Lit The Proto EU Soft Reboot

The fact that the EU had a soft reboot is childhood-ruining. Thanks, Harloxxzz.

 

It was never confirmed that Lucas was going to contradict the EU (the Talon thing was gonna be retconned probably), but he probably would have. There wouldn't have been a reboot, but most likely a "anything post-Survivor's Quest is Non-Canon.

I'm a One-Canon kinda guy, so any excuse works for me...

 

The Ki-Adi thing is fine, he was the exception because his species i dont think it will impact the EU as much as TCW did i also remember a story of Anakin talking about the Ki-Adi situation

Maybe this character was inspired by Mace Windu the Jedi and used his name in his honor or
its just a coincidence many people use the same name in the real world and the Galaxy is full of many people i dont think that is a problem

 

Ki-Adi-Mundi wasn’t the only Prequel-era Jedi with a family. Thracia Cho Leem in Rogue Planet, which was released in 2000, was also married and had many children.

 

I mean, TBF, while this is hilarious and probably could have merited inclusion in the "Favorite Bits of Obscure Lore" thread if I had remembered it, it's also more just an example of both the EU and Lucas looting his earlier drafts and is no more of a contradiction than the six or so Starkillers.

 

Honestly, I think that one actually makes less sense with the retcon. Squib parents honor Mace by... giving their child a different name that can be shortened into his? I guess you could think of it as a Squib-icisation, since they tend to have long names.

 

They were just few Jedi i dont think they contradict much to the story in general
with TCW there were more continuity errors for example Adi Gallia died against General Grievous in the Republic Comics while in TCW she died against Savage Opress, Even Piell in Legends survived the Clone Wars while in TCW show he died how can the Multimedia Project and TCW exist in the same timeline with these continuity problems?

 

Quinlan Vos is explicitly blasted to a charred skeleton with zero ambiguity in the ROTS graphic novel adaptation. In the Republic comic running at the exact same time, he survives Order 66.

 

That was explained in the last Republic comic

 

Vos was explained because he had to be explained, not because it was planned. You can't handwave retcons as not contradictions.

Also, the idea that Lucas would have kept an entirely separate timeline of novels and comics running alongside his Sequel Trilogy is laughable. This is the guy that didn't want Anakin Solo to be the big damn hero of the NJO because he didn't want him confused with Anakin Skywalker. While he didn't ask them to kill off Anakin Solo, he didn't want him to be the main protagonist. No way George let the EU keep churning out stories about Old Man Luke and Jaina Sword of the Jedi Imperial Consort Solo Fel while he was making movies about Old Man Luke and Kira Solo and the midi-chlorian Osmosis Jones.

 

Oh, for sure. No way in 1993 could Martin Wixted or anyone at WEG have known that Lucas would recycle the name in a future Star Wars movie (heck, other than Lucas, did anyone in 1993 know for sure new Star Wars movies were even coming?). And he was obscure enough of a character that even if Lucas was really concerned with making sure the prequels lined up with the EU, he still might have flown under the radar. Just one of those things that couldn't have been avoided at the time.

 

I have this theory that George Lucas read and hated the Ki-Adi-Mundi stories written post-TPM amd went out of his way to contradict them with dialogue in his next two films. Cuz it wasn't just the celibacy thing in AotC, there was also the "no Knights on the Council" thing in RotS, amd being the Jedi Knight on the Jedi Council had been Ki's thing

 

Lol, now that I think of it, in Legends Ki-Adi was a latecomer to the Temple as well, being about four when he was brought in. It’s almost like he’s trolling Anakin with his existence in Legends: Being “old” when first brought to the Temple? Check. Having wife(wives) and kids? Check. A Knight despite being on the Council? Check.

 

TCW was never EU. It was stated multiple times by Lucas himself and Filoni.

“I am the father of our Star Wars movie world - the filmed entertainment, the features and now the animated film and television series,” he says. “And I’m going to do a live-action television series. Those are all things I am very involved in: I set them up and I train the people and I go through them all. I’m the father; that’s my work. Then we have the licensing group, which does the games, toys and books, and all that other stuff. I call that the son - and the son does pretty much what he wants.” He laughs. “Once in a while, they ask a question like ‘Can we kill off Yoda?’, things like that, but it’s very loose. Then we have the third group, the holy ghost, which is the bloggers and fans. They have created their own world. I worry about the father’s world. The son and holy ghost can go their own way.” — George Lucas: Mr Emperor Strikes Back, Times Online, 2008

TOTAL FILM: "The Star Wars universe has expanded far beyond the movies. How much leeway do the game makers and novel writers have?"
GEORGE LUCAS: "They have their own kind of world. There's three pillars of Star Wars. I'll probably get in trouble for this but it's OK! There's three pillars: the father, the son and the holy ghost. I'm the father, Howard Roffman [president of Lucas Licensing] is the son and the holy ghost is the fans, this kind of ethereal world of people coming up with all kinds of different ideas and histories. Now these three different pillars don't always match, but the movies and TV shows are all under my control and they are consistent within themselves. Howard tries to be consistent but sometimes he goes off on tangents and it's hard to hold him back. He once said to me that there are two Star Trek universes: there's the TV show and then there's all the spin-offs. He said that these were completely different and didn't have anything to do with each other. So I said, "OK, go ahead." In the early days I told them that they couldn't do anything about how Darth Vader was born, for obvious reasons, but otherwise I pretty much let them do whatever they wanted."

Dave: "I’m not sure we really had to think of things as off-limits simply because everything we do, we do right alongside George, but I’m the director as opposed to the writer so maybe I thought of it differently than Henry. I know I imposed restrictions on Henry myself when I could, at least to be careful with the classic characters. Henry and I would get in some great arguments and then George would basically be the “great Decider” as to what direction to go. We could come up with ideas and present them to him immediately, so there was no concern as to whether or not it “was” Star Wars. This series at least to George is NOT EU, it is a part of Star Wars as he sees it. I think if anything there was a period where Henry and I had to learn exactly what it took to be a part of George Lucas’ Star Wars, and tell the Star Wars story his way. We had to learn how to look at the Galaxy from his point of view and let go of some of what we considered canon after we found out the ideas were only EU. Really we had to “unlearn what we had learned” and go back to the movies as the defining source material." — Dave Filoni & Henry Gilroy TFN Interview (https://www.theforce.net/jedicouncil/interview/henrygilroyanddavefiloni.asp)

They were effectively separate universes that Leland Chee tried to make work, because the entire marketing of Star Wars licensing (EU) hinged on being "one continuity" and "everything counts", whereas Lucas always saw it as a parallel universe, akin to Star Trek — and he always said that. I don't think the EU would have been entirely discontinued, but if Lucas had made his sequel trilogy, it would have most definitely contradicted everything in the post Return of the Jedi EU. The story treatments we know all but confirm it.

 

I agree, except I don't think he meant parallel universe, like the Kelvin thing, but rather a story he's not involved with, like Matt Fraction writing Iron Man was not a part of J. Michael Straczynski writing Spider-Man.

 

My favourite quote from Lucas about EU stuff was circa Revenge of the Sith (I'm paraphrasing) where he said they came up with the epic story behind Anakin's RotS scar and Lucas just thought he got it slipping in the shower.

I still stick with the slipping in the shower example, it makes the moment of his scar reveal in the Gendy Clone Wars series when Padme pulls back the hood aghast much funnier.

 

TCW and Multimedia Project are both different universes i never understood why they forced TCW to exist alongside with the Multimedia Project, maybe they believed that they were not going to contradict the Multimedia Project that much but they were wrong

 

So, how would a Star Wars universe with only the first six films and the Clone Wars (2009 - 2015) work out? Just pretend for a moment that Rebels, Sequels, Anthology films, Resistance, Bad Batch, Clone Wars Season 7, Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett haven't been made. Similar to Star Trek with the ten films, Original Series, Next Gen, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise.

 

I think the idea that there was 'soft reboot' isn't really accurate. The most heavily 'canon' resource guides - The Essential Atlas, The Essential Guide to Warfare, and the "Star Wars Organizations" manuals all came in towards the end, and made it all work.
There was a plan, IIRC, to do a soft reboot of the post EU when Del Rey got the contract and started the whole NJO series, but that obviously never came to pass (honestly, that seemed more about wanting to not refer to Bantam's material than anything else).
The issue with the Clone Wars is that Pablo insisted that there was, in fact, a real timeline and coordination for everything and it would all be revealed, and then the Disney buyout happened. In his defense, the Reader's Guide did attempt to harmonize at least some of the material. My own timeline stuff just had to go with two alternate ones to harmonize later, which never happened as Star Wars fell waaaaay down on my list of franchises to do that sort of thing with. (Nothing against Star Wars, which I still love, but I have a lot of interests)

Yes, and that was despite LFL, not because of it.
They had some material off-limits, of course (any real details on the Clone Wars prior to AOTC, a galactic map prior to TPM), but the distaste for the Marvel Comics and the Holiday Special seemed to be more of just a dislike of them, which is why the "S-canon" was created. However, EU sources - ranging from the video games to the comics to the RPG to the novels - seemed to like using them, despite it all. It came to a head when an issue of Star Wars Gamer that included a full article about the first original Marvel Comics story - you know the one, the one with the lagomorph - and LFL slapped an "Infinites" symbol on the issue, which the authors of the article objected to. In the end, it was the authors overall that won out, mainly because they used so much of the "S-canon" that it rendered the entire concept moot anyways.

IIRC, a recycled name from Lucas that Lucas later recycled.
A similar issue happened when a rejected script for the Clone Wars TV series was adopted by the Clone Wars comic, and then they went back and did it anyways.

 

It would just be a finished universe. Star Wars would be done. For all intents and purposes, Return of the Jedi was a perfect ending. There is no need for anything else.
Season 6 finale of TCW even reinforced it:

"Victory for all time."

I believe because the gimmick of the EU was "one continuity", so they had to incorporate everything Lucas did for the sake of EU's own validity. Lucas never tried to hide the fact that his world (movies & tv) is the only thing he cares about, and the licensing was separate, but the licensing people clearly marketed it as something different. Lucas got his money off of it and allowed it to exist, but I think the words of certain people from the licensing were deliberately misleading. I think if Lucas hadn't sold Star Wars and decided to make his sequels, the EU would not have been discontinued, but everything after Return of the Jedi would have been toasted. I don't know how Chee would reconcile it. But it sure would have made plenty of people mad

 

That "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" analogy is a little rough. I hope George isn't teaching too many theology classes in his retirement! That said, though, anytime GL discusses the EU you're going to get some interesting insights into his thinking. "The son and holy ghost can go their own way" is one such insight. George saw himself as a reluctant "father" to the EU, exercising parental discipline toward his "son" only when absolutely necessary and otherwise remaining blissfully unaware of what the son was up to.

 

GL changed the 'canon' of his own movies. There's a lesson in that - the idea that 'canon' is some fixed quantity for a fictional universe isn't really valid.

'Canon' was a term originally created by the fans of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Whenever it is used nowadays, it's usually just shorthand for 'official canon'.