Lit Sequel Trilogy Retcons - Being Prepared, Being Positive (Minor spoilers)

They didn't release as many books the last couple years because they didn't know what the plan was. SOTJ and that Kemp duology (still waiting to know what that was about) would have been released.
Borrowing from Havac from another thread but
But boy, is that outline tantalizing. All that pre-Republic stuff, a piece on the Kanz Disorders, a piece on Czerka, O/RDs, Uueg Tching and Atrisia, Hapes, the Great Droid Revolt (I really, really want to see that), Foerost (!), Saul Karath and a bunch of KOTOR-era stuff, a piece on Ruusan, the Nova Guard, the Stark Hyperspace War, Senate Commandos, local security forces (that would have really been interesting), Sidious's pawns (sounds intriguing . . . Jason, can you tell us who you were thinking of for that?), RAITH SIENAR, Military Funding and Conscription sounds interesting, ARC troopers, peace movements, Imperial Royal Guard, Clone Wars holdous, pirates and slavers (sounds fascinating), the Lortan Fanatics (might the soldier's story have been told by Baron Fel?), Traditions of the Imperial Navy!!!!!!!, chanteuse for the ISO sounds great, a bunch of stuff on Anaxes, Kuat, and Carida which would be totally awesome, friggin' Sixtus Quin, all the stuff on lesser-known trooper types that could be pretty interesting, all the different manufacturer profiles throughout the book (especially TaggeCo), Trianii stuff that would be a great nod to Daley, the two early sections of the Rebellion chapter, a look at prisoners of war could have been a really informative take on an under-considered issue, I'd have loved to have seen more on the Hell's Hammers and Storm Commandos, PRIVATEERS, TARKIN, Basso!, Rebel Fighter Corps, SpecForce, Fondor, Derra IV, Jowdrrl on the Falcon, post-Hoth, more on Endor, Nagai, Lemelisk, Milagro, Denon, Salm, Rogue Squadron, the Marg Sabl (always wanted more on that reference), KATARN COMMANDOS, Airen Cracken, a Mon Calamari profile, a piece on the Crimson Empire would have been fertile continuity ground, return to Bastion (what would that have been about?), a Base Delta Zero piece, SIEN SOVV, a Lah bio, THE CHISS FLEETS and Csilla, THE EMPIRE OF THE HAND, Mandalorian Protectors . . . there's like a whole two more books here of stuff I want badly.

The EU finished? Not likely.

 

The way I see it, LFL could have fixed a lot of the problems by jettisoning the post-NJO, since there is sadly no way in a million years they would ever do away with TCW, but no they just had to take an all or nothing approach out of shear convenience.

 

To be honest though going with an all or nothing approach is a lot more realistic than what many of the EU fans are saying (which is save what I like and discard what I don't like).

Disney did the right thing and they either kept the whole enchilada or discarded the whole enchilada.

 

Except they didn't. They told us EU fans tough luck nothing you care about counts but we'll cannibalise all the EU materials we want and change them evidently expecting us to be happy. Some of us aren't.

 

Like I said, Lando had a realllly busy week when he had the Falcon! A lot of times in Marvel comics, people point out "how could Wolverine or Spidey be everywhere at once"? I just view it as these are fictional characters who lead exceptionally busy lives.

 

That's pretty much the same as discarding. And anybody who has ever worked knows it is impossible to make everybody happy as no matter what you do some will find fault in it (sometimes simply because they want to find fault in it).

 

For you, perhaps.

 

The post-RotJ EU, or rather just the post-NJO EU was seriously ill because Del Rey mismanaged their licence horrifically. Cheap authors made for high profit margins, but pissed off old fans who were used to better, while crazy long multiauthor series with hardcover galore kept the cash coming in but deterred new readers. What the EU needed was a better publisher and editor. Star Wars is a bankable enough name that you can afford to give the publisher a bigger cut and sacrifice profits in exchange for great books that will draw in readers and turn them into fans, who will make up the loss elsewhere by buying things and raising their kids as Star Wars fans.
It could have used some retcons, or selective amnesia - I think you'll find most of us agree on a few things there - but we clearly still wanted more stories in the universe we'd known for so long, and the point just before NJO was a perfect place to start a new trilogy that would reinvigorate it.
Instead, they took the EU off life support, and gave those same publishers and editors a blank check to redraft much of the universe, with only the Story Group to constrain them this time.
So far, they've announced decent-to-great authors for the first wave (with JJM in particular being a standout) but if they continue the mistakes of the past and bring in Denning or others of his ilk, it would bode very poorly for the future of the franchise, IMO.

 

The EU has thousands of years worth of stories left to be told.

 

I mean, LFL couldn't even be bothered to keep anything directly connected to the films, so what exactly was the point of the last 38 years now?

 

Yep. They do.

 

It is still there. Just as an alternate universe to the movies that are going to be made from this point forward.

 

I knew I was probably never going to get my way with TCW since it came from Lucas himself, but now I am just never going to get my way with anything, because everything that meant something to me is now basically irrelevant.

 

I tell you what. Read 'A New Dawn'. Get 'Tarkin' when it comes out in November. Watch a bit of the television show when it starts up in a couple weeks. There is plenty of stuff out there for you to get into again. Most people seem to think that 'A New Dawn' is one of the better Star Wars books ever written and there is a good chance that Tarkin will be just as good if not better based off of who is writing it.

If you are going to be rejecting the new EU don't be rejecting it out of spite. If you enjoyed the old EU chances are you will like the new stuff just as much if not more.

 

Let me put it this way, the films are the only thing retained in this new canon business that I care about, so what exactly is the point of being a fan anymore? TCW has made it so I have no desire to watch Rebels, because Star Wars television seems to be destined to contradict the EU at every opportunity. From my point of view and based on their declaration, no matter how good A New Dawn and Tarkin are, they will never really be the same Star Wars I care about. Why did they even really need such a declaration to do that, TCW sure didn't and it basically did the same thing on a much larger scale. I couldn't wrap my head around what TCW did, so do you really think I am likely to be able to wrap my head around what the ST does to the universe?

 

Given that her Padawan was about 12 when she's first seen thinking of recruiting him, and 14 at the time of Order 66 - that would suggest that the scene at the start of the book, takes place 1 year into the Clone Wars - only a few months after Shatterpoint.

Sounds like a very quick rehabilitation.

 

I did notice that Shatterpoint is one of those things that even very "movie-centric" reference books like the Dorling Kindersley series (Mysteries of the Jedi in this case) still make references to - it lists all the TPM High Council members, plus the ones that joined the High Council after TPM, and calls out Depa as having fallen to the Dark Side during the war.

Similarly - the more recent "Star Wars The Clone Wars: Who Are The Jedi?" references Quinlan as having fallen to the dark side and been brought back - so even in a TCW book, there are nods to the Republic comic series.

 

Keep in mind that, movie-centric and TCW-centric as they were, those books still predated the announcement.

 

Well that is your choice I guess. You are being extremely bullheaded about the situation though and the only person you will be hurting is yourself by turning your nose up at good star wars stories simply because you want to turn your nose up at them.

 

My choice? So it is my choice to make the EU functionally irrelevant for the sole benefit of more films that most people had resigned themselves to never getting. Bullheaded? LFL has said they aren't going to necessarily follow anything from the EU going forward. Which makes this entire thread a pointless exercise, because there aren't going to be anymore retcons going forward. Yes I have, but that doesn't mean I wanted it all thrown out the window, because the majority of the EU was Star Wars to me, definitely a heck of a lot more than just the films.

And I meant TCW basically did the same thing on a much "smaller" scale in my previous post.