Lit The Great River - The problem with the "the new EU"... A haven for Legends fans.

You do know that he didn't have "a story" for the Clone Wars until after he had already allowed it to be told through the EU? Prior to 1999 there wasn't anything allowed to be told in the prequel era because he knew he was going to do the prequels. Throughout the entire period he didn't allow things to be told in the Imperial era because he knew he was going to do a show then. He gave certain restrictions (Padme, for example) to the Clone Wars era because he knew it might get involved with what he was going to tell in Episode III. If he had known he was going to tell a story in that period it would have been absolutely consistent for him to put a ban on storytelling in that era, but he didn't because until after ROTS, when he changed his mind on leaving Star Wars for those indie films he always talked about and never made, he had no intention of going back to that timeframe.

You know, it really doesn't put you in a good light to keep coming up with these strawmen arguments that don't even have any factual basis based around a series you haven't read.

 

Maybe this isn't the place for you. The honus wasn't on LFL and the authors. From what we have been privy to over the years, including Dave Filoni's statements, we have a pretty good picture of the folks at LFL trying to build a closer working relationship with GL. He wasn't interested. And that's especially true when it comes to everything we know from Dave Filoni about GL's approach to TCW and how it related to the EU. After all, it is TCW more than anything else that tripped up the EU.

It's also not "blaming" when we are telling you what we are privy to of the actual history. You're the new jack that's ignorant of all of this, and then having the gall to make sweeping statements about the quality of the old EU's continuity and how it related to the films. The fact remains, things were running smoothly until TCW. The PT necessitated some retcons, but they damage wasn't half as extensive.

Why would the blame be heaped on the people that were hired by LFL to do the job of the expanding the universe, those people and the consumers were told it was a single continuity... and the later they had to develop the canon tiers specifically because GL wasn't going to work with anything that had been previously established(for instance, dates or especially Boba Fett's backstory). TCW quite literally broke the system. And why is that? Because the EU folks within LFL didn't want to work with George? Hah!

 

And that still doesn't change anything. The people making the EU could have brainstormed his ideas with him way back when. Fleshing out his ideas into books and comics...etc...etc... The fact that they didn't do those kinds of things with the only person whose ideas really mattered is nobody's fault but their own.

 

darkchrono are you aware of the story of Splinter of the Mind's Eye? How it was part of Alan Dean Foster's 2 novel contract, the first of which was him ghostwriting the ANH novelization? Are you aware that SotME was intended to be the basis for a low budget sequel script of the film wasn't a hit? Have you ever read George's introduction to that novel, which serves as a kind of introduction and blessing to the entire EU that came after?

 

You guys say that people thought the whole thing was all one canon yet this ridiculous canon structure was around long before TCW. Which should have made it pretty obvious that it was not all one canon.

By 1996, Licensing kept an in-house bible of reference materials as the volume of publications, facts, and figures grew to such unwieldy proportions that it became difficult to know everything relevant to a particular project. They finally decided something had to be done to organize the increasingly large collection of media which chronicled theStar Warsuniverse. A system of canon was developed that organized the materials into what was and wasn't fit for theStar Warsstory.
In 2000, Lucas Licensing appointed Leland Chee to create a continuity tracking database referred to as the "Holocron".[5] As with every other aspect having to do with the overall story of Star Wars, the Holocron follows the canon policy that has been in effect for years.
The Holocron is divided into five levels (in order of precedence): G-canon, T-canon, C-canon, S-canon, and N-canon.
G-canon is George Lucas canon: Considered absolute canon, it includes Episodes I–VI (the most recently released versions) and the upcoming Episodes VII–IX feature films, the animated film, and any statements by George Lucas (including unpublished production notes from him or his production department that are never seen by the public). Elements originating with Lucas in the scripts, filmed deleted scenes, movie novelizations, reference books, radio plays, and other primary sources are also G-canon when not in contradiction with the released films. G-canon overrides the lower levels of canon when there is a contradiction.
T-canon is Television canon:[6] refers to the canon level comprising only the two television shows: Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the upcoming Star Wars Rebels. Its precedence over C-Level canon was confirmed by Chee.[7]
C-canon is Continuity canon: consisting of materials from the Expanded Universe including books, comics, and games bearing the label of Star Wars. Games and RPG sourcebooks are a special case; the stories and general background information are themselves fully C-canon, but the other elements such as character/item statistics and gameplay are, with few exceptions, N-canon. On April 25, 2014, all previously released C-Canon was officially bumped to S-Canon, and will be replaced by all-new C-Canon material.[2] The first official C-Canon project in the revised continuity will be Star Wars: A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller, which is a prequel novel to Star Wars Rebels. It was released September 2, 2014.[8]
S-canon is Secondary canon: covering the same medium as C-canon, it is immediately superseded by anything in higher levels of canon in any place where two elements contradict each other. The non-contradicting elements are still a canon part of the Star Wars universe. This includes all C-canon material released prior to April 25, 2014,[2] video games such as the online roleplaying game Star Wars: Galaxies, and certain elements of a few N-canon stories.
N-canon is Non-canon: "What-if" stories (such as stories published under the Star Wars: Infinities label), crossover appearances (such as the Star Wars character appearances in Soulcalibur IV), game statistics, and anything else directly contradicted by higher canon ends up here. N-canon is the only level that is not considered official canon by Lucasfilm. Any published material that contradicts things established in G-canon and T-canon is considered N-canon.

 

Yep. And TCW broke that system.

 

Since you know so much about the EU I'm assuming you're able to back up your statement with evidence that they didn't do that?

 

T-canon is the most broken thing I have ever seen. LFL was better off folding T-canon into G-canon instead of using it to pointlessly rewrite the EU on at will, since G-canon basically already had the authority to do that.

 

And now it's all been wiped away. Probably because, while I'm sure many within the LFL team would have liked to find a way to keep the EU... they realized that George effectively fully broke the system when he didn't give up Star Wars like he said he was going to after ROTS, and kept his hands in the pot throughout the TCW run(honestly, it always sounded like Filoni wanted to work more closely with the EU until GL was literally... and this is Dave's testimony in numerous videos... "no no no no. ignore all that crap and do whatever you want." almost making it like a duty to ignore the EU). Him selling to Disney was a relief, even as it brought new worries. Now Disney-owned LFL has decided to scrap it in favor of doing a whole new continuity. Mainly because GL wrote treatments for a sequel trilogy he said, just a few years ago, was never going to happen. I guess once he got on a roll of steamrolling the EU, he really wanted to just go whole hog. So part of the deal is the ST gets made, while he gets to walk away and let someone else handle it.

Well, now we got our EU wiped out, last nail in the coffin. So they are approaching it in a way that allegedly assures the authors, comic writers and artists, game developers etc will all be constantly synced up with the television and film writers so they don't ever have that problem again. You have to think, LFL has be pretty stoked to not have GL constantly there to say "no way! screw that stuff that I gave my blessing to before! do this instead!"

When I think about it like that, it's kind of exciting. And I suspect there are folks on that Story Group that are biding their time waiting to see what it is they might be able to do to work some Legends back into the Canon.

 

The Holocron is really the only evidence you need that things were not in the up and up with the EU long before TCW and it was not Lucas's story.

 

So the database that was intended to keep all aspects of Star Wars media in continuity is evidence that there was not any continuity? Try again

Don't worry, the EU has been around for a while, you'll get there! Do you need some advice on places to start so you can actually start to create informed opinions about it rather than just relying on what you can make up from Wookieepedia articles?

 

The canon tiers were just guidelines for resolving continuity errors, in situations where there were no contradictions they didn't come into play at all. LFL official policy was that everything was canon unless specifically denoted otherwise; the levels were just an internal thing that we wouldn't even know about except people kept asking Leeblo how the Holocron was organized.

 

Again, the Holocron didn't exist until GL started doing the prequels and springing changes on the EU... which necessitated the EU do retcons to make things fit. And it did the job damn fine. Prior to 2000, as your c&p says, the Holocron didn't exist. They had a database that was used in house, but they weren't needing any tiers until the PT and even they found out GL wasn't going to play ball. And those tiers worked fine until TCW, which is when "T-Canon" was invented. And it gradually became readily apparent that it wasn't going to work out. Because any and all retcons to the already told Clone Wars story from the multimedia project were on hold until the series finished. And by the time the series finished, well... everything was on hold until the Big Reboot of '13.

I'm not even a continuity hound and I am able to give you this run down. Why might that be? Because I've been reading Star Wars since 1991-92. I was there for it all. Perhaps given the limitations of the nigh non-existent internet and limited encounters with LFL and the fans throughout the 90s, we had a pretty distinct impression that this stuff was all "for keeps." Then TPM hit with no huge problems, and one hugely major nod to the EU... Coruscant. AOTC did some damage to the Fetts, and changed our perception of the Clone Wars(given that even the background info given back in '77 about this "clone war" was that Jedi fought against clones). ROTS had nods to the EU, and we were getting all this information about GL giving info to EU authors and line editing the EU heavy ROTS novelization. Then he says "I'm done. The story is told." Then he jumps back in with TCW, but that wasn't the original part of the plan. What we learned was that he saw what they were doing, and able to do, and decided he wanted in.

 

They worked as close with him as they were able, the problem was that George doesn't even know what the story George has in mind is, and even when he does that story often changes.

 

And George is often inconsistent with George. *ahem* 1,000 generations of Jedi protecting the Old Republic and a Republic that has stood for 1,000 years.

 

Are you all going to be continuing to argue this on message boards five years from now when we have several movies........books.....comics.....and likely another tv show a long with Rebels all in the new canon. Are you going to be doing this same exact thing with people who have even less love for the old EU than I do and less respect for it than I do? These debates you are having like this one will only get worse as times goes on when we have people hop on board who are only familiar with the new canon.

 

The Old EU will only be gone when there is no one left that is loyal to it.

 

What debate? We're just pointing out that you're wrong.

 

Need I remind you that the wiping away of the Old EU for the New Order was pretty recent?

I must just start an Alliance to Restore the EU.

I am Bail Organa. I am Mon Mothma. I am Garm Bel Iblis!

Jeez. I spent 21 years buying and reading the EU. It's only been the last 5 or so years that I've been struggling with it. And that was due to the the twin hammers of GL's TCW and Denning's post-NJO. Let me mourn the thing.

 

Just because I say things that you don't like doesn't mean that I am wrong. You guys havn't presented much evidence to back your opinions up either.

 

That would require me taking pictures of hundreds of books on my shelf... and I really have neither the time, nor the patience for that.

 

And how would you reading the old EU present any evidence that everything was all Lucas's fault and nobody else was to blame?

 

Have you even bothered to read anything people post here?

 

Yes I have and all I have really read are personal opinions about how Lucas screwed everything up.

 

If you are all three of them. Who do the rest of us get to be?