Saga Wasn't Darth Maul shown to be cut in half...

I'm saying whatever they were up to was irrelevant to his work on his stories.

No, he didn't know very well. He didn't care that much. It was licensing, nothing more.

Nobody said he didn't want anything but his story told. What's being said is that stories from licensing are just that, licensing, and not relevant to his story.

You continue to pretend that licensing is somehow a canonical approval from George Lucas. It's not and never was. The EU is as relevant to Lucas and his story as LEGO Star Wars. You know, another licensing example.

 

No it's not, it's not up to us to decide what's canon and what's not, the canon doesn't work that way. If everyone can decide what's canon and what's not then what's the point of the canon and non-canon differences...

 

It's the difference between a white light and a colored beam split by a prism.

 

The largest freaking load of BS I've ever read here. How could Lucas, even in apathy, NOT know what was going on at his own company? The company he founded and continued to head for over three decades. Even in his personal canon (which does exist and changes with the wind) if it didn't exist, the official LFL stance was that these stories were canon. Again, licensing or not, LFL legitimized these stories for decades. They put them into encyclopedias, into technical journals, into the movie guidebooks, into the cross section books, into the official movie visual dictionaries. LFL made sure people knew these stories existed, even if they'd never picked up an EU book in their life. These were not simple side stories to a main canon. They tied into it completely. And you're going to sit here and tell me that nobody at LFL actually believed these stories were canon? What a load! What a freaking load!

 

No arguments, then. I see...

Not know what's going on? Where does that come from?

Until they ceased to be. WHich happened time and time again.

LFL ≠ GL.

Yes, media. They sold it. *gasp*

Yes, they were, as stated by Lucas many times. But since (some) fans didn't want to acknowledge that, licensing had to come up with contrived ways to fit it all together, even making a ranking of first class and second class works. The so called canon hierarchy.

Again, LFL ≠ GL. Got it? I can repeat the same thing over and over. Denial is not a river in Egypt.

 

GL in every way IS LFL. He founded it, he ensured it remained his for 35 years, he made sure that it was independent from the Hollywood machine, he made sure that he remained the top dog at it for years. He knew very well what went on in his company as much as a father knows what goes on in his own house. It's not like LFL sneakily hid the EU, they brandished it like a sword, and created 3 decades of material for it. And yet despite the misgivings by the owner, LFL treated it like it had been canon. LFL controlled what was canon, and if Lucas didn't want them to be canon, he shouldn't have put them into the cartoons he created. He shouldn't have put them into the movies he created. There's tons of EU material that has been placed into the PT and TCW. If Lucas didn't want it there, he wouldn't have put it there. Lucas decided what went on, because it was his company, and he owned it. Lucas was the integral part of LFL and all it's properties.

 

He let other play into his sandbox sure, but he wasn't beholden to it when he was making his own stories. See also TCW and probably his live action TV-series if it ever had gotten off the ground.

 

I never said he was beholden to it. There's plenty of times Lucas flat out stated that the EU wasn't integral to the story he was trying to tell, but then again, that's where my point about headcanons come in. Whatever Lucas's stance on the EU was, the company he maintained had decided it was part of the continuity.

 

Sounds like they changed their mind about it.

 

2012, yes, when they were bought by Disney. It was a chance for them to restart, and rebuild the continuity without having to worry about the EU being in the way. They could pick and choose from it as they liked, but it was no longer a consideration when they made new stories.

 

That was true before 2012. If Lucas wanted to tell a different story, it would override any prior EU. One only has to look at TCW to see that.

 

For licensing purposes. The fact is that he had nothing to do with the EU and he was never beholden to it. It's nonsense (not to mention, wrong) to credit Lucas for an EU story, as you did in your original post.

 

To be fair, TCW sometimes overrode much more than just EU.

Just because he is not beholden to it does not make him responsible for it.

 

He's not responsible for it. Just like he's not responsible for LEGO Star Wars, or a Pepsi can. He simply licensed. That's it.

 

Lucas owns LFL, LFL licenses out to Lego or Pepsi. Therefore, by extension, Lucas is responsible for what goes on those cans. It would be like saying Disney had no legal responsibility towards the Jedi Rey figures they sued about leaking.

 

Indeed. When Lucas started making the PT, he was retconning a lot of stuff in the old EU, which then had to come up with explanations for what he was changing, in order to have it fit. You can see it right off the bat with "The Hand Of Thrawn" duology. When TCW came out, it changed a lot of details about existing EU. From where Maul was born, to when Anakin became a Knight, the introduction of Ahsoka, the introduction of the bio chips, Barriss Offee becoming corrupted, Depa Bilaba not being corrupted, the Jedi finding out that Dooku is Tyranus and was behind the creation of the Clone Army, the reasons for Yoda going to Dagobah, the change in name of Korriban to Moraband, the change in appearance of Darth Bane and what happened with Ventress. And had Lucas made the ST, as he was starting to go in that direction, he would have overridden every story post ROTJ. We already know that from what little we know about the origins of TFA. There would never have been a Jacen, Jaina and Anakin Solo.

Oh, he knew the broad strokes. He knew that Luke founded a new Jedi Order, that Leia and Han got married and had children, that Luke would get married and have a line of descendants, that Palpatine came back, that there was a New Republic, etc. He even said don't kill Luke in "Vector Prime" and said that Anakin Solo should die instead of Jacen in "Star By Star". But he was never going to rely on those stories for the ST. Ever.

"There are two worlds here," explained Lucas. "There's my world, which is the movies, and there's this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe—the licensing world of the books, games and comic books. They don't intrude on my world, which is a select period of time, [but] they do intrude in between the movies. I don't get too involved in the parallel universe."

--George Lucas, Cinescape interview, 2001.

STARLOG: "The Star Wars Universe is so large and diverse. Do you ever find yourself confused by the subsidiary material that's in the novels, comics, and other offshoots?"

LUCAS: "I don't read that stuff. I haven't read any of the novels. I don't know anything about that world. That's a different world than my world. But I do try to keep it consistent. The way I do it now is they have a Star Wars Encyclopedia. So if I come up with a name or something else, I look it up and see if it has already been used. When I said [other people] could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one. They try to make their universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions."

--Starlog interview, August 2005.

Interviewer: "Do you think you'd have other people continue the Star Wars saga past Episode VI or turn some of the other material into films?"

Lucas: "But there's no story past Episode VI, there's just no story. It's a certain story about Anakin Skywalker and once Anakin Skywalker dies, that's kind of the end of the story. There is no story about Luke Skywalker, I mean apart from the books. But there's three worlds: There's my world that I made up, there's the licensing world that's the books, the comics, all that kind of stuff, the games, which is their world, and then there's the fans' world, which is also very rich in imagination, but they don't always mesh. All I'm in charge of is my world. I can't be in charge of those other people's world, because I can't keep up with it."

--ShoWest interview, 2008.

TOTAL FILM: "The Star Wars universe has expanded far beyond the movies. How much leeway do the game makers and novel writers have?"

LUCAS: "They have their own kind of world. There's three pillars of Star Wars. I'll probably get in trouble for this but it's OK! There's three pillars: the father, the son and the holy ghost. I'm the father, Howard Roffman [president of Lucas Licensing] is the son and the holy ghost is the fans, this kind of ethereal world of people coming up with all kinds of different ideas and histories. Now these three different pillars don't always match, but the movies and TV shows are all under my control and they are consistent within themselves. Howard tries to be consistent but sometimes he goes off on tangents and it's hard to hold him back. He once said to me that there are two Star Trek universes: there's the TV show and then there's all the spin-offs. He said that these were completely different and didn't have anything to do with each other. So I said, "OK, go ahead." In the early days I told them that they couldn't do anything about how Darth Vader was born, for obvious reasons, but otherwise I pretty much let them do whatever they wanted. They created this whole amazing universe that goes on for millions of years!"

TOTAL FILM: "Are you happy for new Star Wars tales to be told after you're gone?"

LUCAS: "I've left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII-IX. That's because there isn't any story. I mean, I never thought of anything. And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn't at all what I would have done with it. The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn't come back to life, the Emperor doesn't get cloned and Luke doesn't get married..."

--Total Film interview, May 2008.

And it's not the only time this has happened. After "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" ended, there were two novels set after the show's conclusion. "Queen Of The Slayers" and "Dark Congress", both take place after the finale. But when Whedon began writing the eighth season comics, they overwrote what was in those novels. Nor were any novels ever canon to begin with. He even said that if he were to do a reunion show or film, he'd probably ignore those comics as well, even though he was involved in them.

 

This is exactly what I thought when the PT ended!!! Glad to see I´m not the only one, haha... why not keep Maul around and have Dooku as a political agent? Maul is far more interesting as a Sith, and C. Lee would have shined regardless...

 

As far as the movies are concerned, and up to TFA, Maul died at the end of TPM and it is still dead.

Yoda even has a scene with Mace Windu at the end of TPM where they talk about there being no doubt that the remains found (on Naboo), were those of a Sith, or something to that effect.

That being said, if TCW or other spin-off franchises want to show Maul being alive and well and sporting a spider body and have beers with Dooku and Porkins, who am I to judge.

We all know that Bobba Fett also survived the Sarlaacc and that Palpatine clones are still running around with his old master Plagueis the wise.

 

Well, actually Maul's remains are never mentioned in TPM. The dialogue is:

MACE WINDU: There's no doubt. The mysterious warrior was a Sith.
YODA: Always two there are.... no more... no less. A master and an apprentice.
MACE WINDU: But which one was destroyed, the master or the apprentice?

Nothing in there about Maul's body, it seems to be based more on what Maul was seen to do, being able to kill a Jedi.

 

Right. It was only in the EU that Maul's body was discovered and exhumed by the Jedi after the Battle of Naboo.

 

Side question- how did they know he was SITH?

I think when GL wrote the script he had already established in his mind that sith and dark side users are not the same thing...
SITH is a very specific religion and philosophy of the dark side, and all they knew of Maul presumably was that he was very proficient with a lightsaber using the dark side.

 

Its called deductive reasoning and logic - and was part of the plot of the "Phantom Menace", because the Sith were the Phantom Menace:

Obi-Wan Kenobi to Qui-Gon Jinn: What was it?
Qui-Gon Jinn: I’m not sure, but it was well-trained in the Jedi arts.

Qui-Gon Jinn [to the Jedi Council]: He was trained in the Jedi arts. My only conclusion was that it was a Sith lord.
Ki-Adi-Mundi: Impossible. The Sith have been extinct for a millenium.
Mace Windu: I do not believe the Sith could have returned without us knowing.
Yoda: Ah, hard to see the Dark Side is.”
Mace Windu: We will use all of our resources to unravel this mystery. We will discover the identity of your attacker.

Mace Windu: Go with the Queen to Naboo and discover the identity of this dark warrior. That is the clue we need to unravel the mystery of the Sith.


Mace Windu : There's no doubt. The mysterious warrior was a Sith.
Yoda: Always two there are.... no more... no less. A master and an apprentice.
Mace Windu : But which one was destroyed, the master or the apprentice?

 

Well I don't think being able to kill a Jedi is the only requirement for being a Sith, because as we've seen from Episode II, bounty hunters could kill a Jedi knight, and even a group of battle droids killed a Jedi in the Geonosis arena.

They thought it was a Sith Lord because Kenobi probably (it should be like %99.9) told them what happened and how Qui-Gon died in Naboo, he probably told them he was using the Force and he was a very skilled lightsaber user just like Jedi knights, and he was even better than them in that regard. So, I don't think ''being able to kill a Jedi'' make them to think he was a Sith lord, I think what Kenobi told them was the reason why they think he was a Sith lord. Which is why Mace also says ''mysterious warrior'' , ''the warrior'' is the key word for why they think he was a Sith.

 

In TESB Luke can sense the Dark Side in the cave. If Sith are expected to be extremely Dark Side - producing a frighteningly strong aura - and if Obi-Wan reported Maul having one - then it makes sense that they would conclude "Sith" instead of "random darksider".

 

Because only a Sith Lord can kill a Jedi Knight with nothing more than a Lightsaber and using the dark side of the Force as proficiently as Maul did. Earlier, the Council believed that it wasn't a Sith Lord, but someone who had some knowledge of the Force, but was not proficient. Obi-wan's report was conclusive. Maul was able to use the Force very well and fight two Jedi with ease. Something an ordinary warrior wouldn't be able to do.

With a blaster. With a Lightsaber, not so much. Look at Obi-wan's fight with Tor Vizlea.



Or Maul's battle with him.