Saga Do the Sequels increase or decrease the value of the saga to you?

TBH,

whether it was Lucas' idea, Zahn's idea, Abrams idea, or freaking Kermit the frog, it was a stupid idea imo.

Not everyone who disliked the ST as a whole are Lucas apologists

 

Appreciate the interview. It's always interesting to get some of the behind-the-scenes info. That being said, I definitely side with Zahn on this one.

 

What happened in the EU before the release of the prequels is kind of irrelevant to me. Palpatine returning is inconsistent with the narrative arc of the Lucas movies.

 

@devilinthedetails

Bravo! This was very thoughtful and fun to read. It also deftly avoided the trap that is this thread. I'm envious.

 

Can you do anything else then repeat yourself over and over and over?! I mean people argumented with in a deep way and all you do is throwing around the same stuff again and again without engaging into the arguments of the other posters. Your behaviour could be interpreted as trolling.

I think I've read that Dark Empire was a comic book Lucas gave around to staff and friends as present. DE is exactly what Lucas loved about Comic books so I can see why he loved that one.

 

I think, by the time of the PT era, Lucas had soured on it a bit - hence his "not at all what I would have done with it - the Emperor doesn't come back to life" comments about the EU.

Zahn's criticism of the idea that Darksiders would cooperate for any length of time, also kind of fits with what Lucas says about the Sith - they're so backstabby that without the rule of Two, they self-sabotage all the way to destruction.

 

Naturally. Lucas was apt to change his mind when it came to Star Wars. Darth Maul was very dead...until he wasn't. My point is this: At one time, Lucas was the one open to/approving/suggesting that the Emperor could return from the dead for the post ROTJ era. This story idea/element is not the affront to the OT heroes legacy as some would claim.

 

I didn't think bringing back Palpatine was a bad idea, but the way the ST handled it struck me as quite terrible.

Throwaway Snoke clones in the background were amusing, though. It reminded me of how Abrams joked about showing Jar Jar's bones, except he ended up doing something similar in regards to his own character, basically admitting Snoke was just a cheap and nearly useless throwaway stand-in all along. Probably Abrams finest moment as a filmmaker.

 

I can get with this. That said, the way it was handled was terribly pulpy and, in a way, a throwback to the very Saturday morning serials that inspired SW.

 

He didn't. He let other people do it if they wanted to. Dark Empire is not his story or vision. To pretend that that's what would have happened had he decided to do a story post-ROTJ is wrong. He let Licensing do a lot of things that he wouldn't necessarily do it himself if it was his own story, precisely because he always drew a line between his stuff and everything else.

This is not news and has never been news.

 

Again....

Tom Veitch (author of Dark Empire): "Tim (Zahn) hated the idea of Emperor coming back (and probably wasn't aware that George Lucas had proposed the idea to us). "

Perhaps Veitch is lying?

 

The point is George proposing an idea for the EU authors doesn’t mean he would use it in a canon work

 

Dark Empire was official Star Wars canon up until Lucas sold his company to Disney.

 

I know. The Force Awakens is also official Star Wars canon as of now. Doesn’t mean it’s the author’s canon. You’ve definitely heard that George said the EU was separate from his world.

 

Accusing me of trolling when I’m just responding to the same points being brought up is pretty ironic.

There seems to be a couple of misconceptions here. First, that Dark Empire being a thing absolves the ST of sloppily using Palpatine as the main villain in 9 after no build up.

The second is that there is no story after 6 unless you strip away all the progress made in the OT. If you don’t believe there should have been an ST, I could see that viewpoint. I’d rather there be no ST than what we got. But I absolutely don’t think it was impossible to move the story forward without rehashing the originals and taking away all the accomplishments of the heroes.

 

I hear you. Yet, it's a slippery slope talking about what is/was Lucas's head canon vs. and what is/was official Star Wars canon. They are not always the same and often, depending on Lucas, would change midstream.

For example: Tartakovsky's Clone Wars was once the official canon leading into Revenge of the Sith...until Lucas changed his mind.

Sometimes, even the SW stories Lucas created himself ended up not being canon in his own mind. The original films are not canon, the Special Editions are. What about made for TV Ewok movies? Lucas co-wrote them. Canon, or no?

Point being: Lucas still exercised a measure control over the Star Wars projects that were not his films. Authors were not free to do whatever they wanted. As said, they had to get specific approval from Lucas when bringing back/killing film characters. So, while these maybe didn't align with Lucas's head canon, he definitely allowed/disallowed various elements to be the official Star Wars story.

If he thought bringing back/killing certain characters would "destroy the legacy of the OT heroes" he wouldn't have allowed it.

 

Perhaps you are not reading what I wrote (or even what Veitch said).

To Lucas, his works were canon. That never changed and it's a pretty easy concept to understand. Tartakovsky's series is not a George Lucas story nor a George Lucas work and thus was never canon. But you already knows this, which makes it all the more baffling why you keep turning what's simple into something convoluted.

And the movies are the movies. Cosmetic revisions don't change the story or what the movies are about.

 

I literally quoted you and Veitch. It required me reading the words to do it.

If Lucas thought bringing back The Emperor was an affront to the legacy of the OT characters, he wouldn't have allowed it, nor offered it up. Fact is, he did. He suggested that Veitch and company use The Emperor rather than a Darth Vader imposter*.

*Ask yourself: Why would George Lucas be opposed to a post ROTJ story with an imposter wearing Vader's costume.? If Lucas didn't consider the EU canon enough to care about it (as you seem to be claiming) why would this be an issue?

Is it? What are Lucas's works? Clearly Episodes 1-6. Then, there is some grey area.

As I said, Lucas co-wrote the Ewok TV movies? Canon or not? Lucas conceived the story elements for The Holiday Special and promptly disavowed it and non canon. Yet, he helped craft the story. Like it or not, The Holiday Special is one of Lucas's Star Wars works.

Debatable. Movies (especially Star Wars) are primarily a visual medium. Cosmetic revision can often alter what the movies are about/story. Example: Lucas changed the infamous "Han Shot first" scene to soften Solo's character...which, in turn, changes the story ever so slightly. Adding a previously deleted scene( as Lucas did with Jabba in ANH) can alter the story as well.

Think about ESB: In 1997, fans were horrified when a scream was added to Luke dropping away from Vader in Cloud City. Why? It altered the story. This cosmetic change (as you call it) completely altered the tone of the scene and Luke's intent. Luke's act of rebellion and defiance became one of fear and despair....changing the story.

 

"your EU stories don't matter to me, only money"

imagining Lucas as a kind of Watto.

 

George Lucas involvement to the holiday was mostly limited to writing a treatment for it that was stripped down into the variety show it became. When it comes to stuff like the Holiday special and the Ewoks movies, (Droids cartoon?) spin-offs originating from George which have ideas that are true to the saga I think they are “‘more accurate” to canon than other non canon stuff.

If I were trying to strictly define the “George Lucas canon” or better called “Star Wars saga” since we can’t know Lucas’ personal thoughts on his work exactly. I’d simply say it’s 1 - 6 and The Clone Wars and everything about the universe established by the production thats offscreen such as anthropological details and history, as well as even deleted scenes and concept art on a case by case basis.

The biggest special edition changes are retcons, but very minor ones in all cases. The scream you cite is something Ben Burtt added that George removed because he didn’t remember approving it and evidently disliked it.

 

Right, but as you can see: Lucas has been known to disavow his own work as canon. So, keeping to Lucas's head canon isn't very cut and dry.

 

Kay-so, I voted YES. And despite the many issues I have with how the ST story and characters were handled, I will say it slightly enhances my enjoyment of the Skywalker Saga as a whole, simply in that it completes the arcs of the main characters (whether I agree with how or not), and lays to rest what happened to the Empire, Palpatine, and how the events following involving things that came from the Empire were handled, to their end. I feel like knowing how the entire story of the Skywalkers ends brings some kind of closure, which wasn't offered with ROTJ (and the PT was straight up a cliffhanger).

Again, I would've hoped for it to go differently, but there were parts I enjoyed about the ST still. IMO a sense of closure I can at least swallow is better than no closure.

 

I think there are two main points of contention with this:
1) An idea's merits exist entirely separately from George Lucas' approval of them. One's tolerance for ideas they don't like may or may not be affected by whether it fulfills the creators wishes versus a sense of vandalism if it does not, but the substance of the idea is neither better nor worse depending on its origin. Indeed, I'm quite certain that you're aware of previous concepts in Star Wars that have faced disapproval even though not a single person on the planet would dispute that they came directly from the mind of Lucas himself.
2) The idea of resurrecting Palpatine in and of itself does not inherently ruin the OT heroes' legacy(which is a different question from whether it's silly and/or cheapens the victory of ROTJ). The problem in that specific regard is the story surrounding this event, which I think you'll find was already inducing this particular complaint prior to the revelation that a not-so-dead Palpatine was behind it all, and Palpatine's resurrection is merely the cherry on top. Compare that to Maul's resurrection, where Filoni specifically noted that they gave his ultimate defeat back to Kenobi after taking it from him in TPM, and Palpatine's return in Dark Empire, which I haven't read myself but I do know for sure that at the very least none of our main heroes die as a result, nor is the New Republic they fought to establish completely wiped out.