Lit What do you think will happen to the EU in 2015?

Chak Fel says no. Though I think Zahn gets more leeway.

But I really don't think they edit books for continuity, except in the outline phase. I think his job is mostly for categorization of the people, places, and things that appear in Star Wars products, so if George likes something they can look up where it appeared beforehand and give him the information to ignore. It also came in handy when selling the company to Disney!

 

I never really understood how much of a disconnect there was between Lucasfilms and all of its other properties until Episode VII was announced.

 

EDIT: can't put the starting time in there for some reason
4:50

 

Personally I find there to be a disconnect between LucasFilm and all the license holders individually, though obviously LucasFilm and Lucas Animation or whatever it was called were less bound by continuity, and there was a bit more cooperation insofar as Zahn using WEG products in writing his trilogy and referencing of events across stories, but to some degree I think the individual license holders were uncooperative with each other to a point just shy of competitiveness. Which I guess is somewhat good because if they didn't stake out their territory and enforce it, Kyle Katarn would be another name sacrificed by Troy Denning.

The idea of continuity and canon meaning the same thing, and cooperation across media beyond multimedia projects sounds promising, but I'll believe it when I see it.

 

Well Zahn was told to use the WEG stuff...

 

Indeed. A case could be made that some WEG content was "brought into movies & TCW" - by Lucas. The name Twi'lek, for Bib Fortuna's species, was never used in the movies- and as far as I know, there's no hint of it being used in "behind the scenes" material either- with its first appearance being in WEG's The Star Wars Sourcebook in 1987.

Unless it can be confirmed as being used earlier? There's no reference to it in Wookieepedia's index of Raymond Velasco's A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, published in 1984:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/A_Guide_to_the_Star_Wars_Universe,_First_Edition

 

Also "ewoks" were never named in the movies....

 

The question is if they were named in the credits though, as "Ewok 1" and "Ewok 2" and so forth. A case could be made that the use of the "Ewok" name for their species in the novelization, was indication that Lucas at least invented that name, even if his characters didn't use it onscreen.

 

Upon more research, it appears they are listed in the credits.

 

Would be interesting to compile a list of "WEG & novels-originated content" that has been referenced in the TCW series, added to the Special Edition movies, and shown in the PT movies.

Even a "total reboot allowing only T-canon and G-canon content" won't be able to remove all EU-originated stuff.

 

This is a good point. Everything that originated in the EU and then was included in the movies and tv shows will survive. Zahn naming Coruscant, stuff like that...

I agree about compiling such a list.

 

Unfortunately, I lack much in the way of WEG books.

Wookieepedia has a list- not sure if it has a TCW one, or how complete it is:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_C-canon_elements_in_the_films

 

So we would just have to compile which of those references appeared in WEG?

 

Yup- though it may be incomplete.

 

I have a memory I really can't place, but didn't even GL use the term Twi'lek during production of ROTS? I'm pretty sure I've read that somewhere back in the days...

EDIT: Or at least mentioned Twi'leks...

 

There's certainly evidence that he used the term Rodian:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rodian

 

Which goes back to a larger point about the EU being a part of the fabric of Star Wars. It actually is engrained that when someone looks up what type of species / planet it is, the name of the source usually has an EU background. So you can never completely remove stuff from publishing and licensing from the universe because it becomes such a part of what defines the small details. Big details, however, when a character dies, who was born to who or whatever, who fought in what war with who, those can be freely mucked around with because they're Big Red Universe Changing Moves that are generally reserved for the filmmakers. But, hey, Rodian! Courscant! The Outrider! Mandelorian! It's all in there. It can never totally be removed.

 

I have a few different modes of thinking on this. For one, post ROTJ stuff will be gone. Off limits for now. But I also think that eu works that do not mess around i that time.frame may be safe. Stuff like KOTOR and the Dark Times stuff may still be valid. I'm hoping they will even be able to save one of my all tima faves in SOTE! But all this Solo's kids stuff. Gettin crazy with the dark side....all that stuff is gone!! My suggestion....make a big pile of all our post ROTJ era books and have a bon fire!!!!

 

But some of that material is good. Like the Thraw Trilogy and Duology. And those won't be overwritten, I think. The Solo kids don't play a role; they are born in the trilogy, but that's so insignificant that I don't see it invalidatimg the wider story. The book was alread wrong on the Clone Wars and that didn't invalidate it. Plus the original actors are too old to reprise those roles. Even of they were, they are still enjoyable. I wouldn't want to discard them so quickly. In addition, I think the X-Wing books are safe. They deal with minor characters after all. I Jedi might have some trouble; if they decide to retell the formation of the New Jedi Order. Still I think the majority of the story could still work with a couple retcons. Lastly, Truth at Bakura could be safe since it happens immediately after Vendor. That encompasses most of the could books in the Bantam era and the last good post ROTJ series is the NJO. With that we'll sadly have to wait and see, but I like it to much to discard because it is labeled as non canon. I still think they will come up with some convoluted ret on to keep it.

 

Article about the new canon
http://roqoodepot.com/2014/01/07/jj-abrams-and-the-quest-for-canon/

 

That may be the reason why they're doing this attempt at "keeping" the EU (or a portion thereof). For the whippersnappers out there, I don't think you realize how empty the Star Wars universe was back during the early days - there was no attempt at even giving names to the Cantina people. (Compare how they had a name and brief synopsis for every background character in the club at TPM) Zahn would have to had created almost the entire background of the Star Wars universe from scratch... except for WEG. And that, I'm sure, was never the idea of WEG that it would ever "matter" outside of the RPG. (In general, RPG tie-ins don't matter - Last Unicorn Games' excellent Star Trek RPG circa 2000 was completely ignored by the rest of the franchise). So, fast forward to the present, and the franchise has relied on the original secondary material for so much of the background information, I guess it's easier to deal with the 'contradictions' on a case-by-case basis. The only problem is that there will likely be some major contradictions - and I'm not confident that Chee and Pablo will do much other than to acknowledge the contradiction and then kick the canon can down the proverbial road.

 

I understand that Lucasfilm and Disney need to better streamline the canon of the Star Wars universe for the introduction of the next trilogy and in general. I expected that a lot of the EU, especially everything that is close to whatever time period they decide to place the films at, would get erased. Frankly as a huge fan of the EU, I wouldn't mind having some of the things that happened get erased, but I would at least hope they don't get rid of some of the really memorable and popular stories from the EU. I'm talking about the X-Wing series (sadly not Mercy Kill) and the Thrawn Trilogy. Those were arguably the biggest fan favorite series and introduced a lot of the greatest non-movie characters to Star Wars. And since for the most part those stories happened only a few years after ROTJ they should stay in. I hope they at least keep everything up to Hand of Thrawn books apart of canon, I could accept that. The only things I can see being in real trouble are the NJO series and beyond, as well as the Legacy comics. Its probably safe to assume anything in the EU that happened before ROTJ is relatively safe unless it directly contradicts the future movies or the upcoming Rebels show. Do not get rid of Mara Jade, Thrawn, Corran Horn, and so many other of my favorite EU characters.

 

Well, Zahn's Coruscant was introduced to the PT. Before EU, the Imperial City hasn't been named. Not sure if he got that from WEG, though.

About the thread question, as much as I hoped that all would somehow work out well by maybe creating 2 continuities, current moves by Disney are somewhat disheartening. Taking the comics from capable DH hands to Marvel being particularly disappointing. I'm not sure what to make of those new twitter posts by Leland Chee, sadly it looks like post-ROTJ stuff might be retconned. I wouldn't mind changing of some events if they keep some good post-ROTJ EU characters like Mara, Karrde and the Solo twins.

 

The blunt truth that Lucas and Lucas film never really cared about the EU besides the revenue it generated. It's pretty much the same with Disney and they plan on building the revenue from their own films and shows, so anything changed before hand they are just simply not going to care about.

TBH I could do with retconning Stackpoles having Xwings take out Star Destroyers by the Hundered or KJA's super weapons galore nonsense.

Ironically though, seeing as how they were pretty much the earliest books of the EU, Zahn's characters such as Mara and Thrawn are the one's most likely to survive albeit in a different form. Which considering how Zahn has written them lately is probably a good thing

As for that 2 continuities guff, well why not have 3 or 4 or even 5 ! No matter it will not have the slightest effect on Disney and how they would view it.

 

I'm still confused but I think it'd be grand if they quit the levels. It was silly to begin with. The individual has a right to choose what they like and what they don't.