Lit A/V The Force Awakens and the EU [TAGGED spoilers.]

Some would argue that it has none, and others then argue that having any means it's invalid But let's not go any further down THAT path.

TCW is not currently irreconcilable with most old stories, quite the contrary, many old stories are either referenced or are needed to fill the whole picture of the war (Ventress introduction in the microseries, Anakin's Knighting, ect. ect.)

A handful of stories like Obsession may be gone neutered (and really, this is the only one so far), and a few old deaths are now non-canon (the worst of the inconsistencies), but the grand majority of the old material still exists. This is the official stance, like it or not. For the most part, the timeline was just rearranged. Exactly what that arrangement will be remains to be seen (I highly doubt all pre-knighting anakin stories will be fit into 7 weeks when Leland is done. He said months occur before Christophsis, not weeks. Wait for the series to end and final retcons to be made.) but it will no doubt be formalized to be as inclusive as possible when the show's done.

Now, even a living Chewie doesn't mean the entire NJO didn't happen. Someone could be bold enough to write a story about his Maul like survival (bad as that may seem to be). Why can't they? Maul got it. Chewie wasn't cut in half. (note that I'm not saying this is tasteful writing, just possible) The biggest problem, by far, is the children. Luke saying "Oh I never got married" would either force us to throw out... well... most stuff, or we'd have to come up with a crazy story involving him disowning Ben and just pretending the whole ordeal never happened (stranger retcons have been made). On the other hand, a living Anakin or Jacen Solo (or god forbid, different Solo children entirely) opens up a whole new mess. This is the only thing that could truly kill all material and lead to very, very hard if not impossible retcons, as I doubt they will set the ST earlier than 30 ABY.

Best case scenario? Ben and Jaina are the respective children of Luke and the Solos, with few to no references to their siblings. I think both characters deserve a chance on screen, especially Jaina.

 

What about characters that have had two separate deaths? How is that not irreconcilable?

 

As I've been saying, of course there are contradictions, but they can be retconned, and none of them have "destroyed" the EU. Also very evident is that there's still a strong will, from the top and from the fans, to retcon any inconsistencies.

And whatever your religious stance, it's obvious that the inconsistencies in the Bible did not destroy the Bible or Christianity.

And we've been talking about for months how it's possible Chewbacca didn't die. In fact, expect Chewie to come back in CRUCIBLE, or at least the possibility of him being alive to be mentioned.

Also, you complain about Ryloth rotating. My point is that that species is still called Twileks, and they still have a homeworld called Ryloth. As for a possible retcon, perhaps there are two rival worlds both claiming to be the true homeworld of the Twileks and both call themselves Ryloth (we also know now that they have no homeworld, being an artificial species). Or perhaps they were experimenting with a massive technological project to rotate the planet, to increase its economic potential.

Exactly.

 

How do you survive getting a moon dropped on you? And why was he hiding out for decades? At a certain point retconning just gets ridiculous. Basically, you're saying that no matter how badly the EU gets contradicted, we will come out with some convoluted retcon to make it all fit together.

Is there anything that couldn't be retconned? Hypothetically, if the opening crawl of Episode 7 said, "The Galaxy has been at peace for the past 30 years having definitely never been invaded by the Yuuzhan Vong or anything. Han and Leia never had kids and Luke had 4 daughters all named after Jabba. Oh and Jar Jar has been Chancellor of the New Republic the whole time" (Obviously this is exaggerated to prove a point). Would you still try to retcon this with existing EU?

 

Obviously. But that doesn't change the fact that the gospel narratives are not mutually compatible. One of more of them has to be wrong. Christianity has lasted for so long, partially because many of its followers don't even read the Bible enough to be aware of the inconsistencies.

 

One death is canon, one is not. The rest of the story occurs as if their deaths did not happen, or they did not actually die in the story itself anymore and were merely injured. This happened with K'Kruhk in the old material, in fact.

I didn't say I liked this, it never should've happened in the first place. I dread any more possible fate changes like this and hope they stop after Adi, but it does NOT mean every old novel did not happen. Period. Until Leland explicitly says all old TCW material is non-canon, it's not. He has so far only said that Ventress' fate in Obsession is non-canon, and Adi and Piell's deaths are non-canon. There is still a similar battle on Boz Pity and Durge still dies as depicted. An incomplete retcon, yes, but there you have it. That's the keeper of continuity's official stance on the matter.

 

I understand his stance on the matter. However, in my opinion, his stance defies logic. It doesn't make sense to me pick and choose and say some parts of a book are canon. How much of a book can be contradicted before it isn't canon? Leland Chee may consider the rest of the book to be canon, but it still proves that any piece of information in a novel or comic can be overturned by a movie or TV show.

Besides, it is irrelevant. As much as Leland Chee or the fans come up with retcons, it doesn't change the simple fact that Lucas, Filoni, et al simply don't care about contradicting preexisting canon. They just do whatever they want and leave it to others to reconcile it all. And if Lucas doesn't even respect the EU of the universe he created, then why would JJ Abrams and Michael Ardnt? If Chewbacca is alive in the ST, in my mind that will negate the NJO, regardless of what Leland Chee says.

 

No, I'm saying the current stance is to say everything fits together and come up with crazy explanations to make it fit. It's been that way for years, and if Maul can survive, so can Chewie. Ep VII could change that stance entirely. We shall see.

 

Yes, that would obviously destroy canon. But I'm saying the TCW did not destroy canon, so the ST probably won't either.

As for Chewbacca, it could be done. Old enemies ran into and stalked Chewbacca on Sernpidal, took him away in their starship seconds after the Falcon took off, and either kept him captive or crash-landed on a remote planet with Chewbacca undiscovered until decades later. Or perhaps there was an Aing-Tii there, which decided to teleport this slave-liberator and freedom-fighter away with him (we knowAing-Tii can teleport and hate slavery). Or perhaps the YV's gravity-warping techniques can occasionally create wormholes, and by freak coincidence and the will of the Force, Chewbacca was transported away (Star Wars has had wormholes transporting people through space and time in recent books).

 

I don't think I would like it if Episode VII would take place so soon after VI. I was more hoping for 500 ABY or something.

 

See, Maul and Chewie are different cases in my mind. We saw Maul get chopped in half and fall down a shaft. Hypothetically, someone could survive this. We don't hear anything about him again or receive any actual confirmation that he is dead. His character is never mentioned again.

Chewie, on the other hand, had a moon dropped on him. Logically, that should kill any living being. It has been a long time since I've read Vector Prime. If I'm not mistaken, there is something in there about the force sensitive characters feeling Chewie's death in the force. At the very least, they should have been able to tell if he was still alive.

 

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I feel like the TCW did destroy canon. Maybe destroy is too harsh a word. But I don't see how you can make the TCW compatible with what came before without retcons that contradict the intent of the original works.

 

Matthew tells of His paternal lineage and Luke tells of His maternal lineage. There are no inconsistencies. It's just from how the writer saw it. It all fits together.

 

Oh sweet Waru, not a Christianity argument.

 

A more potent inconsistancy, to my mind anway, is Ben's "thousand Generations" versus Palps'/Sidious' "thousand Years" -- something of a difference there, which the EU craftily fixed with the Ruusan retcon.

 

An even more potent inconsistancy is Daiman. For years we have thought that Waru is the Lord and Creator of the Universe, but now we are supposed to think that Daiman is the Creator of All. This needs a retcon.

 

I wouldn't say it needs a retcon. To assign a retcon is to assume we have knowledge that simply is not permitted to us. We simply need to accept that the universe is vast and unknowable. Perhaps Daiman created Waru. Perhaps Waru and Daiman are two halves of the same being, and were separated at the conception of the universe. We just don't know, and humanity needs to accept that.

 

Waru is the golden eye of Daiman. The blue eye is...oh, let's say...Horliss-Horliss.

 

I would dance and sing in the cinema. This being a friend of the EU and all. But Jabba Skywalker III would so deserve a jig.

 

I feel the same way.

 

Based on your close analysis of the original Clone Wars material, you mean?

 

With the old CW material, it seems that everything that has Anakin as a padawan will be shoehorned into the first say 4-5 months of the war. What would you all think if the same happened to the Bantam era because of the ST? HTTE takes place 2 or 3 ABE instead of 5. NJO could be 10ABE instead of....whenever it starts.

 

N/M

 

Well, the Dark Lord Trilogy and the Republic Commando series make me believe that what TCW is saying happened couldn't have actually happened. I feel like the double speak TCW has caused is extremely disrespectful to the multimedia project. Between this Clone Wars mess and Del Rey allowing Denning to engineer the depressing direction of the post-NJO, I have lost my respect for the canon system.