Star Wars Canon about to be completely redefined

[Ralin]

Lucas is as much a shrewd businessman as he is an artist. He knew his fans wanted Star Wars and he wasn't ready to give them any. It's not a matter of respect... and in fact, if it were we would have had NO Star Wars anything except the prequels, because first and foremost there needs to be respect to the initial stories and the EU pretty much shit all over them.

Look man, if you can't appreciate how awesome the EU was I can't help you. It developed Star Wars well beyond what it started as and was a great improvement to the setting as a whole. Following canon is a basic matter of respect both for your fellow authors and the fans who spent their time and money reading the material you authorized them to write. I don't really care if wanted to make his CGI-fest prequels, but disregarding that makes him a shithead in my book.

[Havok]

Appreciate, awesome and EU in the same sentence... I'm gonna let that sink in for a second.



And clearly you are the shit head because you obviously don't understand WORDS. Lucas never disregarded anything. He simply stated that there is his world and the EU's. He made a distinction in how he VIEWED the EU and which one he operated in and that is it. If some EU got changed because he made more movies then I don't know what to tell you other than you have a twisted perspective on how things work.

And really...

but it still sucks to see plot lines and characters that you were invested in cut short or radically changed because someone higher up decided he wanted to follow ~his vision~

Please, please point out the great plot lines and characters that were cut short or radically changed.

[Ralin]

Appreciate, awesome and EU in the same sentence... I'm gonna let that sink in for a second.

Listen dude, I'm really sorry that you suffer from some sort of dysfunction that prevents you from grasping the brilliance of Darksaber but there really isn’t anything I can do about that. I truly hope medical science one day finds a way to treat it.

And clearly you are the shit head because you obviously don't understand WORDS. Lucas never disregarded anything. He simply stated that there is his world and the EU's. He made a distinction in how he VIEWED the EU and which one he operated in and that is it. If some EU got changed because he made more movies then I don't know what to tell you other than you have a twisted perspective on how things work.

That IS disregarding it? Star Wars is a shared universe and has been for a long time. You don’t go mucking with the canon of a shared universe without a damned good reason, and those prequel movies sure as fuck did not qualify. Again, if Lucas wasn’t willing to conform to the canon other Star Wars writers created between the original trilogy and the prequels he shouldn’t have invited them in to begin with.

Please, please point out the great plot lines and characters that were cut short or radically changed.

Turning the Clone Wars into something that happened not twenty years prior and with the clones as the good guys, thereby doing a number of the Thrawn trilogy’s backstory? Instituting the Rule of Two and saying that no Force sensitives were born after Anakin’s fall, thereby invalidating the backstory of most every other Sith and Dark Jedi character? Generally disregarding everything that had already been established about the Star Wars universe?

Again, I don’t care if he wanted to make crappy movies to show off how good his CGI was. It’s his copyright, he’s welcome to make money off of it. Actively disregarding the work of great authors like Zahn and Allston and Kevin J Anderson is insulting to them and to the fans who grew up with them.

[Thanas]

Appreciate, awesome and EU in the same sentence... I'm gonna let that sink in for a second.

Listen dude, I'm really sorry that you suffer from some sort of dysfunction that prevents you from grasping the brilliance of Darksaber but there really isn’t anything I can do about that. I truly hope medical science one day finds a way to treat it.

You could have gone with any great Zahn book.

Instead you went with Darksaber, the book which has Jedi force-pushing over a dozen ISDs out of system, the book which has Daala acting her usual stupid self? Really?

Again, I don’t care if he wanted to make crappy movies to show off how good his CGI was. It’s his copyright, he’s welcome to make money off of it. Actively disregarding the work of great authors like Zahn and Allston and Kevin J Anderson is insulting to them and to the fans who grew up with them.

You think Anderson is a great author? Are you for real? The guy who thought up the stupid Sunhammer, the guy who thought 4 ISDs were a threat to Mon Calamari, the guy who made up some of the worst characters ever (Kyp Durron)?

[Ralin]

You could have gone with any great Zahn book.

Instead you went with Darksaber, the book which has Jedi force-pushing over a dozen ISDs out of system, the book which has Daala acting her usual stupid self? Really?

Well yeah. It was awesome.

You think Anderson is a great author? Are you for real? The guy who thought up the stupid Sunhammer, the guy who thought 4 ISDs were a threat to Mon Calamari, the guy who made up some of the worst characters ever (Kyp Durron)?

I think he leans more towards the mediocre than other major EU writers, but he still writes decent stories that I enjoyed. Darksaber is the only book by him that I think is truly great. It's exactly what Star Wars should be like.

[Adam Reynolds]

I think he leans more towards the mediocre than other major EU writers, but he still writes decent stories that I enjoyed. Darksaber is the only book by him that I think is truly great. It's exactly what Star Wars should be like.

Repetitive, pointless and without logic?

As for keeping even Zahn, as I stated in the other thread discussing this, he started several trends in the EU that were ultimately for the negative. Things like rampant minimalism, the useless New Republic leadership and Luke being beaten up by newcomers were done by him first, not to mention the issues with kryptonite lizards and cloned force users. While he was unquestionably a better author than most others to work the EU, the negative trends were unquestionably started by him. There are also the canon problems he started by refusing to work with the Dark Empire comics. While those stories were even worse than most of the books, by ignoring it completely he started the trend of the continuity snarl that became the post-ROTJ EU.

In defense of Zahn, the feel of his stories is excellent for the time period as there is much less of a mythic feel to his stories than the films. While that could be seen as a negative, the sense of trying to rebuild the lost glory of the Old Republic fits given the events that had transpired. This is an element that would be interesting to see in the future movies ideally, though hopefully without all of the negatives. I also rather like his style of writing action sequences as there is a sense of speed chess to most of them*.

* He explicitly made this point in the annotated anniversary addition of Heir to the Empire.

[Batman]

KJA didn't tend to the mediocre. He started at atrocious and moved downhill from there. And as much as I like Zahn's works, they do have flaws (the minimalism, whether his idea or not, did start with TTT) like, for example, Skywalker Sr being up and Vadering around...20 years or so before the birth of Luke and Leia?

As for Lucas ignoring the works of the EU authors...first, it's his universe, he can do whatever the hell he wants. Unless he told any of them 'and I will absolutely positively integrate your works if and when I do future movies' I fail to see how he disrespected anybody's work. He just chose to ignore most of it. And given that the vast majority of the EU should be purged with fire, I fail to see what's wrong with that.

As for the Clone Wars being 20 years ago...um, Anakin fought in them, Ben was a general, Leia and Luke are both about 20 when we first meet them and it's highly dubious Lucas ever intended for them to be sired when Ani was already Vader so how long ago do you think the Clone Wars happened?

[Boeing 757]

Are they throwing out the ICSes, too? I hope to god that they won't. And not because of the biggatons in there! They're about the best thing that have actually EVER tried to make sense of the SW universe.

[the atom]

This has been..what? The third or fourth time some article has come to proclaim the apparently inevitable demise of the EU? One should hope that people would get the hint after awhile, but can everyone try reading what was actually said in the twitter posts before they ring the death gongs of the EU based on (yet another) incredibly poorly sourced article full of wild-eyed speculation? They are not taking a chainsaw to the EU. Literally the opposite. What's actually going on is that they're basically going to be abolishing the hierarchy, with the G-T-C system being relegated to more of a system of classification then a pyramid.

In other words, the EU is actually now on equal footing with the movies.

For fuck's sake people, this was all posted not three threads above in very simple terms.

While I wouldn't say these articles are completely full of shit, they partially full of shit. In addition to massively oversimplifying the state of canon before, they're definitely misrepresenting what Leeland Chee said on twitter. This is the actual twitter conversation Mr. Chee (@HolocronKeeper) had. The relevant bit:

Star Wars Canon is now determined by the Lucasfilm Story Group which @infinata [Pablo Hidalgo] and I are both a part of.

@HolocronKeeper Does that mean all projects from here on out that Story Group touch are canon? Or is there still a G- T- C- etc on new stuff

@StephenVincent More so than ever, the canon field will serve us internally simply for classification rather than setting hierarchy.

@HolocronKeeper @StephenVincent Are you implying that the goal is to dispose of the hierarchy and have one cohesive canon?

@12MG12 @StephenVincent That's definitely a primary goal of the Story Group.

So, It looks like instead of Chee keeping the holocron, or simply an established hierarchy, this "Lucasfilm Story Group" will manage canon by committee, and they're not going to be restrained by the old G/T/C/etc. conventions (much less the older hierarchy). A radical shakeup like this makes sense moving forward; it also gives me hope that they'll try to incorperate at least some of the exsisting post-ROTJ EU into the new trilogy. Exactly how this breaks down remains to be seen, though.

[Tiriol]

KJA didn't tend to the mediocre. He started at atrocious and moved downhill from there. And as much as I like Zahn's works, they do have flaws (the minimalism, whether his idea or not, did start with TTT) like, for example, Skywalker Sr being up and Vadering around...20 years or so before the birth of Luke and Leia?

This one at least is excusable (the problem with how long Vader had been around): it's not like there was any definitive and established timeline before the OT with measured years and so on. From what I've understood Zahn went with what he got and it turned out Lucas had/would have other plans. And for Zahn's credit, he doesn't hold any ill will towards Lucas and just rolls with it. I don't know if they've tried to repair the wonky Vader situation or not in re-prints of TTT - they should at least give it a try.

Often EU in general, though, is such a stinking pile of manure with a powdered sugar coating of SW logo that reading Wookieepedia and other encylopedias/online sources is a better experience than reading the actual novels (or sometimes comics). It doesn't matter how much you try to cover your cake with whipped cream and strawberries, if you've put some honest-to-god shit in there, it will still be shitty cake.

[Thanas]

Yeah, unlike some other authors who completely went out of their way to not only screw Lucas' intent but also soil the creations of other writers forever; see Traviss, Karen. A similar development happened with Troy Denning who wrote one decent novel and then went to crap (Lolol Dark Nest trilogy)

[Crayz9000]

This has been..what? The third or fourth time some article has come to proclaim the apparently inevitable demise of the EU? One should hope that people would get the hint after awhile, but can everyone try reading what was actually said in the twitter posts before they ring the death gongs of the EU based on (yet another) incredibly poorly sourced article full of wild-eyed speculation? They are not taking a chainsaw to the EU. Literally the opposite. What's actually going on is that they're basically going to be abolishing the hierarchy, with the G-T-C system being relegated to more of a system of classification then a pyramid.

In other words, the EU is actually now on equal footing with the movies.

My take away from reading the Twitter comments is that all canon being held equal, the Story Group will likely rule any discrepancies in canon in favor of the movies. So whatever changes are made to the Solo family (and given that there are hints Luke has his own family) these will cause massive ripples in the current Expanded Universe and decanonize a good chunk of it, or at least relegate it to a standing more like Infinities or Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

Moving forward, here's to hoping that new EU books are able to come up with good plots instead of simply rehashing/retconning older EU.

[the atom]

This has been..what? The third or fourth time some article has come to proclaim the apparently inevitable demise of the EU? One should hope that people would get the hint after awhile, but can everyone try reading what was actually said in the twitter posts before they ring the death gongs of the EU based on (yet another) incredibly poorly sourced article full of wild-eyed speculation? They are not taking a chainsaw to the EU. Literally the opposite. What's actually going on is that they're basically going to be abolishing the hierarchy, with the G-T-C system being relegated to more of a system of classification then a pyramid.

In other words, the EU is actually now on equal footing with the movies.

My take away from reading the Twitter comments is that all canon being held equal, the Story Group will likely rule any discrepancies in canon in favor of the movies. So whatever changes are made to the Solo family (and given that there are hints Luke has his own family) these will cause massive ripples in the current Expanded Universe and decanonize a good chunk of it, or at least relegate it to a standing more like Infinities or Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

Moving forward, here's to hoping that new EU books are able to come up with good plots instead of simply rehashing/retconning older EU.

They might, but at the same time it sounds like things are going to be ruled strictly on a case-by-case basis even more then they were before (which they actually were, as a lot of people like to forget). There just isn't a hard and fast pyramid canon structure to go by any more. In my opinion this will certainly make things more interesting come 2015 when the new movie comes out and the usual debates start up again.

[Crayz9000]

They might, but at the same time it sounds like things are going to be ruled strictly on a case-by-case basis even more then they were before (which they actually were, as a lot of people like to forget). There just isn't a hard and fast pyramid canon structure to go by any more. In my opinion this will certainly make things more interesting come 2015 when the new movie comes out and the usual debates start up again.

The only thing is, when entire series of books are based on characters who may well cease to exist in canon after the movies come out, there isn't much you can do to retcon them.

Leland Chee is going to have his work cut out for him, and I wish him the best of luck. Here's to hoping we'll get a better Star Wars canon.

[Batman]

KJA didn't tend to the mediocre. He started at atrocious and moved downhill from there. And as much as I like Zahn's works, they do have flaws (the minimalism, whether his idea or not, did start with TTT) like, for example, Skywalker Sr being up and Vadering around...20 years or so before the birth of Luke and Leia?

This one at least is excusable (the problem with how long Vader had been around): it's not like there was any definitive and established timeline before the OT with measured years and so on.

There was the apparent age of Luke and Leia, who were by all appearances in their early 20s, and were sired by Anakin Skywalker. 'Your father was killed by Darth Vader' makes even less sense if Anakin already was Darth Vader when he got Luke and Leia's mom (who turned out to be Padme) pregnant unless we want to assume the pregnancy got put on hold for a decade or two or Wars humans age a lot slower than we do and I see no evidence for that.

From what I've understood Zahn went with what he got and it turned out Lucas had/would have other plans. And for Zahn's credit, he doesn't hold any ill will towards Lucas and just rolls with it. I don't know if they've tried to repair the wonky Vader situation or not in re-prints of TTT - they should at least give it a try.

Wouldn't be much of a problem either-you'd still have a 15-20 year gap between the Clone Wars and the beginnings of the Rebellion (probably more) so the lack of progress in cleaning the environment would still be mighty suspicious.

[Knife]

I can't tell if Ralin is trolling or not, KJA a good writer and EU being fantastic? Yeesh.

Look, it's not rocket science, or even rocket surgery, who the hell would want to be a director or producer of a movie with 30 years mishmash of apocrypha to churn through to make a new movie? Hint: no one. Are there some good things in the EU? Sure. Should they try to save major events and long occurring events? Hell no. That is why they should burn it all down. If you get a wide shot of Imperial guys with a blue guy with red eyes in the background, count yourself lucky, after that...

[Ralin]

I can't tell if Ralin is trolling or not, KJA a good writer and EU being fantastic? Yeesh.

I got into Star Wars through the EU and I've said before that I like it more than the movies. I'm sorry if some of you don't grasp the genius of the Hutts trying to build their own knock-off Death Star with quasi-sentient hive mind space monkeys that work for below minimum wage, but it was alternately awesome and hilarious and exactly what Star Wars should be like.

As for Lucas ignoring the works of the EU authors...first, it's his universe, he can do whatever the hell he wants. Unless he told any of them 'and I will absolutely positively integrate your works if and when I do future movies' I fail to see how he disrespected anybody's work. He just chose to ignore most of it. And given that the vast majority of the EU should be purged with fire, I fail to see what's wrong with that.

Sure he can. And he's a dick for doing it. Once you make something a shared universe you should respect other author's contributions and integrate them into your own, not pretend that they didn't exist.

[Galvatron]

Is it hypocritical to suggest that they could de-canonize the entire EU whilst cherry-picking the stuff they like for the new movies?

[Thanas]

I can't tell if Ralin is trolling or not, KJA a good writer and EU being fantastic? Yeesh.

I got into Star Wars through the EU and I've said before that I like it more than the movies. I'm sorry if some of you don't grasp the genius of the Hutts trying to build their own knock-off Death Star with quasi-sentient hive mind space monkeys that work for below minimum wage, but it was alternately awesome and hilarious and exactly what Star Wars should be like.

I vote for trolling.

[Galvatron]

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss that as trolling. I've too many people, especially younger fans, who like the prequels more than the OT because that's what they grew up with. What we like about Star Wars has a lot to do with age and timing.

[Thanas]

EU I can get. Prequels I can get - they are shiny and shallow, somewhat decent popcorn stuff. But KJA?

[Galvatron]

Hey, I bet somewhere out there is a big fan of The Crystal Star.

[RogueIce]

My take away from reading the Twitter comments is that all canon being held equal, the Story Group will likely rule any discrepancies in canon in favor of the movies. So whatever changes are made to the Solo family (and given that there are hints Luke has his own family) these will cause massive ripples in the current Expanded Universe and decanonize a good chunk of it, or at least relegate it to a standing more like Infinities or Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

Moving forward, here's to hoping that new EU books are able to come up with good plots instead of simply rehashing/retconning older EU.

They might, but at the same time it sounds like things are going to be ruled strictly on a case-by-case basis even more then they were before (which they actually were, as a lot of people like to forget). There just isn't a hard and fast pyramid canon structure to go by any more. In my opinion this will certainly make things more interesting come 2015 when the new movie comes out and the usual debates start up again.

Yeah, I knew that was what they did before. Which is not to say that methodology doesn't have problems of its own. Take the whole Even Piell incident, for example:

The Coruscant Nights series has him being killed off during Order 66. Okay, fine, whatever. But then The Clone Wars comes along, uses him for an episode arc, and has him unequivocally die in it. During the War, well before Order 66.

Well shit.

So what's the solution? Well, do a piecemeal retcon: it wasn't Master Piell in the CN books, it was...some other Jedi Master. Master Faceless, I guess. And then there's the case of Barriss Offee and how it seems rather dubious that she would remain with the Jedi Order after the events of the TCW finale to be killed off in Order 66, but hey, it's all piecemeal retconning and it didn't explicitly get overwritten so of course she'll end up back in the Order...somehow.

Yeah, fuck that noise. Just scrap it all and start over, go with the movies and TCW series (because of GL's involvement with it) and shitcan the rest. There's probably still going to be a few inconsistencies, maybe. I don't recall if any got brought up between the PT and TCW, but I can't say for sure there weren't. Still, it seems like the best solution to me.

The main takeaway I get from this is that, in theory, such things should be prevented from happening in the future, if they're actually going to plot things out long-term. I doubt it'll hold, though. Unless this Story Group has some real power and teeth, the ability to issue outright vetoes even to a spinoff movie or future TV show, shit's gonna get messy again. And of course with it all being "the same level" that just makes the issue of retcons even messier. At least with Piell you could simply state "TCW > EU, therefore retcon" but with it all being equal? Ugh.

Frankly I think the best solution is to go with what Connor's said. Make your own damn headcanon and fuck the rest of it. I mean really, if it comes down to "respect the almighty canon" versus "hey we have this filmmaker who wants to do this and make us money" I'm betting they're not going to go with the former.

[Thanas]

Hey, I bet somewhere out there is a big fan of The Crystal Star.

.............

[Galvatron]

"I liked The Crystal Star."