Lit The Great River - The problem with the "the new EU"... A haven for Legends fans.

Whoa nobody's complaining. I just said it's confusing. Two statements that contradict each other.

I'll happily take new Legends without it being canon. It wouldn't even make sense for it to be canon.

 

Canon is also sort of a meaningless statement for modern mythology (I wouldn't say "fiction" for Star Wars). In the Catholic Church, it means, "What we believe is true about God."

Lucas was always very clear the EU was NEVER canon.

So what does it matter, Disney now says Legends isn't.

 

For me, my deepest loss from the old EU are the Solo Twins:

I know, I know easy answer.

But I was nine years old when Jacen and Jaina Solo were born. I was there in The Last Command and I saw them attend the Jedi Academy, I bought the YA books with them, and I followed them up to the New Jedi Order when they became adults. It's strange but I hate everything about the New Jedi Order *BUT* their characterization. Jacen going hog wild on his mysticism, Anakin trying to be the Golden Boy, and Jaina as the Fly Girl.

I don't like where the story went and I think I've come to terms with that fact because, bluntly, I knew these characters as much as anyone else and it was ridiculous would go down that way. Anakin, yes, might have died in battle because that's what happens to heroes even in Star Wars. It's an immense loss but Luke, Han, and Leia knew the moment their kids got into battle it would be a possibility.

Why I find the idea they'd let Anakin anywhere near combat until he was an adult a trifle ludicrous but that's neither here nor there.

No, it was the fact I never really could accept the Darth Caedus persona. He was not Jacen Solo as Jacen Solo was never a murderer or a monster. Anakin Skywalker, for all of Lucas' folliables, was not portrayed as a man who was incorruptible. Jacen Solo would die before he'd turn evil and thus I never really connected with the ensuing stories. I also don't accept a Star Wars where Luke Skywalker kills before redemption or capture--and while he can and will kill. I'd never believe he'd allow Jaina to kill Jacen--nor do I believe Jacen would ever harm his family.

So, in a way, that made me ambivalent to the EU.

Because in the great annals of fantasy and fiction, these two were my friends. I didn't know Anakin Solo as well, or perhaps was never as close to him.

But I miss him too.

 

EU lost me with dead Anakin Solo, Vong War, Vergere, and finally, the Xena: Warrior princess like continuity that proceeded from the NJO like some show on the WB with all its weird pseudo spirituality.


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Charlemagne, to be fair, though Lucas was quite clear what he felt about the EU, the rest of his company did not treat the EU as non canon. The very name for it, "Expanded Universe"....what does it expand if not the movies? It became quite easy to ignore old man Lucas as if he was the old grandpa in the room who says stuff no one listens to and just assume the EU would go on forever.

 

And nothing keeps you from doing the same with Disney.

The loss of the Old EU was a big blow.

But I do think it had to eventually stop as it was running out of gas.

 

Eh. There is a difference. You could ignore what Disney puts out but there is a chance it will influence later works.

It's kinda nice to be able to end debates by whipping out some comic and settling an issue. There was a debate about Vader's power level in the TV forum, but the new Marvel comic series essentially settles that debate by showing him almost shaking apart an AT AT.

In the past, I could whip out a comic in that forum and it would be meaningless. Now, it's not.

You can whip out NJO novels all you want but they'll tell you nothing about where an author may take the story in the future.

That's the thing. For all the lip service about enjoying the EU individually, book by book, and taking each one as a self contained universe, I think there's something dissatisfying for many people about that. Those characters will never be developed further and that universe will never grow. A literary stillbirth if you will.

I can understand why people feel the way they do about the EU even if I stopped caring about it long ago. A lot of time was invested in it. And yeah, you can say they'll always live on in your own imagination...but that's hollow. We like to just plop down and read about our favorite characters without expending the effort. That's what makes them feel alive, like people in real life that we have no control over.

For me, all the stuff I liked from the EU is being carried over...much of the organizations, and galactic history. All the stuff I disliked has been swept away. I'm good to go baby.

 

Well, they've already incorporated:

Admiral Screed
Armand Isard
Compnor
The ISB
An Imperial Inquisition

And so on.

They also have promised to have a more interconnected EU than ever existed before.

People keep acting like the EU is over. It's a new EU. It hasn't earned any of the old EU's stripes or good will but acting like Star Wars has fundamentally CHANGED is silly.

Legends is still where it always was. It can still be discussed.

It's just finished.

 

Actually, there is a bit of old EU I'll miss.

I will say, that I would have enjoyed it if they could have kept the old Clone Wars multimedia stuff. I enjoyed that more than most of the Clone Wars cartoon, though I grudgingly admit there were a few good episodes in that show.

 

It was, to put it mildly, slightly exaggerated, but fun, nonetheless.

 

Charles, bravo on the above post, I had a similar experience, glove of darth vader then yjk, the went back to read thrawn, the x wing and tales of the jedi all by age 12 or so. jacen goig dark made me feel much the same way and anything post njo just felt wrong to me as well.

 

Regardless of whether Legends was / wasn't canon, it was certainly marketed as THE continuation of SW.

Now, to be fair:

• I doubt they expected it to go for 20 years.
• I doubt it was insincere. LFL has a lot of corporate screw-ups on its plate, but foreseeing a £4bn sale to Disney and using that as a cue to axe it - nah, they're not that good!
• No one ever marketed franchise product as 'some stories that might have happened'.

 

I think that's the problem with the 'EU was never canon' argument. If it was not canon, then they certainly didn't go to much effort to let people know, especially given the majority of people don't spend their time trawling the internet to find this out. As a kid I didn't even know what the word canon meant and assumed if it said 'Star Wars' on it then it was happening in the same universe as the movies.

 

And I think you'll find many people think exactly the way you describe.

 

Back in the day even starwars.com had pages for each of the six (or at least the original three. I forget how long ago this was) movies and then a seventh page labeled "EU" and little me always took it as "this is what happened after the movies." I learned about who Admiral Thrawn was from starwars.com years before I read Heir to the Empire.

 

To be frank, though, the echo chamber kind of makes EU fans assume their views are shared.

I know MANY MANY Star Wars fans on other boards and their view of the EU was this weird silly thing which only a tiny number took seriously.

So, only some believed it was canon to begin amongst fans.

 

And I thought this board was the most important (that was the right things to say right )
Yeah, I kind of heard here and there about the EU fans VS Film Purists, but don't know much about it, or how many are on one side compared to the other.

Regarding the Echo Chamber though, I think you are right. You see I only found out about the canon system when browsing Wookieepeida one day, which is a site that seems to be expensively made up of EU enthusiasts. So maybe something to do with reading the information first on that site could have been indoctrinating.


Though my point stands, if you are going to have a canon policy make it clear and visible so that everyone, even the kid buying a book from the shop, can understand. If you don't make it clear, don't expect the fans to be able to follow.

 

Or just realise it only matters if you decide it does and it does NOT apply universally.

 

Heh, and the sun only rises if I say it does.

Anyhoo, I tend to think only the educated geeks (Not derogatory, I am a proud geek, yes I have taken the word of the oppressor and blah blah blah) were aware of the canon system. Many fans who just got into Star Wars casually probably assumed what A8T did: if it said Star Wars, it was Star Wars.

Not everyone who reads comics and books then goes hangs out on a message board to find these things out.

 

Honestly, the reputation of the books and comics were kind of bad. Which sucks, honestly. The general consensus I got was that tie-in fiction was only for money and didn't "count."

Perhaps because so few other tie-in fictions do.

 

Erm, the sale was in US$4bn, not £4bn. £4bn is close to US$6bn!

 

I remember when a billion was actually a billion instead of just one thousand million. Damn Americans ruining it.

 

I have to say that million-billion-trillion makes more sense than million-milliard-billion-trillion (why not billiard?) but I still have to remember to convert every number larger than a billion when I read it in English.

 

I've hardly ever seen the word "milliard" - except once in a little jokey science rhyme:

Nature, it seems, is the popular name,
For milliards and milliards and milliards.
Of particles playing their infinite game,
Of billiards and billiards and billiards.

 

I maintain George Lucas is using his fortune to build his own moon-sized space-station.



He does seem so terribly HAPPY he doesn't have to deal with Star Wars anymore, though, which is both a shame and probably to be expected.

 

Personally I have always liked the numbers used when people talk about Uncle Scrooge's money - fantasillions and omöjligoner.