Lit The EU going the ''Star Trek'' route?

No.

As far as Star Trek goes, Paramount is pretty clear on what's officially canon.

 

no they are not, Threshold an episode so bad it may or may not be canon. That was under paramount, Is a black hole a wormhole?
Hell if paramount knows.

 

"As a rule of thumb, the events that take place within the real action series and movies are canon, or official Star Trek facts. Story lines, characters, events, stardates, etc. that take place within the fictional novels, the Animated Series and the various comic lines are not canon."

While there maybe isolated cases here and there where it may vary, Paramount's canon policy summary to me means "pretty clear".

 

Isolated as so their incompetance doesnt destroy their credibility.

Is StarDate a date with a Day month and year? well for the Nu:trek it is!

And thats only unitll paramounts gets a deal to sell.

I understand the point your trying to make, but understand. Who gets to control a pice of fiction by its nature is arbitrary.

 

Voager has so many outright terrible episodes that Threshold, horrible as it is, was actually just a little worse than average for that show.

 

If they are good I will read them, Ive been bored with the last few Star Wars books, FOTJ was awful IMO so Im ready for a reset. I want a young Luke et al again.

 

The problem with resetting is that, as much as contested the more recent EU has become, it screws over with the characters.

I for one am actually curious as to what will happen to the likes of Jaina, Jag, Allana, Ben and Tahiri. So likewise I'm pumped for Sword of the Jedi, as well as any connections it'll have to the Legacy comics.

Besides, not all of the EU will be erased if it happens; all the pre-ROTJ stuff will still happen.

 

Star Trek's secondary material is internally consistent with itself though. It's not like PAD's New Frontier novels range all over the shop contradicting each other book to book, or that the Dominion War stories are not internally consistent.

What I'm saying is that material within the same obviously labeled work or line is "in canon".

Honestly, if it's a break-point for you or others that SW has to have a singular canon I or you won't buy it, I can respect that. Please understand that I'm saying I don't quite see it the same way, and I'm trying to explain why I see it the way I do.

I can and do pick up comics from before the Nu-52 relaunch and I enjoy them greatly whether they "happened" or not.

Marvel does and doesn't have a singular canon within the comics, and then they have their Ultimate and Zombie universes, and they also have their novel and movie universes.

And yet they still maintain a general consistency of product and history among the lines.

Again, it someone's breakpoint for SW is the death of a singular canon ( which I don't think SW even has considering all the retcons and fan fixes out there)...I certainly don't blame them...I just don't understand it.

I'm okay with "maybe" as an answer to "is this in canon?", but I understand why some aren't, and there are times I dislike it. To give an example; I really hate the new Batgirl since I enjoyed the previous Batgirl who was Stephanie Brown. Barbara Gordon isn't my Batgirl...I don't care about Barbara Gordon...so I don't buy that singular comic, but I've not sworn off all DC comics because of it, or even all "Bat-Family" books.

With something like Marvel...you can't seriously read the last set of Handbooks, read the entry for Tony Stark, complete with his history during the Vietnam war, and then try to match it up with the origin as given in Warren Ellis' Extremis comic which is the "new" origin. There's a sliding time scale and a sense that the origin remains generally the same while specifics change. It doesn't throw out what came before completely, but modifies it for the needs of the line.

And I've said something like that doesn't work for SW, but there's no single example of what fictional histories should be, and I think TCW alone...heck, the special editions, have shown that even SW's singular canon is pretty fluid for such a supposed singular history already.

I just don't understand writing off what may come if it jettison's the EU completely or partly.

 

Only within the same authors, or a specific story series. Overall, there's no consistency - if you really want to try to reconcile Peter David's ST work with the ghostwritten material supposedly by Shatner, you're courting insanity.

No, that's built into Marvel's canon - all those separate 'universes' are still in the same 'multiverse' - Zombies actually came from Ultimates, and the Ultimate universe has crossed over with the mainstream Marvel.
More importantly, the mainstream Marvel universe still exists, and has in its present form since 1961 - and retroactively to the Timely Comics of the late 30s.

And that's built into the storytelling - in fact, that's actually a key component of the Earth X series (which actually in-universe mentions the changing origins of Tony Stark), much like the new Star Trek movie. Again, these situations are different from Star Wars.

Havac has already made the point succinctly. If they jettison what we're interested in, what would be the point in continuing?

 

Find things in the new EU that catches my interest?
Lightsabers, the Force, starfighters, Imperials, Smugglers, Bounty Hunters, aliens, new Force groups etc.
They should be able to come up with something from those things that will keep me interested.
I'll miss the old stuff but if I find a character or idea I like I am good.
I just hope they tell us from the start if these new books/comics are cannon or not so we don't lose any sleep over it later like we are now.

 

I think it's important to point out that the interweaving of stories is itself something appealing, and it can only happen through continuity. You can talk about "if it's a good story" or "headcanon" or "who's to tell you those stories didn't happen" or whatever, but the point of a canon universe is the interweaving. Sure, I can sit down and reread the NJO over and over and over again no matter what happens to the EU or to the NJO's canonicity, but if I ever want to get more stories set during the NJO, if I want to get more stories about Jagged Fel, or a Nom Anor prequel, I need the NJO to stay canon. I can enjoy the Tycho Celchu I have, but if I ever want more Tycho Celchu, I need the EU we've got. With a canon universe, I can play Jedi Knight, and say, "That's awesome, I want more Kyle Katarn." And I can get more. And more. And then he can show up in the books, and he can be on the Jedi Council, and he can play a part in other people's stories, and they can make a whole game about his apprentice, and years later that apprentice can completely randomly get his own set of books, because he exists and some writer has recognized that and latched on to him. I can read about the Stark Hyperspace War, and people can add new details to it in books that aren't even about it, and other works can use it to motivate other stories and build on it, and a protagonist from it can show up as a supporting character in another character's story. I can read a comic here and a sourcebook there and a novel here and an Essential Guide over there and it will all add up to a coherent biography of Jan Dodonna even if none of it ever set out to be such a thing individually. The Dark Empire Sourcebook can make one offhand mention to a battle and a few other things can build on that subtly and then Matt Stover can see a story hook here and use that as a launchpad to write maybe the best Star Wars pulp adventure ever.

Sure, no one can tell me that TTT didn't happen, for all the nothing that that's worth. But they can sure as hell never give me anything else where TTT did happen, and they can make only stuff where TTT didn't happen. And I'll never again be able to enjoy something new building on TTT and the universe it gave us, for better and worse. That's why canon is valuable, and that's why "oh but no one can take it away from you" and "oh in your head" mean jack ****.

 

I Honestly don't think the EU is going to get abandoned. hollywood is riding the nostalgia gravy train because it is bankrupt of real ideas.

Just like TCW ripped of the Nightsisters, Dathomir, Assaj Ventress, Nal Hutta and Nar Shadaa.

What was the Best "Original" villian they came up with? Savaaaaaaaaaaaaaage Opress [dismissive snort].

or original protagonists, Rex who is drivative of Alpha?

Padwan Ashoka "Jailbait" Tano was the best that they could come up with, Does she hold a candle to Jacen? Tahiri? Zane Carrak? I say no, and I think she is the best thing to come out of TCW.

What about Young Justice's Aqualad or Artimis? or Green Lantern's Rhazer? The EU will continue, if for nothing besides being an idea resource.

 

I really don't mean to derail this conversation but I had to interject something real fast:

I love you guys but I've seen this statement before on this forum and it's an exaggeration. Two times. Crisis on Infinite Earths and Flashpoint. Three if you count the introduction of Earth-Two and the multiverse when Gardner Fox felt the urge to play around with the unused Golden Age versions of various DC characters and even then that doesn't count since the Golden Age and Silver Age continuities were existing side-by-side. You can't count Zero Hour because it was never designed to be a continuity reboot. It was an attempt to tell a terrible story and then certain people decided to take this opportunity to retcon certain things. Like Denny O'Neil finally proving to everyone else that he lost his damn mind with the horrible Batman urban legend retcon. As for Infinite Crisis, again that was never a continuity reboot. Except in the case of Geoff Johns wanting to undo almost everything John Byrne did with Superman. In that case it was OK because the Man of Steel revamp was pretty crappy in the first place.

 

oh cad bane, the character not the poster. though the fact I forgot him indicates he didnt make much of an impact on me personaly.

 

Which is the one where Superboy punched the universe in the face and brought Robin back to life? Does that count?

 

Infinite Crisis. Again, doesn't count as a continuity reboot. A revival is a revival, even if it was done via stupid means. Thankfully that part of Jason Todd's revival is gone with the New 52.

 

Hopefully they'll reboot Star Wars by a similar method.

 

There's only one way to do that. Via Denning's Flow-walking. And before anyone tells me it's not possible, shush! Facts don't count in this discussion!

I wanna see Jacen Solo-Prime Flow-walking Punch reality!

 

It's hard to tell through text, so I just want to underline this is me fumbling to explain my feelings on it, and not an attack on people who like singular canon or the EU as it stands.

I guess my answer would be that similar to what happens at Marvel, the characters will probably remain the characters.

I know this is just a speculation thread, but I really don't think that even if they did a reboot there'd not be people waiting to bring back the classical EU characters and stories. One thing that made the DCU reboots so confusing is that for years the reboots would reset the universe, and then writers and artists would effectively sneak the stories back into canon and muddy the waters.

However, getting off that, I understand what you and Havac are saying and respect it, but I really think if we saw a reboot that affected the EU you'd most likely see fan favourite characters like Tycho slowly being phased back in somehow.

Now...this is where it gets weird for me, because (and I'm not saying this is right or wrong), years of reading comic books and other franchise fiction has effectively programmed me to roll with what happens when "tweaked" characters appear.

I remember being a kid and there was a series of X-Men books that provided a synopsis of issue by issue, and on top of that they tried to place it by year, and talked about how the story over in X-Men took place in Peter Parker's senior year of high school and so on. And that's cool...someone actually tried to do that. At some point someone tried to maintain the illusion that these were all planned as being in one universe. As more book came out, that fell apart, and they switched to a general "yeah, Washington got blown up in Spider-Man but is fine in X-men because....ummm...COMICS!".

The Tony Stark who exists now isn't the same as the Tony Stark who existed in 1970, although there's an understanding that all the stories "happened". I get that DC is stranger, but even there they have a weird sort of issue where pre-52 the stories were pretty much assumed to have happened in some way.

My original point was that we'd probably see this middle of the road approach taken, not that canon would be completely done away with, or that the movies would slavishly stick to the current EU, but that post any reboot you'd most likely see things start being reintroduced.

The Star Trek issue is weird...and, tbh, I don't really get why they've got it set up like that besides Paramount having run the franchise very badly.

Despite Halo having some things that just do not fit well (and honestly, so does SW), the current owners (343i) really do try to stick to the canon as it has come before as much as they can. Oddly, it was Bungie with Reach that screwed the existing HALO EU for reasons that I don't really get.

So, maybe it won't go the Star Trek route, but maybe it'll go the Marvel or even WH40K route of just nudging things here and there. IDK....

I guess I come back to things like the new Brian Wood comic and if you told me it wasn't "canon", I'd shrug and keep reading...it's just how I'm programmed.

If Disney brought Mike Stakepole back and let him do an X-wing series that ran off the old continuity he established, or even just let him bring in some of those old element, would that lessen the blow of losing the greater EU? Because that's how I see how much of Star Trek is handled. There's no set canon in the novels, but there's nothing to stop authors from connecting the dots, and certainly nothing to stop them from using existing continuity with the shows.

I think the idea behind the way ST is handled was to open things up for the authors and allow them to have more options to tell stories. They can connect things and series do connect, but then there's other novel series that don't connect.

I know that's a bit off what the OP asked, but it's how I feel about all this. I've not seen a franchise yet that doesn't eventually start bringing elements back in via some manner, and depending on who they get to write and how much content they want...who knows how much they'll pull from the old EU. It may be a break, but there may well be a Tycho who is pretty darn similar in the new EU.

I guess I'm not a completist or a person who reads for that sense of canon. I tend to follow writers and artists and then characters/franchises lastly.

Tell a good SW story and I won't care what era it's set in or whether it's set in the original canon or not.

As said; not a slam on those who like it, but it's my reaction to the OP's question. I'd keep reading and I wouldn't be surprised if the "new" EU was more like the old EU than people expected.

I admit, the ST example is weird because it's usually the medium that divides the canon (iow, you have movie canon, novel canon, game canon, etc) instead of having separate canon within a single medium like novels.

 

Did they strike that out?

I though they had turned around and said it was a Lazarus Pit that had restored Jason even before New 52?

In the current 52 canon did he die? I don't read many of the 52 books and haven't kept up since Red Hood isn't really part of the Bat-family anymore.

 

I see absolutely no reason for the Star Wars Eu to go the Star Trek route on account of the ST. That's simply not an appropriate reaction - it unnecessarily beats up on the EU, including the massive amount of EU it is unlikely to impact in any way.

We now know that original cast members from the OT have signed on for the ST. That means, even given the vagaries of make-up, we're almost certainly looking at pushing the ST to the 25 ABY point. Given that, even if the ST axes everything post that date from canon, the obvious solution is to infinities that section of the EU and move on. Yes, that's a lot ~50 novels, Invasion, Legacy, and a modest amount of tie-in material in reference works such as the Atlas, but it is only a relatively small percentage of the EU as a whole. Surgery around the relatively clean 25 ABY break-point might mean that 10% of the EU becomes an alternate universe (Yuuzhan Vong Star Wars), but canon can survive that.

It is in Disney's economic interests to reserve the allegiance of as many hardcore fans as possible. The average moviegoer might spend ~$50 on three new movies and a small amount of merchandise and/or DVDs. A hard-core fan such as myself may spend an average of ~$500 annually on Star Wars material. Meaning that over the course of a decade economically my contribution would be worth that of 100 average fans. Put another way the 100,000 or so people buying the FotJ novels represent, in monetary terms, 10 million ordinary fans.

So Disney should try to make the movies fullfilling two goals: write the best story you possibly can, while damaging the EU as little as possible. The only post-ROTJ event that cannot be written around with a bit of post-hoc creative retconning is the Yuuzhan Vong War - it's just too big and all-encompasing in scope. That is the most likely thing to go, and it's liable to drag everything that follows it down with it, but there's no reason for anything else to be taken along.

 

This is the one thing I worry about.

One thing DC really screwed up on (imo) was not telling readers what their New 52 plan was.

They just dropped it in and readers slowly realized it was a reboot.

Not the way to do it.

If there is a reboot of any kind I hope that they step up an announce their plans so that fans can make their own plans accordingly, because if they just try the "everything will make sense!" line and then we meet Luke's son "Ashton Skywalker" and his cousin "Hunter Solo" it's not going to go well.

Better to start as you mean to go on...whatever they decide to do, and let the fans in on it.

 

You can still do inter-universe building with an interconnecting series of novels and spin-off media regardless of if it affects any sort of canon status in the film franchise.

 

Yup, everything involving Superboy-Prime is gone. Jason Todd did die in the New 52 and this time around they decided to go with the simplified explanation that the animated adaptation Batman: Under the Red Hood used. Which was Lazarus Pit resurrection. Difference is that it was entirely Talia al Ghul who was behind it unlike Ra's in the animated movie.

 

I think we're getting away from the topic by diverting to Marvel, so I'll just say that my experience with Marvel Comics is very different from yours.

The impression that I've always gotten is that the Star Trek tie-ins followed the standard rule for any TV or movie tie-in.

I'm not interested in some anthology "stories based around a common concept" that are otherwise unrelated. Star Trek's limited universe is apparent to the guides that are produced - they are either hamstrung by repeating verbatim material from the TV shows or movies with little room for interpretation, or they're obviously non-canonical. Compare Star Wars' Essential Atlas with Star Trek's Star Maps - and you'll see the difference right there. I'm interested in seeing the extension of the story of Star Wars that began with the OT. And by extension, I mean a singular story, not a thousand variations.

It's the authors like Zahn, Stackpole, Hidalgo, Fry, etc. that I do follow Star Wars. Like Havac said, I'm not buying it because they slapped a "Star Wars" logo on it.

And again, I strongly believe that having a consistent background is the centerpiece of good storytelling for a shared universe - and it really wouldn't be a "shared" universe otherwise.

I'll grant you that those were the massive, total overhauls - but Zero Hour and Infinite Crisis both made attempts to clean up DC's continuity, mostly because they failed to keep up with the "reboot" in Crisis on Infinite Earths. I doubt that the "New 52" will be any different.