Lit The Fate Of The Thrawn Trilogy

Heh, I kind of got mislead by the title. Thought the thread was about another Thrawn book trilogy. Anyway, this isn't the thread I am looking for... move along, move along!

 

That's probably the only chance we've got, us fans of the TT that the big three should be on board of these new films which will thus logically take place years after TT. Then there is some chances, if Lucasfilm consider it and do not create major inconsistencies in the new films, that Timothy Zhan's trilogy might make it through and remain canon. But indeed many people seems to take the big three's return for granted when it is not confirmed at all. None of the three actors has so far had expressed a will to be part of it. We shall see...

Also I don't really understand people that wish the EU to be rebooted. There is some very good things in the EU that do justice to the Saga. We have a chronology of events that is mostly consistent. A whole universe based on George Lucas' Saga that make sense. What is the need of creating alternate universe? There is none to me. The SW universe is so vast and full of possibilities still plenty of holes and periods to exploit.

 

Thrawn trilogy will be intact if only because Geroge and Zahn are close, and Disney respects Lucas .

 

P.Sam
I for one think the EU is too unwieldy and convoluted, I think some (probably most) of the stories just aren't very good, either due to bad writing, or good authors trying to write around the established canon (which IMO isn't very good). Many stories are at odds with the continuity established in the prequels anyway.

I'm one of the weirdos who would rather give authors a free hand to write the stories they want. Let them disregard the plot of a 90s role playing game, or the entire output of KJA, or the events in Caravan Of Courage, etc, if it means a better story. A lot of what you describe as positive attributes are what puts me off the EU.

All the stories you love will still exist, canonical status doesn't make a story inherently better or worse.

 

As I said on other threads, I do not approve of the ST endangering the EU. The Thrawn Trilogy and Dark Empire most of all!

Well, they did use the name 'Coruscant' for the capital, so I do think if they will respect one source, it will be the TT.
Personnaly, I am afraid the NJO series, LOTF, FOTJ and Legacy will become an endangered species.

 

I don't think that's true (re: GL and TZ)...

from an interview found here: http://www.hollywood.com/content/news_detail.aspx?id=46383563&p=2

 

Ok.... so how is this even accomplished? Like, no offense dude, but this sounds like a horrible idea.

Your going to trash the entirety of the EU for the sake of >3 episodes. which is fine in and of itself, most likely the EU is trashed anyway. But..... how does one go about this?

>3 episodes, with Luke/Han/Leia already guaranteed, starting 4-6 post-ROTJ? Umm.... have you seen Mark, Harrison, Carrie lately?

Factor in 3 years between movies, or even, lets be generous for sake of story here, and say 2 years in between.

EP7 is 2015 and set post-ROTJ 5.
EP8 is 2017 and set post-ROTJ 8. (ANH->ESB 3 year gap)
EP9 is 2019 and set post-ROTJ 9. (ESB->ROTJ 1 year gap)

So then, where do you go with EP 10+? The earliest they'd be made, at a 2-year gap, would be 2021. That's 8 years from now. How do you think Mark/Carrie/Harrison will look in 8 years? Or do you then do the massive jump and remove them as characters for EP10+?

It just doesn't make any sense and your idea just completely boggles the mind.

 

This is inherently false. It's true the stories themselves still exist unchanged. But their interaction with the universe-in-large will be changed. The characters will be changed, etc. If for example, you accept that all of the EU is removed, but still enjoy TTT, but EP7 outright contradicts a large portion/all/etc. of TTT (being the same dates, Leia gets killed, no kids, etc.) it will cloud your view, of TTT. Even if story X before TTT is changed/removed due to EP7, but TTT and everything else is fine, it still changes how I will perceive TTT, due to the characters events leading up to TTT will be different.

Take the NJO for example. If you remove all of Bantam and replace it with EP7, the NJO won't read as the same story.

 

Writing quality exists regardless of any continuity changes around it. Splinter Of The Mind's Eye didn't become bad because ESB was released, it became bad when it was badly written.

I think we're getting pleasure (and expecting pleasure) from reading in different ways. I don't care if a 2013 Batman story contradicts a 1970 Aquaman story (or a Batman activity book for under 4s) that I'll have no knowledge of, and no interest in ever reading. It's all about the quality of the story and the writing for me. I expect to be able to jump in to the story and not have to be aware of much beyond the most common knowledge. I expect the details to be there for the initiated to appreciate too, but that stuff should be subtle and not plot-crucial, or at least tackled with efficiency and style.

I think the EU (and a lot of franchise fiction in general) places too much importance on everything fitting together to make pseudo-logical sense. It's a strategy that promises diminishing returns IMO, as these things only matter to a relatively small number of the book buying public. I think the more casual fans can be put off by the daunting scale of continuity and not know where to start, so don't. Many times I've found myself needing wookiepedia to follow the story in SW books and comics. By that I mean details crucial to the plot, not just to look up subtle references to this or that.

The HTTE trilogy (as I've always called it!) has already been contradicted by the PT in significant ways (midichlorians, the human-supremacy stuff, etc). Pretty much everything written before ROTS has. That would probably have been the time to reset the EU, but instead we got a load of half baked fan-interventionism to explain away the awkward differences...

Basically I see less value in continuity than you do. I consider some of the EU stories I've read to be among the worst books of any genre that I've ever read; it's a shame to think that a reputable and skilled author writing a SW book should have to conform to continuity established in The Crystal Star or Jedi Search. It's bad enough that HTTE was tainted by Dark Empire (it was testament to Zahn's skill that he made it sound worthwhile).

 

Well each and everyone can have their opinions ans thats is what makes positive debates.

Well the EU has been created to give a continuity to the films so the authors which write Star Wars novels has to adapt to the parameters of this universe. I'll agree that this is not for everyone. Some have failed and therefore not everything is good in the EU. when there is so many books on a chronology with various authors, one cannot expect them to be all best-sellers. I don't many sotries are at odds with the continuity of the prequels. For sure they're some minor inconsistencies for instance the origin of Boba Fett and the features of Coruscant but in the whole it is quite consistant. George Lucas' biding to the authors of not elaborate concepts such as the Siths and the CW has been respected which has helped the books staying pertinent. Also one should mention the efforts of the Prequel EU authors of creating links with the Post-ROTS era. Callista, the Spaarti clones, Jorus C'Baoth ect...

Of course all the story I like will still exist but it is unfortunate that they should their canono status when it is unnecessery a being brought ot the rank of 'alternate universe'. I would much prefer that the chronology goes on and I don't min new ideas and concepts that can be included to it.

 

V-2 Well each and everyone can have their opinions and that's what makes positive debates.

In my opinion, the EU has been created to give a continuity to the films so the authors which write Star Wars novels has to adapt to the parameters of this universe. I'll agree that this is not for everyone. Some have failed and therefore not everything is good in the EU. when there is so many books on a chronology with various authors, one cannot expect them to be all best-sellers. I don't think many stories are at odds with the continuity of the prequels. For sure they're some minor inconsistencies for instance the origin of Boba Fett and the features of Coruscant but in the whole it is quite consistant. George Lucas' biding to the authors of not elaborate concepts such as the Siths and the CW has been respected which has helped the books staying pertinent. Also one should mention the efforts of the Prequel EU authors of creating links with the Post-ROTS era. Callista, the Spaarti clones, Jorus C'Baoth ect...

Of course all the story I like will still exist but it is unfortunate that they should lost their official status when it is unnecessery and so brought ot the rank of 'alternate universe'. I would much prefer that the chronology goes on and that doesn't mean ne ideas and concepts cannot be part of it.

 

Zahn didn't do squat with Dark Empire in HTTE because the story is set before DE. He only ever touched upon DE, briefly, in HOT.

Just what I bolded sounds the alarm, to me, that you're half-informed about the EU. And as to the quality of writing in Jedi Search and the rest of the JAT.... irrelevant to the value of the main thrust of the story ideas. The primary portion of which has been the establishing of the Jedi Academy and the consequences for Kyp Durron's actions. Which actually led to some pretty great material in the NJO, when it was finally picked up.

And as for having to look up information from a previous story to follow the plot of a new story... so what? That's impetus to read the previous story AND it's the nature of things. There's crucial information from ESB to know what's going on in ROTJ.

I think more people value continuity than you think. And I'm including casuals. Anyone I've talked to that wanted to get into the books, or had read a couple books, have always liked the idea that there's this huge cohesive "history" connected to the films and all these other books, comics and games. None of them has said "oh, I couldn't get into that story because it referenced some other story I'm unfamiliar with."

 

Dawud786
It's been a few years since I last read HTTE, but I thought Zahn mentions the clone emperor and Luke turning to the dark side in it. I was sure of that until you sowed the seed of doubt... Isn't that stuff in Dark Empire?

I'm the first to admit that I'm not obsessive about EU detail and continuity though. If I make a continuity error it doesn't mean that I can't judge writing quality!

An anti-anecdote to cancel out yours, I've lent friends SW books and had them given back soon after with a list of complaints about inaccessibility and obsessive adherence to continuity.

Completely disagree. The quality of writing is far more important in determining the value of a book than 'main thrust of story ideas' which are, when it comes to KJA's Jedi Accademy, recycled tripe. The Sun Crusher, really? A Sith Lord coming to a young Jedi as a force ghost to turn him eeeevil? Come off it. Most fanfic has better story ideas! A friend of mine still uses 'Kyp' as a swearword 10 to 15 years later.

 

Which books did you give them?

Outside of NJO which is set post-Bantam run, where some of them reference key Bantam continuity (to purposefully then remove them), and even there - the NJO is a bit of a jumping point, you could start with Vector Prime and be reasonably fine. Did you give them FOTJ? That's based on LOTF, and LOTF is based on DNT. But even without DNT, LOTF would be fine.


I honestly am having trouble finding or thinking of a story set right now where without reading all of the other books you'd be so lost. JAT? Nope, its fine standalone. TTT (HTTE) is standalone. DE is stand alone (Dark Empire). HOT (Hand of Thrawn Duology, which is the Zahn books that reference DE) makes mention of a few (like, say, 2 pages, or 2 paragraphs even, of little consequence of previous novels.

The Crystal Star? Stand alone. Bounty Hunter Trilogy? Stand alone. SOTE? Outside of needing to know ESB, its stand alone. Splinter of the Mind's Eye? Outside of ANH, its standalone.

Seriously, what books did you give them that they were so utterly lost? That the story itself didn't tell them what they need? Hell, most of the time when a book references previous continuity, it's damn spotty in how they do it. It's usually a 30 year prior remembrance of being stuck on the Death Star despite 20 different more similar incidents having happened in the EU. And even then, they generally belabor the point of which EU reference exactly their making and how it correlates.

 

A bonfire, however, is just as restricted by the continuity it is seeking to avoid as a story that simply is its own story.

For all the problems people have with it, TCW isn't a bonfire. Despite its continuity issues, it still operates in the EU, which thus ensures that LFL continue to earn revenue when someone sees that Quinlan Vos person on the television screen and thinks "Hey, I'd like to learn more about it" and goes out to buy the comics that told a story about him. Might there be some continuity flabs? Of course. But TCW didn't just set light to the EU and go out of its way to pretend it didn't exist. The Prequels were the same, with them raising issues with HTTE all the way back in 1999, but that hasn't stopped LFL releasing anniversary hardbacks and milking TTT for more money, despite the odd thing that no longer fits 100%.

Does the average fan care less (or even notice) that the Clone Wars timeline Zahn wrote about doesn't mesh? Probably not. Likewise, I'm sure people would get used to the fact Jaina had the middle name Sarah that she preferred to go by if Leia's daughter is named Sarah Solo in the film.

However, a Sequel Trilogy that went out of its way to reboot everything, though, would by definition by a bonfire, and until Disney have had ten years to build up their own new EU would mean that they'd paid $4 billion for the rights to print back issues that nobody seeing the films for the first time would then be interested in buying. From a purely economic position, that makes little sense in terms of raw profitability, when you instead can have your cake and eat it by doing what TCW has done and letting things change so gradually that your average fan won't even notice, or care.

Which is why I cannot understand all this talk of reboots, as it's neither the most profitable way of milking things for the foreseeable future, nor the most fluid way of doing it, as a film doesn't need to talk about what happened before it: ANH didn't, and that was why ANH was successful: it looked to the future, it didn't have Obi-Wan give a ten minute soliloquy and detail every battle he fought during his life. If a film gets bogged down talking about unnecessary backstory purely to establish why the Yuuzhan Vong War didn't happen, then that film is going to be ruined by an unnecessary waste of time trying not to conform with what came before it. In that respect, a Sequel Trilogy that wastes time pointing out why everything that came before could never have happened, would in fact be committing the very error that you point out about much EU prose.

Whereas there's not that much a film that just tries to be a good film can actually do to completely render redundant the entire back library that Disney have just bought the rights to -- TOTJ survived KOTOR, which survived TOR, which will survive whatever comes out in another ten years time. But LFL are still making money from all three. Might they decide not to give Luke a son? Maybe. But I didn't see anybody in the OT waste the time to say on screen: "By the way, Luke, I never had children."

For all anyone knew watching ANH, Obi-Wan could have had twelve kids and an estranged wife with several jilted ex-girlfriends on the side that he'd run away into hiding to escape.

 

That wouldn't even be possible since DE doesn't happen until a year after HTTE. You're probably thinking of the DE references in Zahn's HOT books.

Agreed but it doesn't have to be either/or. A story can be well written and still respect continuity. This is the ideal, and it isn't hard to do ("good story" is a million times more difficult to achieve than "good continuity"), so there's no reason to settle for anything less. If we had to, I'd always take good writing above flawless continuity, but we shouldn't have to, so it's moot.

This is the writing/continuity totem pole for me, anyway:

1) Well written, respects continuity (Stover)
2) Well written, doesn't respect continuity (lol can't think of any examples... maybe Traviss, if I liked her writing style)
3) Poorly written, respects continuity (KJA)
4) Poorly written, doesn't respect continuity (Karpyshyn)

This philosophy is workable in theory but the problem is that LFL doesn't seem to handle continuity discrepancies like this, at least not anymore. There's a line in the ROTS screenplay that could be interpreted to imply that Yoda had never been to Dagobah before, therefore he definitively never went there before and any story that says he did is wrong. TCW didn't show Ryloth as tidelocked, therefore it definitively isn't. The Greedo in TCW absolutely HAS to be the Greedo from ANH despite the EU material that says he can't be, because the intent of the TCW writers was that it's the same guy. Palpatine never died before ROTJ because of George Lucas's OOU explanation a prophecy that makes no sense. Someone somewhere said that TCW starts a month after AOTC, therefore it has to; we can't knock it back to six months or something to give the original Clone Wars EU a bit more breathing room.

There is a plethora of continuity errors that could be resolved with these little loopholes but LFL's current guiding philosophy seems to be that Lucas's intent or perceived intent takes precedence over what is actually seen on the screen (or page).

 

You might be thinking of Zahn's refusal to reference DE in TTT, resulting in DE having to be moved later in the timeline, from a year after ROTJ to about six. I view that as possibly the single greatest instance of dodging a bullet the SWEU has seen. Imagine the status quo if DE happened that quickly after ROTJ...

 

Oh, I wasn't actually defending the kindergarten-grade interpretations that LFL has shown recently, as yeah, being the completionist junkie that I am things like that irritate me too.

My post was just to show why a film that went out of its way to actively denounce the EU would, ironically, end up being just as hindered by the very thing that it was trying to do better than, making a reboot on the grounds of "quality" self-defeating (especially when I don't believe in the grass always being greener, and am 110% convinced that a rebooted EU would have just as bad stories as Crystal Star as a reboot won't mean the authors hired are all suddenly going to be literary prize winners).

 

This kind of arrogant and inflexible mentality to continuity is what is alienating me as a Star Wars fan.

 

If TTT gets overridden, then nearly all of the post-ROTJ EU crumbles with it.

 

I probably got the DE stuff wrong then, d'oh. Replace it with Vong and my point hopefully still stands!

 

DE was not referenced in TTT as they were written at roughly the same time and were unaware of each other.

He was aware of it by HoT and quite properly had his charachters dismiss it out right.

 

I know. Originally, DE was to be set just a year after ROTJ. As they began development at about the same time, Zahn was asked if he would put some references to DE into TTT. Zahn refused, and because of this, DE was moved up in the timeline, after TTT.

 

To be honest I'm not too bothered as I thought DE was terrible not only did it completely negate RTJ with Luke's devolpment and Vaders redemption but was also a terrible story anyway.

 

DE is my favourite SW story.
It had the atmosphere of a SW movie.
It was epic. The Empire was still strong.
It introduces Nar Shaddaa and Korriban.
Executor Sedriss and General Klev were awesome.
How can you not love it?