Lit The Official StarWars.com Blog Thread - That's right, I went there

I'm assuming that Erdelac and Mitchell and the like are actually hired authors in this instance.

 

I have confirmation they are not. Go ask them

 

Some of these blogs with new information are being allowed because they come from older material that just never saw publication for one reason or another. I'm fairly certain, for example, that the articles about the Wheel were intended to be published on Starwars.com's Hyperspace before it was shut down.

 

I see no reason to react badly to Cad Bane. I think he's easily one of the best things about The Clone Wars. After years of turning Darth Vader and Boba Fett into sympathetic characters, it's nice to see an unrepentant villain who enjoys his work. I look at his creation as making up for the overused and kind of boring Dooku, Grievous and Ventress.

 

Cad Bane is the one character from TCW I wish we'd seen more of. I'm rooting for him to be a part of Rebels. Hell, he could be their Jayne.

 

You of course mean their Jubal

 

That works too.

 

as i said, that is not what I meant. Fry, Pena, Handley etc. are established authors and their older material or new material is of course allowed and checked for continuity. but other blog entries are not checked by continuity people and not allowed to add new content. Wheel had new content because it was by them. Blogentries by fans like Gunslingers, Star Tours, etc. are not allowed new content, merely using old canon content. Even if some of them have quite a background with What's the Story Hyperspace wins and such.

Trust me please, I asked people who must know and write for the blog you can ask them too if you do not believe me.

 

I agree with you, I really enjoyed Cad Bane right from his introduction, for exactly the reasons you describe, and I want to see more of him in the future. I just know that some people are out to portray everything that TCW ever did as being the worst possible abomination to ever grace Star Wars, and was trying to preempt them.

 

the Wook is no official source. I got this firsthand from folks involved with the blog. the wook also lists all kinds of other noncanon things as canon.

 

this may be canonical now, but it was not intended as such as per blog team. the new lore either slipped past them or got added to canon due to it slipping past them (especially with the first gunslingers blog entry). I of course like Ed and his works, and congrats to him for the blog entries. But those asking nicely if new content or retcons are allowed got a clear "No" and I even heard more about this specific case which I do not want to share here. Maybe the second one was waved by because the first one already had been posted. I just wanted to clarify this is not a trend sadly, no second coming of "what's the story" from hyperspace for fans to do retcons and such. one can do great blog entries, but no new lore ourselves sadly.

 

Tell that to SW.com's Encyclopedia.

 

I wish I could.. may it rest in pieces...

 

Hi, folks. Rich Handley here.

First off, I would like to thank you for all of the kind words you've been posting about my and Abel's collaborations. We take great pride in what we write, and are very thankful to see our work being appreciated. The "Aliens in the Empire," Wheel and Droids pieces were all originally written years ago for Polyhedron and the Insider, and were then slated instead for Hyperspace, but circumstances put them on hold for quite some time. Thankfully, starwars.com allowed us to update them to reflect more recent continuity, and now they're FINALLY available to fans. It's been a long time coming, and it's been a blast writing for Lucasfilm and contributing to the Star Wars mythos again after our long absence.

Regarding the posts by Ed Erdelac and Greg Mitchell, I'd like to clear up an apparent misconception about the blog. Everything that is posted there is vetted by Lucasfilm--none of us post our own articles, and none of us have final say over the content. All of it is edited and approved by several Lucasfilm employees prior to posting, and if any corrections are needed, the writers are asked to make them. In the end, if something ends up posted on the blog, it's because Lucasfilm approved it. No one is getting away with anything--LFL is aware of the content.

Greg and Ed are strong writers who know their stuff, and they're passionate about what they do. How do I know this? Well, they're friends of mine, and both Abel and I read over their articles before they were posted, and so I saw first-hand how much work and sweat they poured into putting out quality articles. This was a true labor of love for them both, and it shows. They're also established novelists, so I, for one, am glad to have them writing for the franchise. They're good guys, good writers and good for Star Wars. (If I didn't feel that way, I wouldn't have co-written a Back to the Future book with Greg, nor would I have had both of them contribute to the Hasslein Books blog.)

In recent years, some folks have complained about the lack of in-depth material on starwars.com. Well... now such articles have been greenlighted, and with Lucasfilm's stamp of approval. Rejoice, my friends--it's a GOOD thing.

While I absolutely understand the frustration some writers might have over being told they can't do something and then seeing another author allowed to do it (believe me, I do get that--"been there, done that" at a different publisher years back), I would really hate to see people blame Ed or Greg for this. They're not the ones setting policy, any more than Abel, I, Jason or other writers are. We write, and Lucasfilm decides whether or not to post. And part of that decision involves approvals and editing. If anyone has a problem with these articles being posted (and for the life of me, I can't imagine why they would--it's Star Wars, folks!), then I urge you to remember that Greg and Ed aren't slyly posting these articles when no one at Lucasfilm is looking, evilly twirling their mustaches and proclaiming, "We, Darth Erdelac and Inquisitor Mitchell, have scored a victory for the Dark Side by ***FORCE***-ing (see what I did there?) unapproved continuity down people's throats. At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have revenge."

It's all good, folks.

Regarding Gallandro: He has a daughter. Her name is Anja Gallandro. Hence, Gallandro is, in fact, a last name.

Thanks for letting me rant. I look forward to reading what ya'll think of my other upcoming articles.

Sincerely,
Rich Handley
Hasslein Books
hassleinbooks.com

 

Thanks for stopping by, Rich! And thanks for the insight! You all have been doing a really great job with the blog and those articles recently. Anything else you guys post in the near future will be much looked forward to.

 

Nobody complained about the articles, I hope you did not get me wrong there. I love them. This has nothing to do with jealousy or anything. I know they are professional and and do great stuff, they are my friends too. I also know that once posted it is approved now.
The point though is as you said that new content for the blog is forbidden for most other authors. Nothing against that, I even prefer if only established/professional authors can add to canon and not everybody. And I have it on good authority that Ed was not hired to add new canon lore. I do not blame him for that and neither do I complain here. I just want to point out that him adding new lore was not planned but the result of a lack of editing or rather the editor not knowing enough EU to check it all and therefore it slipped by and retroactively now got approved then. I actually did not want to spill all details here, but guess I have to in order to not look stupid myself with my earlier claims.
Your defense of his blog entry in all honor, I love your and his entries and want more! I merely intended to clear up false hopes of fans being able to use the blog like "What's the Story" to add new canon, which is not true and something that is still luckily in the hands of professionals like you, Abel, Jason and others hired to do so. That said, please tell me if I should be wrong there, cause I have my own sources within the blog who told me that that is how it happened.

 

ps: check out Ed's comment to his own blog entry Gallandros first name is not canon.. he confirms it slipped by.


http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/in...ilized-great-gunslingers-in-star-wars-part-2/

 

Again, I absolutely appreciate your kind words. It warms the cockles of me heart. (I'm not sure when I became Mr. Krabbs.)

Regarding your use of the term "hired," am I correct in assuming you're referring to whether or not they were paid for it? If so (and I'm genuinely not trying to argue with you, I hope you realize--I'm just trying to offer some insight), then I'm not sure I see that it matters whether or not Ed, Greg or any other writers are paid, or how much. (More importantly, I don't think that sort of thing should be aired online unless by them--a writer's financial arrangements are personal, know what I mean?) Whether they were paid a thousand bucks, a hundred bucks, a nickel, or a smile and a byline, in the end, they're still approved writers and they didn't sneak anything in under the radar when no one was looking.

Putting that aside, I can assure you that the editors involved in approving these articles are well-versed in Star Wars lore (I would certainly hope so, given what they do for a living), and would recognize new versus old material. In fact, Ed and Greg (and Abel and I, for that matter) sourced everything in the articles when turning them in, in order to make it easier for the continuity/approvals team.

I do get what you're saying, though--you don't want people to entertain any false hopes about the future of starwars.com, thinking, "Oh, this is great--new canon on a regular basis!" That's admirable--you don't want to see people disappointed or misinformed. I can't speak for Lucasfilm, so it's not really my place to comment on that. I can only say this: My impression is that the people approving these articles give a damn about the content as much as the people writing them.

 

And as far as the wook is concerned, I think even if any new info on these articles is of ambiguous status, it's still worth at least cautious incorporation into EU canon--the same way a lot of Tales stuff was until/unless contradicted.

 

I love how we're getting to debate the canonicity of a 30 year old fictional character's first name at this point. Phew...