Lit Poll: Have your EU consumptive habits changed since the Disney announcement?

I voted "no change" although there should be an option for "my consumption has increased."

*looks around worriedly*

My interest waxed and waned many times since 1996ish when I got into the EU, but it took a dip the last three or four years simply for branching out in my reading/viewing and my lack of interest in much of what was coming out. (Mostly bailed on the post-NJO era; you know the drill.) I've always been in theory a completist, although of course in practice I had to prioritize. After 18 years I've probably still only read 75% of the Legends novels and comics. There was no rush--it would always "be there" to catch up on a later point, since nothing ever went out of print except RPGs and YA.

After the Disney announcement preceded by Celebration VI two months earlier, my interest was rekindled--not because of any optimism toward Disney but simply that Star Wars was back on my mind again. And now with the reboot/shift to Marvel, I'm working to fill gaps before they go OOP, plus I want to reread/catch up as much of Legends EU as I can before the ST.

Sure, I'll still have the material, but once the ST is out it will be difficult to keep it from mentally intruding. Just like after you've seen, say, LOTR, it's hard not to picture Viggo Mortensen and Ian McKellen no matter what your earlier headvision was. So while I expect to run out of time for it, I really want to give Bakura-to-NJO another readthrough while still as "untainted" as possible. (OTOH, maybe post-NJO will BENEFIT from knowing it's noncanon and I can just enjoy it as an even-more-what-if timeline. )

That all being said ... I'm willing to give the NU a shot, since the first four books look promising. And I have to admit there's a tiny piece of myself (of which I am rightfully ashamed ) that looks forward to starting over from the ground floor and having a completely manageable, uncluttered shelf which contains ALL THE CANON. Yes, yes, I know it will only take a few months to be a mess again, both physically and within continuity, but that's not how that part of my brain works.

 

I agree, honestly. Hell, as much as I'm going to miss the EU, I'm looking forward to seeing what a continuity built up around Episodes I-VI from the getgo will look like.

 

This is what I wanted back in 1999-2001.

Back then I was kind of dumb though and disappointed that Luke's Jedi order wasn't a simulacrum of the prequel Jedi order. Then I got what I wanted.

Mea culpa

 

I'm also looking forward to this and its one of the reasons why I voted no change. Lets face it, as much as some want to or not, things need change or they become stagnant. Disney bought Lucasfilm, they own Marvel, Pixar, and the Star Wars property. Yeah, this new way of doing things is going to be good. I like the idea of the story group and like the fact that we are going to get all new stories. No more restrictions, no more check with GL who will allow this but not that. No more the EU is separate from the films and stuff like that anymore. That my friends......is something to look forward too. A book that is valued just as much as a movie, or a comic book that has as much weight as a spin off movie. No more trampling around like Obsession, LOE and the Clone Wars micro series. No more of that. Everything consistent and unilateral. Thats how many of us, me included really wanted star wars.

 

Del Rey/Denning already drove me out of most of the novels. I never bought FotJ, and decided finally to donate my LotF to the library's books for troops drive. I generally trade-wait, but Dark Horse killed all the series that I was following- Agents of the Empire and KotOR. Legacy never really appealed to me, so Volume 2 means nothing special, and Star Wood's terrible plot outweighs the pretty pictures.

I liked Clone Wars and Ahsoka, but they had to go and cancel it, instead of move it from CN to Disney XD like they could have (unless there was a contract thing going on)

No real interesting games coming out. 1313 sounded cool at first, then it turned out that it was going to be focused on Boba Fett, instead of a new interesting character, so I'm glad it got cancelled. Battlefront 3 has potential, if they make it more like Battlefield 3/4 or Battlefront 1, with a focus on the troops, and leave out the crappy space (in favor of a real flight sim) and herohammer mode. Give us just one cool game that is about the normal soldiers, rather than focus on the Jedi/Sith like everything else.

 

What can I say, I have been largely uninterested in recent years thanks to LFL and Del Rey's actions, and the Disney situation has done virtually nothing to change that, since many of the same people who allowed Star Wars to be screwed up from my point of view are still involved. I don't think I am capable of buying into what Disney is doing, with plot details from Episode VII being the only thing I am looking out for on that front. I still need to acquire a few things I have been meaning to obtain, primarily the Clone Wars multimedia project and selected novels, but after that I am most likely done.

 

My habits are based out of money and interest. Heir to the Jedi's first person interests me, but I'll probably library the novel because of my almost non-interest in OT era novels. If I'm going to spend $30 on a hardback I'm going to pick up an author I enjoy. I have a life to live instead of wasting time on books I'll probably won't like. There's a reason MST3K did film instead of prose.

 

I voted "buying Legends now", though I'm more of the "wait and see" opinion on the new stuff. I haven't bought most of the recent novels outside of a few, though I still try to read most of them when I have some time. Though I used to read some on release day, but lost interest after a while (post-NJO certainly didn't help).

I have been trying to buy as much Dark Horse as I can since they won't be available after this year. Well, copies will still be floating around, of course, but there are quite a few Dark Horse stories that I never got around to buying that I am going to get around to buying this year, either in physical or digital format at least. Note to self, get around to buying Jedi vs. Sith.

I'm not buying everything Dark Horse (I am not buying Star Wood outside of another issue with a Cooke-drawn fleet battle, and they didn't do that again, so I've saved money, but sad to not have more Cooke art), but I'm still following them a lot.

Not sure about Marvel's upcoming stuff, and the newly announced novels don't sound that exciting, partially because we don't know much about them. Luceno is dependable, but with how old canon was thrown out, its hard to tell how much stuff he'll be able to draw on. If it had been announced a year or two ago, expectations would be much higher. The rest, meh, don't care that much. I don't care about most Marvel comics much, and I expect it will mostly just stay centered around the OT and eventual lead-ins to Episode VII, guess it'll depend on the writer and artwork (and please, no events). Just a bit longer until Comic-con and more news.

Glad no more TCW, stopped buying anything TCW related after season 2.

Still been buying a good deal of RPG stuff, not everything, but the core stuff at least. Normally I don't care about the core rulebook stuff (never bothered with WotC's Saga edition), but the artwork and lore is too good to pass up. Not to mention a pretty detailed account of the Corellian sector.

 

Yeah, I'm kinda the same. There's not a lot of things I can't wait for the TPB release of (since MMPB are almost as expensive as TPB's now) and sometimes you can get the e-book a lot cheaper, but there's no way I'm shelling out $30 on what I consider relaxation reading.*

I can't say my habits have changed because we're in such a desert of releases. When we get closer to the movie I'll evaluate who is doing what and how things look and go from there.

*I mean, seriously, Black Library released my man ADB's VENGEFUL SPIRIT with a $40 USD price tag for the hardcover. I love his writing and I love Horus Heresy...but I can wait. Although, tbf, their e-book version was only about $16, iirc.

 

Buying up the Legends stuff, I'm not interested in the new canon. I'll definitely give the movies a watch when they're out, but that's about it. I'll treat them as in-universe alternate history and leave it at that.

 

Oh, my poor wallet. Woe be to my bank account.

Or to put it another way, like many others, i'm grabbing as much as I can before certain things go OOP. Graphics novels, followed by young readers stuff, and then the novels (which will still be around). Bloody expensive process though. However, i've nearly 'completed' the Omnibus collection, have all KOTOR, Legacy part 1 and the TCW digests. I have my foot in the door (one to several volumes) of a lot of other series, sans Legacy part 2, Star Wars, The Star Wars, and Agent of the Empire. It's not been cheap though, not at all.

The upside is that the great majority of it I haven't read. The downside is that I don't particularly want to 'wear' the books by reading them, as I like pristine things when it comes to collecting.

So on the subject of the topic, if anything my EU consumption had increased a great deal. I hold no grudge towards the NEU, however, and am looking forwards to what comes.

 

I'm planning on rereading all of my EU books though my collection is relatively small.

I intend to carry on buying with the new canon but I will wait for the paperbacks to come out, unless there is a novel that I really am interested in that I wouldn't be able to wait for the paperback to come out. Right now the only new book coming out that interests me enough to possibly buy it in hardback is the Sidious/Vader book. I fully intend to carry on buying the books but have a shelf dedicated to old canon and new canon

 

I really haven't been reading as much at all as i should be. I'm on a bit of a break from Star Wars EU atm.. I'm nearly done with me current book, so I should go back to it soon. Other than that, I really don't mind the renouncement of the EU.

 

I've been buying more stuff. Specifically, Dark Horse graphic novels and omnibuses. Since one doesn't know if and when Marvel may or may not reprint DH stuff.

Also I have been reading it of course. Though I do admit I am slow. I should hopefully be finishing Crimson Empire Saga within a week or so.

 

I still get through about 2 books a month.

At this rate I might finish the EU at the end of next year, and then I can start on the new stuff.

 

I said "buying everything now, no plans to read the new EU" but that's mostly because I want to collect all of DH's material before it potentially goes out of print. I very well might decide to read the new EU eventually.

 

Im buying all of or as much as I can from DHC. Im not buying any Legends books and Im not buying any Disneyverse books. Library read the legend books, then maybe library read the Disneyverse books.

Disney is happy to shatter continuity for profits, so I won't invest $ into something I am uncertain about.

 

Interestingly there's about a 50/50 split between - no change and decrease of some nature (if you aggregate the similar categories). Which is actually a little more resistance to the Disney reboot than I expected.



Personally, I voted

Buying everything Legends now and not planning to read anything from the new EU

Honestly, from what I've seen of the director, cast, and rebels promo, I'm not impressed. Yes, its very little to go on, but that's my take thus far. Yes, the old EU had a lot of problems, especially pos-NJO, but it was for the most part readable, and enjoyable sci-fi/fantasy of a nature that appealed to all age groups. I get the distinct impression from what I've seen that the nEU will be aimed more at a younger audience.

Additionally, we've seen with the Legacy-era novels what happens to story direction and quality when a small crew is in charge of controlling the direction of things. And that appears to be exactly what's happening with the new story group, so even if my above speculation is inaccurate (Marvel seems to have maintained an adult flare, though POTC has gotten progressively more infantile) that is a major concern.The excerpts released from Heir to the Jedi are particularly concerning in writing quality as well for having been approved by this group.

And most importantly to me, is the lack of investment in whatever they do from hence forth. Star Wars was for a long time a rich, diverse, varied and intricate universe with many different threads that went in all directions. Yes, there were inconsistencies and retcons, but these were pretty few when you consider the sheer volume of material. That's all been lost now, and it will never be replicated either because the Story Group will make sure that what gets put out is very limited in scope so that it doesn't impact plans for future movies or whatever that may or may not come down 10 years in the future.

That's going to stifle creativity way more than keeping most or all of the existing EU would have. And to be honest, a universe with those restrictions doesn't interest me at all.

I will probably buy Heir and Tarkin as they will likely fit in the Legends EU, but the rebels tie-in doesn't interest me at all. The Vader/Palpatine book is painfully out of character and I can only hold out hope that Kemp keeps his more serious tone. But likely those two or three will be my last purchases. I refuse to support the post-reboot novels. (These are technically post-reboot, but likely written before the edict came down simply by calculating back from their release dates)



I have been buying a lot of DHC since the announcements so that I don't miss stuff before it goes out of print. Also, for the first time since The Unifying Force (other than Deathtroopers for that awesome cover) I bought hardcovers *shudder* of the last four EU books because I want copies that aren't stamped with "Legends" across the top.

The Legends Universe will always be, to me anyway, the REAL Star Wars. And The Thrawn Trilogy will be my sequel trilogy.

 

The EU universe will probably always be my SW with the NJO series being my ST continuation and the Legacy comics being my SST/FT continuation of the Saga. Still need to get some comics and books from this timeline though. Not counting TCW, TFU1and2, or Star Wood. Still am on the fence about the Post NJO books.
With the new stuff I can't just throw it out. It's more SW. Will it be as fun this time around? Unknown. But I will try it.

 

I'm buying/reading whatever books sound interesting to me, which is pretty much the same as my reading habits beforehand. I haven't tried to read every EU book since the prequel-era books started coming out.

 

I voted “no change” but I’m actually buying more … I started off reading all of the OT/post-RotJ EU, up till the middle of the NJO, when I realised I just wasn’t enjoying it any more and really didn’t care what was going to happen, so I stopped. Then I picked it up again for LotF because I wanted to see what they did with Lumiya … and then read the Dark Nest trilogy to see Leia’s Jedi training … So I was reading/buying what interested me, I guess. And I’m still doing that now, it just seems that it’s more relevant to my interests now.


Even before the big purge, I saw signs the EU was changing, with the return to the post-ANH time period, and the exploration of alternate continuities with The Star Wars. I’ve always loved Infinities. I loved Honor Among Thieves and Razor’s Edge, and I’m enjoying Brian Wood’s Star Wars, and Rebel Heist. The difference is, I’d be happy for these to be canon, whereas I never really allowed the old EU into my personal canon, for various reasons. All of these stories have a freshness and old-school style to them that the EU hasn’t had for years, in my opinion. I hope it continues like that.

 

I just can't see authors being able to carve their own side of Star Wars or make long lasting stories with their own characters.

Will we get another Zayne Carrick? Dass Jennir? Quinlan Vos? Cade Skywalker and the whole beauty that is Legacy?

Another New Jedi Order huge story? I just don't see people like John and Jan being able to make some expansive and awesome content in the Disney verse.

It seems like they are trying to save any big exploitable area for films.

I cant be excited for this. I want more things like Legacy, Kotor, Dawn of the Jedi, etc.

Disneyverse just seems so constricted and boring. The nice thing about the EU was choice. Don't like TCW? Read Republic.

But now its limited to OT style stories. Boring and Bland.

 

I went with "decreased," which is true, but the factors include a number of real-life factors independent of the Disney announcement.

 

Yeah, real-life factors have always played a major role in how much time/$$$ I invest in the EU at any given time. It's the principal reason I find myself holding off on buying anything until the near future (Tarkin novel), when we start to see how much of the old EU will be lost. If the loss is not great and parts of the EU remain intact, I can live with it. But if the new EU decides to redo everything from the ground up, and even redo the entire era between ROTJ and Ep. 7 with entirely new stories and characters, then I'm no longer interested. Sure, some stories will no doubt be good, while some will no doubt be bad, just like the old EU. But I loved the old EU because I grew up with it, and at this point in my life I can't see myself spending a ton of money to restock my bookshelves with every new book and comic.

 

I'm afraid you're right