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

Where on earth do you get the idea I was telling people not to read anything?

 

I quite agree!

But it's just awesome to add the title "Legendary" to the front. OFFICIAL CANON NAME

 

Sorry - wasn't directed at you specifically, it was aimed at all the people saying this has "ruined their enjoyment" of the whole Star Wars universe.

 

Well part of me is sorta relieved I never got into reading anything post RotJ so I don't have competing continuities in my head, but also it's ultimately not like their gonna come and take away my old Star Wars EU novels/comics. Long as things aren't drastically changed between and before the time the OT/PT take place I'll just live in my own little Star Wars universe where old and new EU are equal.

 

Well, except Sword of the Jedi. And any other story that could only occur with the old Legends continuity.

Not that I'm mourning the loss of Denningverse.

 

Come on, it's not like we didn't see this coming when the "cleanup" of the EU was announced last year?

The good news: I don't have to suffer through the awful post ROTJ books (I'm currently in the middle of the Vong invasion).

The bad news: I feel a bit cheated after buying hundreds of comics, books and the games.

 

But now you get to buy new, Disneyfied (=rubbish, most likely) stories to fill the 30 years between ROTJ and the new films. Aren't you lucky

 

Ah, thanks.

A parting shot before bed: The announcement today is, though most of us hoped it might not go down as it has, knew was a possibility 9 months back. For myself, I worked out my likely response then. I would be mostly uninterested in the new EU as reboots tend to severely reduce, if not out-right obliterate, my interest. But there'd be exceptions for particular works if they got a strong positive reception. I didn't expect both the likes of Luceno and JJM to be on board, but, due to their record, their stuff falls under the exception category.

Ultimately, the only way to really express your displeasure is via your wallet! But few put their money where their mouth is!

 

Meh, whatever I don't give a **** what one person says, let her have her ''official'' word.

If you can't behave, you're going to take a vacation.

 

The potential problem with this is in the social media reception of the new films. After Jar Jar Binks a lot of 'committed' SW fans became irreconcilably hostile to George Lucas, to the point where they assumed anything bad (casting for example) was down to incompetence rather than bad luck. Have Disney just had their Jar Jar Binks moment before the new films even come out?

 

I don't know. With the EU fans, yes. With non EUers that's a different story.

 

How many of those fans still bought the tickets to the films? The DVDs? The blu-rays? More than a few I'd suspect!

Sometimes social media has an impact - see Lindelof's apology over a Into Darkness scene - but other times it's treated as net outrage being.... net outrage and that's all.

 

Which is why this isn't that big a deal--the EU has been ignoring and re-writing itself constantly while still referencing the earliest material since almost day one. Who could have predicted that the last time a "new" EU was launched, in the 90s, that the obscure and nearly-ignored Marvel comics would come back to have a huge influence on the mainstream releases? And yet even when new novels featuring Lumiya were being released, the official line that the Marvel comics weren't necessarily part of the continuity was still being bandied around.

TC

 

I will second that parting shot, if I may. I intend to put my money where my mouth is, and invite every fan of SW literature to do the same.

 

Not LFL, who if you recall fought hard to not include the Marvel series - it was the inclusivist authors that forced their hand by essentially including everything they could from the comic series (and the Holiday Special too), rendering the concept of S-canon moot.

They can pull all the names out of the LEU Hat that they want, it still won't make up for the fact that the X-Wing Series doesn't happen in the Neu Universe.

 

So the day I've been dreading has actually given me a bit of hope. With three familiar (and excellent) names among the authors, I have no doubt a lot of stuff from the EU will get canonized in this new universe. The big question is what books will be coming after these, particularly those set around the time of the sequels. There are 26 years of history to fill in between Return of the Jedi and the sequels, so hopefully some of the authors we know and love will have a hand in crafting that history and include as much of the things we love as they can. Do we dare hope Thrawn somehow makes the cut? Could characters like Corran or Mara be referenced or maybe even appear? While I'm bummed out about the whole "Legends" thing, this is a better situation than I hoped for. Time will tell if that optimism gets crushed when the movies and their tie-in novels come around.

 

Pretty much echoing my thoughts on the matter. I'll admit, I am sort of surprised by the Tarkin and Lords of the Sith books. I pretty much figured that The Mouse would stick to more Heir to the Jedi and A New Dawn. While I am hesitant about the NEU in general, I'll at least give Luceno's Tarkin book a chance. If it's good, I'll look into the others. If it isn't good, or I don't like what it does, I won't. Simple as that.

 

Here's the thing -- there's almost certainly not going to be any post-ROTJ material until after December 2015.

Which means all of you who believe in not reading about characters you know are guaranteed to survive (a common complaint previously, one which I never understood but still) are going to have nothing other than the more "historical" novels like Tarkin...

 

Yeah, but that was kind of a given anyway. And in any case, until the new movies come out the simple fact is we don't know either way. Remember how Abrams included old material and ideas in the ST reboot? I wouldn't be at all surprised if a lot of the basic framework of the Bantam Era at least happened in backstory for the new continuity (and from that point it's just a case of fleshing it out and while that's not the same as having the novels still in there it's better than nothing which is what I was expecting).

Fact is, we can't really complain about stuff we haven't read/experienced. If the novelizations are still canon a lot of stuff is still canon-by-association until proven otherwise (like the myriad EU references in the RotS novelization).

And I do seem to remember seeing something somewhere about the Legends continuity continuing separate form the new continuity (presumably to avoid jettisoning TOR and thereby alienating EA).

This is better than the complete wipe we were expecting, and expecting the ST to slot in to the Legends EU or being a direct adaptation of it was unrealistic at best.

 

Would 'The Phantom Menace' not have a better reputation if not for the fan outrage over Jar Jar Binks and the casting of Anakin?

 

That's the part that disappoints me the most. They can name a character Mara or Thrawn, but none of the events that we associate with those names will have happened. And I somewhat doubt Lucasfilm/Disney is going to allow authors to re-canonize things like Thrawn's campaigns or the Yuuzhan Vong War.

 

Coming out of JC retirement to post this:

This is basically the day our childhoods died.

 

On the other hand, this "EU as a resource" stance may open up a lot of possibilities. For example, Filoni, admittedly a fan of the EU wouldn't have thought of using, say, Thrawn; but now? he is not bound nor influenced nor banned by anyone to be used. Sure, without to his EU story since he is a resource, but he can pop up in Rebels at some point... and might even get killed there! (another one of Filoni's likeys).

So, the EU-haters might rejoice now, not so much when the EU begins its "resource" era.

 

Truth! He was (is?) a veritable Prophet of the Dark Side.

That's my point, though--I don't see them not doing it again this time around. (LFL had mixed opinions on the Special, though--Heir to the Empire ignored its events, while Kube-McDowell was explicitly instructed to include Chewie's family from the special not long after.)

We could have said the same thing in 1993: "They can pull all the names out of the Marvel hat they want, it still won't make up for the fact that Hoth Stuff doesn't happen in the 'Expanded Universe'."

Mind you, I'm not sure how we would have said that to each other in 1993. Smoke signals? Tin cans? Rotary phones? alt.books.starwars.forgetlastcommand.jansonisdead?

TC