars is hindered just as much as EU books are by this "one canon" policy that can and has been broken any time George has an idea.

It's like, for lack of a better metaphor, George is Godzilla and the EU is Japan. Or Zillo Beast and Coruscant. All those nice, constructed stories in a neat and orderly manner can be torn down in a second if George wishes. And it's left to Leeland and the writers to rebuild after George leaves. But the new story is flawed and half constructed and is nowhere near as stable as the original.

But let's not even go into George. If authors were allowed to have more infinity labels ala Batman, X-Men etc. would so many people be upset with an author's viewpoint like Karen Traviss had about jedi and clones? Or would the fact that canon was no longer so important allow readers to better enjoy the work? Taking Michael Reaves saga and the change with Piell, does the story work better without Piell or is it worse?

It was nice when Star Wars had one unified canon and the universe was smaller and less populated. That hasn't been the case since the films ended. At some point, canon is going to have to split off as more and more unexplored territory is captured. So why not do it now?

 

Well she was very young- also Luke asked that before he revealed their relationship so i'm guessing Leia meant Breha Organa not Padmé- then forcesensitives are known to be able to remember things as newly born (Asajj Ventress taken away as baby- remembered her mother too Luke's eyes were closed- it was sooo close he would've met her too.....)

EU is not coherent- Saga is not perfectly coherent either but EU-continuity is overrated there is good stories but continuity is not good IMO- it has cool stuff and pure crap mixed what is cool and what not is up to reader/viewer/gamer to decide- canon is overrated as well if you like some comic or something- why it's important it's canon according to some damn sourcebook....... SW is fiction anyway- no need to fear 'non-canonising' it changes only status of eu-stories in this overrated c-canon- stories remain and you can enjoy them- no one is burning all comics or novels as "wrong SW" or anything future EU will retcon stuff anyway they never throw everything away and George is not taking over EU or stopping it's production he just wants to tell his version of the story and as creator of SW his version is officially above others then what... it has always been G-canon>C-canon

 

Aurra Sing wasn't an EU creation. Unless you're talking about her backstory, which hasn't seemed to make much of an impact on her TCW appearances.

 

Even Ventress to a degree isn't a EU creation, the concept of the character was created for AOTC. But Vos and Secura are 100% EU creations.....rather good ones too.

 

Your first paragraph clearly makes my point. The facts where changed to fit the situation a little better even though I think everyone will agree with your point, as do I, still think of it as a stretch but something that is easy to look over. When people say that seen in ROTS when Padme died I'm sure they were like "I thought Leia grew up with Padme for a couple years" but then they just had to change it in their minds that Leia saw Padme in a force impression. Nothing to really take you out of the story. Like a said recontable with very to little damage being done.

Its clear you don't like the EU, which is fine there is nothing wrong with it, but why piss on someone's parade when its not needed. Not saying you are pissing on a parade but that Lucus did. Some people, like me, like countinuity. Its why I cannot get into Marvel or DC comics. I'd rather, if I'm going to spend my time in a fantasy world, spend it in a corherant and same world.

Yes I know this happened one time. The petition is show it doesn't happen again or at least not so often. The problem was I liked the show and I also like Coriscaunt Knights. I don't/shouldn't have to choose. Not from the same licensing company.

 

I know what you are saying that she was created in a sketch for Attack of the Clones, but it would be hard to tell if we would have seen her again if it were not for the mini-series. Maybe but my main point was the EU as contributed more to George's Star Wars then they want to admit.

With Aurra Sing, yes she was seen in the movie first, but like so many characters, before this series could even be made, she was given a back story that the EU could provide to fans. Although I am fine with how they changed her, and I like the new version better, and yet how they did it did not destroy what came before it. Can you see what I mean? The two can exist side by side and you can have both exist in your universe or you can have one, its your choice but should be your choice to make.

 

I find that Newman's follow up post is annoying.

"I Love the EU but there's too much of it! Quality over Quantity man!"
Later
"I find it great we're getting Star Wars every week now!"


What was that about quality over quantity again? I was too busy deleting Senate Spy and Corruption from my itunes.

 

Sorry Darth Tarkus-I don't agree with you. The dvd version is not the orignal version of the original star wars movies. He won't release them, and yes this just as irrelevant. Why, beucase back then they tried petitions to have them released and they or better he didn't do it. 14 years later and we are not getting the original as I rememeber seeing them in the movies. What you fail to realize is that the EU is meant to serve GL and his show, not vice versa. He can pick anything in the EU and use it and he laready has and will do so again, but only to fit into his story telling of his product that he created and owened. Its alaways hard when you have to work in someone elses sandbox instead of your own. Everyone always has an idea how they can better do something that is not theirs.

You can sugest and by alrights you can and should, but do any of you really think that GL is going to change the way he is going to tell season4 which is probably in the bag, and most of season 5 story's? Didn't you guys read Christain Taylor's interview? The show is going to be very up their with the movies, and everything else is the EU. Lucasfilm, Lucasbooks, and everything else must follow anything that GL says. He is alive, has the license and is the rightful owner of his oiwn property. Nowhere has anyone said that the EU is trash or being railoraded. That was always meant to be another universe that really tie's in nicey with GL story. But it could never be the other way around and would never allow it. i agree with the minortity that the EU is the EU and GL stuff is his and he has the right to do what he wants. Now that I see this petiton stuff, I really hope that season 4 really adds more controversial stuff, as well as the MMO of TOR.

 

Common Darth Zandalor you could do better than that

Senate Spy was needed to further the potltical aspect of the show, and its way better than ohhh wait Lets see the EU should part of the movies........Aryn could literally hover/glide 31 miles in the air with a dude in tow to the ground and not get killed. Thats EU. Even the vaunted super powerful Starkiller never did that. What about Dork 81 and force pushing 17 star destroyers across the galaxy? Wow, not even Superman did that. If that were the case, the Emperor in ROTJ could have done that to the mieasly rebel fleet and their woldn't need to be a death star. You talk about bad stuff, the EU is full of them. Even that dudde from Dark Times all of a sudden looks like a graying Obi-Wan in what less than two months? Yep, okay.

 

Vong333-The EU isn't meant to serve GL and his show since last time I checked, the EU existed for a long time before the TCW show was created. If GL really cared about doing the Clone Wars the entire time, then he would have told Del Rey and Dark Horse to leave it alone after AOTC, but that didn't happen. Everything is canon except for things that say Infinities on them. I hate the crap where something is C-level, G-level, or whatever since everything is canon. The EU actually jump started a lot of things and without it, do you really think that GL would be as successful as he is right now with the the TCW show. GL does not have the right to do what he wants since he needs to respect other people's work and not pick and choose things. What if he kills off K'Kruhk? Then he has just screwed over fans of Legacy like myself and that would be pretty pathetic. That is also a pretty horrible thing to say that you want more controversial stuff that could mess with the current EU like with TOR which GL has no business attempting to use. I don't know if you are being serious or just trying to get a reaction.

Also, are you trying to get a reaction out of Darth Zandalor because that was a pretty rude way of going about things. I have not read Deceived so I can't comment on the girl using the force to slow down her fall, but that isn't a big deal if you have read other novels and comics in the EU. Kevin J. Anderson writes people as doing really powerful things so that is not really an accurate portrayal of the EU. Actually Palpatine can create a Force Storm that tears apart planets and theoretically could have taken out fleets in the movies, but didn't. I don't know what books and comics that you have read, but I find the EU as a whole to be superior to the TCW show which isn't even better than the Republic comics in my opinion. I am not saying that the EU perfect because nothing is and the current series, FOTJ, has not been that good, but the good outweighs the bad and it just seems very convenient to call out bad parts of the EU to further an agenda. All of this would be a moot point if they just announce having separate universes like I have been advocating for the entire time, but that probably won't happen.

 

I think I'm a little late to understanding the POV that the EU is sacrosanct to a lot of fans because for most of the time I've been a fan, from 1977 through 2004 or so, every single piece of the EU was constructed standing right in the path of the Continuity Steamroller represented by the movies still being made. The leadup to ROTS was the only time a major effort was made to tie EU material into an as-yet-unreleased film.

So that was a long, long time during which we fans partook of the EU with the full knowledge that GL was going to disregard it at his whim. I really only read much EU (it wasn't called that then) as a youngling as the OT was being released, the Marvel series, newspaper strips and novels of that time. They were fun; then another film came out and contradicted them: the Steamroller moved on, and we followed it. (The fact that the Marvel series and "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" are still considered canonical kind of boggles my mind; they were sort of understood to be apocryphal even at the time.)

So I guess what I didn't get was that post-ROTS a lot of fans, mostly younger ones I'd guess, have felt like the Steamroller had shut down and the EU only had to keep square with itself. What TCW does is really no different from what happened to stuff like Boba Fett's backstory or Obi-Wan's brother Owen or Jabba not looking like a biped walrus in the features. It simply seems that some people are less inclined to view TCW as "worthy" of being the Steamroller that the films always were. I can see that perspective, but given Lucas's involvement in TCW, nothing has really changed.

I see it this way: between 1980 and 1983 there was no definitive answer as to whether or not Vader was Luke's father. I had a copy of Marvel Star Wars Annual #1 which pretty definitively described Darth Vader and Luke's father as separate characters. ROTJ said otherwise. And frankly, at the time, ROTJ seemed like a kiddie-fied version of the SW I'd come to enjoy up to that point, which is how a lot of people feel about TCW. Still, it was pretty clear what the real story was: GL's word was final.

Forums like this one are good for people blowing off steam about their favorite stories being callously disregarded, or proclaiming they're giving up fandom forever, etc., but there's not much hope that that'll change things. It could be way worse-- imagine if, instead of the basically EU-friendly Filoni in charge of TCW, we had someone from completely outside fandom. There'd be blood, I tell you.

 

Can people please stop spouting that BS that "Lucas doesn't have the right etc etc." Of course he has the right, he owns the damn company! And IMO, it is also very hypocritical to say Lucas should be bound to keep the original portrayal of various EU works that are included into his work, yet the EU can take the characters he created and take them into far different directions then Lucas had originally intended.

It works both ways......

 

Are you sure Leia?s line is that much of a contradiction? She says that she ?remembers? her mother... which is likely fuelled by what Bail told her about her mother, etc... it doesn?t necessarily mean that she literarily remembered her. Then you have the possibility she was able to see her through the Force and confused this with her true memories... However that is besides the point since the contradictions in the EU go far beyond someone?s lines... the EU has created fairly glaring inconsistencies much more significant. The EU universe it not coherent in itself...

I think you diminish Lucas? role in this overall universe. He didn?t just create one part of the universe he created the universe, and while I understand it may be frustrating to have certain stories ?steam-rolled? over I see it as a small price to pay for more engaging stories... otherwise you are left with everyone?s fate determined and with Lucas carefully treading in his own universe. If there were EU stories within the PT films, would it have been so terrible that Lucas disregarded some of them? What he is giving us is compelling stories and, in my opinion, the stuff Lucas creates is paramount to the EU.

You say that Lucas has to be respectful of the EU, yet the EU seems to have disregarded certain ?film? concepts... which in my opinion have created an even greater gap in continuity.

Are you sure about this?

Actually we know exactly what the Chosen One prophecy means... even without the Mortis trilogy which only gave specifics about the nature of balance and its relation to the Force. However what the prophecy actually means has been confirmed by Lucas. George has officially stated that the prophecy is fulfilled at the end of the Saga why Anakin destroying the Sith, bringing balance to the Force and getting rid of evil in the universe (admittedly the last part is likely more of a metaphor for ?ultimate evil?). However whichever way you look at it the ultimate point of the prophecy was destroying the Sith through which balance could occur... if the Sith return in the EU then o

 

I am entitled to my opinion just like you so I don't think that I am spouting BS. The EU actually doesn't take his characters into directions that he originally intended because he has a say as to what happens in the current EU and approves things dealing with his characters and other people's characters too. For example, GL forced Del Rey to have Jacen and Anakin switch places even though he never had anything to do with them basically with Anakin dying since people would get him confused with Anakin Skywalker in the prequels which is a weak excuse. He also won't let any members of the Big Three die and I think that is a mistake since it takes away the drama of the current series and makes things less interesting. He approved of Chewie's death also. So you are mistaken with GL not having a say in the characters right now. I am just wondering what you have read from the EU because if you haven't read anything from it and believe that GL is the word of God, well good luck with that.

 

They do take his characters into different directions that he never intended, Lucas has said many times that if he were to do anything post ROTJ it would be vastly different from what has transpired in the EU as of right now(Luke wouldn't have gotten married, The Emperor doesn't come back etc.). Lucas, for the most part lets them have a free reign on things and he only steps in when the EU may come into conflict with what he is working on. The Jacen/Anakin issue is prefect example, because Lucas didn't want Anakin Solo confused with Anakin Skywalker, another example is Tim Zahn and the issue of the Sith back in the early 90's, and The Clone Wars era pre PT.

Just because he approves of something, doesn't mean that was what he intended to happen.

 

However he still doesn?t have a say in the actual intended storylines. To Lucas, Luke didn?t get married, Palpatine didn?t get clones and the Sith never returned after ROTJ. It is apparent that Lucas can?t actually direct the stories which are being told and as such the changes he makes to the EU are merely in preservation of his own universe (to avoid the confusion between two Anakin?s, etc). It?s not like the stories in the EU are his own ideas... I am sure that what he intended is completely different. George himself has confirmed that the post-ROTJ EU was nothing at all what he would have done with it.

 

BC Edit: Cool it. No personal attacks.

I also agree with what the previous poster posted. Its the reality.

 

Let me clarify this, I love the EU, like most people, but, I'm realistic of things when it comes to GL stuff. Its the way it is and he dosen't have to change for no one. I also know that the clone wars cartoon series was done to help generate interest as they get ready for the live action show which will probably have none of the movie charatcers in them, except probably bounty hunters. Even that will be a problem for some of you because you beleive Boba Fett had a certain hisotry and GL will most likely overwrite the stuff. Especially if he keeps using people like Katie Lucas (his daughter) and people like Christian Taylor who dosen't really follow eu stuff, and all those live action writers.

 

I can totally recognize myself in what AhsokaMiro's saying.

But all of this reminds me how pissed-off I was with Zahn for totally ruining Luke's character. He took post-RotJ Luke and made him so incredibly naive that he fell for that completely transparent Joruus C'baoth crap. It is ridiculously unbelievable.

So yes, I agree that the EU took Lucas' characters and more or less butchered them. Where's the petition to complain about that?

Not to mention some of those EU nutcakes I've met who, after reading the NJO series, were fully convinced that Lucas' take on the Force was wrong!

Most of the EU I read first was all that post-RotJ crap, almost all of which is equally bad. I guess I decided 15 years ago that none of that would ever be 'official history' for me. As much as I liked some of it though. There's plenty of stuff I love that I wouldn't consider to be canon. Like the JK/JO games. Then again, I don't care about canon, I care about bad stories that do not jive with the saga, and in my opinion a lot of EU doesn't jive with the saga at all.

 

To be fair, the Mortis Trilogy implies that George Lucas doesn't even know his own view on the Force.

 

Then maybe you're taking the wrong things away from it.

The fact that it's a little too open for interpretation is a bit of a flaw in the trilogy, admittedly. Or rather, it didn't fully succeed in making things a bit clearer to understand.

 

Yes, the trilogy certainly made me question everything I knew.

 

It wasn?t really meant to. It was meant to show what ?balance? means and the characteristics of it within the Force. Something I think it made obvious...

 

I too felt it was obvious, but seeing as how many people are taking away very different things from it, obviously means it wasn't all that obvious after all.