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

Are people really this attached to the Jedi Search Trilogy or Crystal Star, LOL?
C'mon, lots of EU has been real crummy.

I'm hoping fewer books with a stronger editorial hand that doesn't come from deep inside the bathysphere of SF publishing will make for much stronger novels.

BTW, in lieu of the Marvel takeover I was planning on doing a massive chronological re-read of my favorite DH SW comics this year and also delving into a few series I missed out on; still planning on doing that (in fact I'm reading Empire now, great series, can't believe I missed it). A good story is a good story whether it's part of a whole or it stands by itself.

 

There are several points to consider there though:

1) They said that, at a time where there were no new movies coming -- it was a caveat that GL (as is his wont) could overrule anything in the EU, which makes perfect sense.

2) When new movies DID start coming out, they made incredible efforts to not overwrite anything in the EU, still maintaining that the EU was canon, except where overridden by GL.

3) Even when the Prequels were finished they told us the same thing and there were no plans for Sequel films, so everything was still good.

So... even if true (which is was) it was still the official story because there was intentionally nothing contradicting it.

Fractures only really started to appear in later-Del Rey days (see: Traviss, Karen and Karpyshyn, Drew) and then from LFL themselves with TCW. It certainly wasn't this...

 

How can I put it? Ah yes.....

If the charge is that SW EU fans were insufficiently cynical up until now, it's unlikely to be a problem from this point on!

 

To be fair, I think it was more that efforts were made to prevent the EU from covering anything future movies (then-prequels) might have covered than actually trying to respect what material there was. At best, we only ever had vague impressions of what the Clone Wars were and how the Empire came about, most of which were totally overwritten and were nothing like what we'd imagined.

 

Correct, but they specifically went with a multimedia project which hadn't been tried since Shadows of the Empire to run a series of novels, video games (RC) and then TV (TCW micro-series) all designed to lead into Episode III.

The novels, in particular, were supposed to run "real time" over a three-year period from AOTC to ROTS and was a concerted effort -- though I don't recall if DH was also involved for comics.

So it was particularly intentional in this case.

 

I sincerely doubt anyone at Disney even knows what Crucible is. The dream's over, guys. Are we really still deluding ourselves about the EU's importance?

This decision was inevitable from the day Lucas agreed to sell his company. They waited this long to tell us because they wanted to make a flashy video about it. Or something.

 

There's no reason to believe that there will be fewer books, unless the argument is that because there aren't as many books as of right now, it will be easier to keep track of. We have four books lined up for just the next 10 months, and I look for that number to increase as we get even closer to the new films and then even more so once they are out and the hype machine is alive.

Accordingly, there is no reason to think that things will be of higher quality when we have basically the exact same people in place to generate this stuff as we had for all the old stuff that no long means anything to the greater mythos. They didn't kick out all the washed up Trek writers and bring in sci-fi/fantasy legends.

I do agree with you on doing re-reads though....there are plenty of good stories out there and it's just a shame that future fans won't be able to read the vast majority of them (especially the Dark Horse stuff, we'll see how long the Legends line holds up) without paying tons of money for out of print TPBs/Omnibii

 

Pretty sure no one from Dave to the rest even knew what the EU itself was.

 

Too bad it was so hard to find ( and in undamaged condition ).

It was.

 

Even if they did 6 books a year, it would be a decrease. And it looks like a large part of their slate will be kid's books: chapter readers & illustrated stories. With fewer books being pushed out, the chances of the general quality going up is pretty strong. It means more care can go into each publication. I think there were too many books being cranked out for too long; it just got impossible to keep up with or get into. For now it looks like they're pulling back in a big way to ensure quality control and continuity control. I think that's a good idea. JJM said he was working on A New Dawn over the fall and winter. Sounds like he had at least 4 months to write the book. In the past, 3 months was a lot of time for an EU writer. Most licensed fiction is written in 4-8 weeks. Even a journeyman writer like JJM will do better given more time; and he also seems to have appreciated having direction from the SG. Overall, it looks like they have a better method of production than before.

 

Del Rey will almost certainly not be handling "kid's books" (though that may shift from Scholastic to Disney imprints).

 

Indeed, there's very little at present to make me believe the grass will be any greener.

Even Tarkin, for me, it will be a very nice book, that's for sure, because I enjoy the premise, and I enjoy Luceno very much. But... that's the point: it's still by Luceno, and even if he makes no mention of the previous EU, he will still fill it with references -- that is his style of prose. So if a reader found it difficult to read a book that referenced anything outside the few characters they saw in the films? Then if they didn't like Luceno before, they won't like Luceno now either. Ditto with JJM and Kemp. That's why I find it very interesting that they've picked those three. Had they wanted something "simple" then they would have gone with someone like, say, Christie Golden, whose Warcraft novels are generally popular, but -- as people saw in FOTJ -- she does things very much by the cards, going through the motions.

That's just her prose style, you either liked it, or you didn't. But JJM and Luceno aren't Golden. They're two that enjoy their interconnected tales, so even if we don't get a mention of Zayne Carrick or Natasi Daala, I can see them filling their books with lots of TCW references -- which, exactly like the rest of the EU, are not going to be things your "casual" film audience is going to be that familiar with. I've commented previously how Seasons 4 and 5 were not even aired in the United Kingdom, meaning most of your casual audience here won't even be familiar with three of the TCW seasons, so if they picked up Tarkin and it's filled with stuff about Cad Bane or Mortis or Mother Talzin or whatever? They'll be just as lost as if Luceno had mentioned Exar Kun.

This is why he reason for this had nothing to do with making it easier for the audiences or to free up what Abrams could do (like Lucas, he was free to do whatever he wanted all along).

No, it's much more simple than that: money, pure and simple. Throwing out the existing stories simply means they can now tell the story of how Luke, Han and Leia got from ROTJ to EP7 all over again, and make money from that a second time. It never made any difference whether or not you knew who Marcus Aurelius was when you sat down to watch Russel Crowe break skulls in the Coliseum (nor did the real history restrict what Ridley Scott could do either...). So all we're seeing here is just EU2.0 and them being able to use the same popular characters from the OT to sell stories a second time, which may be better, may be worse, who knows, we will see.

 

Continued from my earlier post:

Youth/Kids books: Legacy/Secrets, JA, JQ, LOTJ, BF, YJK, JJK, RF, maybe GOF, JP, and the junior novelizations. Skipping the rest.

Comics: Going to skip TCW material, Brian Woods' Star Wars, Tales and any one shot comics (unless they're omnibussed.)

Magazines: This was a very tough one to decide. I so badly want to read stuff like "Unknown Soldier" and "Lord of War." But when it boils down to it, I just can't afford to collect all of these mags for that material.

RPG: Probably will skip all of it.

Video games: Only be able to buy a handful, unfortunately.

 

I'm trying to be as positive about all of this as possible. I did generally dislike the direction of the EU after NJO, and opening up that time period would certainly be welcome. But just think about all of the things we have taken for granted from the EU: a new Jedi order exists, there is a New Republic, Leia and Han are married with children, Jedi are allowed to marry. Now we don't know any of these things. Heck, we don't even know if they drink caf, or if kriffing is a curse word in the Star Wars galaxy anymore!

 

As long as Han still owns Dathomir I'll be happy.

 

And has his own SKY HOUSE.

 

But that has the great potential of being a fun, engaging series of stories to tell. We've seen it one way, with no reason to think Lucas would ever accept the post ROTJ EU. Now we can read stories that will have happened: definitively. Maybe even inspired by the great material that kept SW in the public's eye for the decade leading up to Ep1.

 

Cad Bane was in the Season 1 finale: Hostage Crisis. Still, the point is sound.

 

I think it's not quite as ambitious as that, at least not at this stage (hopefully, by the time they decide they should retell the entire history of the SW galaxy on screen in an exciting 55-film series, the damned things start losing money and they just let Star Wars live on as a theme park attraction). They just want to eat the cake and have it too: keep the old EU and its fans around, but for God's sake not be bound to it. Think of a marriage that becomes "non-exclusive": "Honey, I treasure what we have, and the 30 years we've been together mean too much for me to let you go, but I think I feel like whoring around from on."

 

One aspect of the whole affair that really steams me is the fact that it could very well mean no third NEC edition which has been badly needed since 2010.

 

I do find it slightly amusing that TCW a show that has no continuity with the films and pretty much has trouble making sense with it's own stories on the screen, is now the bench mark for the new Canon

 

TCW was likely included because Lucas was very involved in it. It likely was part of the contract of the sell that TCW had to be part of the canon.

 

Tsui Choi appeared in ROTS.

Tsui Choi is still canon

 

I have to admit that I'd have preferred a proper clean slate, with TCW being branded "Legends" too.

Ah, well.