To any fans of the Star Wars EU, how do you feel about the distinct possibility that the upcoming sequel trilogy will negate decades' worth of stories that have been accepted as canonical by so many people?
As I finally gave up on the EU during the Vong war, I can't say I'm very bothered. There's still a chance that much of the pre ROTJ EU will still be O.K., and to be honest, a new post ROTJ continuity just might attract me back. I'm cautiously optimistic, even slightly excited...
I don't care much. The books and comics I've enjoyed off and on since 1991 will still be there. Sort of like what JJ did with Star Trek. All the stuff I liked about Star Trek before 2009 is still there.... And "canon" isn't important, whatever the show (or novels) is.
Hmm, I'm of 2 minds really. I can understand that any screenwriter is hardly going to restrict what they write about to ensure it doesn't cause any problems with books written for a small audience. However there has been some good books written amongst a lot of okay books or bah what have I read books... I've got a massive collection of them, and of the post ROTJ only a few stand out such as X Wing Books and the Thrawn Trilogy. The rest? But also I don't read much of it nowadays, too busy reading fan fiction...
To me, the books count over any movie. Hopefully, even if the movies decide to ignore them, they'll be treated like the Star Trek books, where the universe in the books are allowed to continue regardless of what the movies do to the franchise. As long as that happens, I don't care what Abrams does to the Star Wars movies. Regardless, even when Lucas would ignore the books, I still took the books over his stuff. The Clone Wars say mandolorians became space hippies. My favorite Star Wars books (and possibly my favorite books ever), the Republic Commando series, say they've always been warriors. I take the RC series over the ramblings of idiots who write a horrible TV show. In the same way, if the books don't get effected by abrams, and I'm pretty sure they won't (if they've made enough money to go for decades, I doubt they'll be forced to follow JJ Abrams stuff and potentially fail as a book line), Abrams movies can make Han have a relationship with Chewie instead of Leia for all I care. To me, without the EU Star Wars is just a sci fi series with 3 good movies, one ok movie and two horrible movies. It wouldn't be in my top 5 sci fi franchises, much mess competing with Star Trek for the top spot, without the EU, which to me is what makes SW great, and is where I get my main enjoyment from the franchise.
I'm into the comics rather than the novels, and the titles I've followed have either been set during the prequel trilogy (Republic), or long before the movies (Dawn of the Jedi), or long afterward (Legacy). I was mildly concerned that Legacy might have to abruptly end due to possible contradiction of stuff presented in the new movies, but not so much anymore. The worst-case scenario would be simply Legacy wrapping up it storyline and coming to an end (which it did once before anyway).
But a Trek situation where the novelverse continues is VERY unlikely. Tie-ins HAVE TO reflect the continuity of the franchise - Trek gets a pass due to JJ deliberately leaving the prime Trekverse in its own timeline. If he hadn't the Treklit novelverse would have ceased to exist / restarted. The Star Wars EU will not get that break. It will just fall out of continuity and start again - at best you can hope for a reset novel where something happens in the EU after Fate of the Jedi that takes the story back to the death of the Emperor...
I don’t see how its unlikely. The EU has been around for too long, and made too much money, for it to just get rebooted. They’re not going to risk losing an entire book line just to make it fit with JJ Wars. Tie ins don’t traditionally count as continuity anyway. Star Wars was one of the most noticeable that I know of to start counting them. At worst, they’ll say the books are their own continuity. They may not care about hardcore fans with movies/TV, because they’re going for the mainstream audience and not just fans, but things like books and comics make money because of hardcore fans. Because of that, they can’t just screw around with them like they can film and TV. Its why JJ Trek hasn’t eliminated the Star Trek novels, and its why JJ Wars won’t upset the EU. Even if hardcore fans like JJ Wars, they’re not going to want to see the EU go away, so it won’t. If they piss off EU fans by rebooting, the books will almost certainly sell less, and they’ll lose money. They may not care about the EU, but they like money. They won’t anger fans in an area where they really need them to make money.
The novel revenue is tiny compared to what the next five or six movies will make. They have no need to worry about the old EU - they've already sold those books. This has already happened with novels invalidated by the Clone Wars TV show - ongoing stories were abandoned. Casual buyers will expect new novels to tie in with the new movies. The tie-in licences state that any novels MUST tie into current continuity. There is simply no allowances made. We have pro tie-in authors on this site - ask them if you don't believe me. And yes, I get why you would have a problem with that. I'd have felt the same if it had happened with Trek...
I don't think we should just assume the new movies won't be able to fit with the EU continuity. Let's wait and see what they do before making any judgements.
I haven't kept up with SW EU for some years (just not enough time), but it always seem silly to me when movie makers ignore the goldmine of stories just ripe for the plucking. I'm hoping they at least try to tie in some novel events, or at least slot the movie stories in some "in between" time period that the novels never touched.
Most of the material put out by Del Rey is frankly appalling and seem to resort to cliches and character deaths to sell books instead of actually building up the shared universe. In contrast a lot of the new material from the video games and comics have been exceptional and really would be a tragedy for them to undo it.
I am a huge EU fan and I've enjoyed all of it a great deal, but I have no problem with them tossing it all out the window. Obviously only about 1% of the movie going audience is going to even know the EU exists, and too much of the EU is based on pre-Prequel assumptions. So while I enjoyed the tale a great deal, I'm really excited to see an alternate and more main-stream take on the future, one where Dark Side villains will be the prominent foe. And I seriously doubt that they'll continue to do the old EU continuity. If they killed Anakin Solo to prevent reader confusion with Anakin Skywalker... do you really think they'll allow two simultaneous and contradictory continuities being published?
There have been non canon star wars stories before (mostly comics, but still). These are the same franchise, its not like they're specific movie tie ins. There is no way years of continuity is getting thrown away because JJ Abrams wants to destroy Star Wars. We'll be getting in continuity EU novels years from now, regardless of what Abrams does. No non hardcore fan buys Star Wars books, or if they do its probably in the singlke digits, percentage wise. It may just be a little money, but the current EU is profitable. Its not going anywhere.
Until they say something, I believe the EU will continue. If not, then I'm probably mostly done with ongoing Star Wars. I love it because of people like Timothy Zahn and Karen Traviss, not because of some moron who thinks a racist bunny is funny or that having your main character whine all the time makes him a compelling or tragic figure. Without the EU, Star Wars is just a few good sci fi movies and 2 horrible ones. I like the good movies, but I'm a superfan because of the EU. My favorite characters are only in books. Luke, Han and Leia are good characters, but they became great to me because of the books. I have no desire to read anything that could spin off from Abrams' horrible pile of %$^& thats due to be released in a few years. In the end, if the Star wars EU falls, I'll literally only have the Star Trek novelverse left for an ongoing sci fi series. Star trek as a live action series is dead, with a poorly written action movie series using its name. Babylon 5 and Firefly are long dead. While I don't believe it will happen, the EU ending would kill one of the last remaining sci fi franchises I care about. There would still be old books I haven't gotten to yet, but it would still be dead as a franchise to me, and I just won't accept that until there is some kind of offial announcement.
Tweets from Pablo Hidalgo, the head Story guy at Lucasfilm, about the future of Star Wars http://lightsaberrattling.com/?p=26 @stern_man More than 140 chars allow. Nutshell: story group is about ensuring future storytelling meshes better far more than in past — Pablo Hidalgo (@infinata) July 29, 2013 Pablo Hidalgo @infinata 12 Sep @StarWarsJedinyt Hadn't heard that before. The heart of the canon is Episodes I-VI and TCW. MaGnUs @lordmagnusen 19 Oct @infinata Hey, are you doing any work for "Rebels"? Expand Pablood Hidalghoul @infinata 19 Oct @lordmagnusen Yeah, I'm lucky to be part of that team. Hide conversation SW Beyond the Films @SWBeyondFilms 15 Sep So these Standalone Origin movies.... changes won't be limited to POST-ROTJ EU Folks. Expand Pablood Hidalghoul @infinata 15 Sep @SWBeyondFilms turns out 'beyond films' will be an interesting spot to be in a future dominated BY films
That's precisely backwards. Any racism to be found is probably on the part of anyone who observes Jar Jar and thinks "that reminds me of black people".
For the people who accuse Lucas of racism... what do they think of the fact that he married an African American woman?