OT: Christie Golden Part of Next Star Wars 9-Book Series

[Dayton Ward]

One of Lucas' recent variations to the answer he normally gives, when asked about using animation to possibly revisit the original trilogy characters:

"There really isn't any story to tell there," the filmmaker said. "It's been covered in the books and video games and comic books, which are things I think are incredibly creative but that I don't really have anything to do with other than being the person who built the sandbox they're playing in."

George Lucas: 'Star Wars' won't go beyond Darth Vader - LA Times, May 7, 2008

So far as he's concerned, the Star Wars saga ended with Return of the Jedi (books, comics, etc. notwithstanding ).

 

[Rabid Trekkie]

Having not read anything by Christie Golden yet, can't really say if this is good or bad, but the idea of another Star Wars 9 book mega story is disheartening. What I heard about NJO kept me from it, same with Legacy of the Force. I agree with what someone else said, the books have lost the optimism the original trilogy had. Heck even the prequels were more optimistic if you had ever heard of Luke Skywalker.

Also, why does a Star Wars story need nine or more books to be told? It works well is Star Trek, where everything is episodic like the tv shows or we get a big story like the upcoming Destiny trilogy that would be kind of like the Trek movies. But In Star Wars one story shouldn't be more than a trilogy in length. And in my opinion the stand alone novels are a lot better than any of the trilogies. Labyrinth of Evil, The New Rebellion, Dark Lord: Rise of Darth Vader, Yoda-Dark Rendevouz, etc.

Here's hoping the Star Wars books eventually learn a lesson and we start getting Wars books as good as our Star Trek books.

 

[MHJH]

So far as he's concerned, the Star Wars saga ended with Return of the Jedi (books, comics, etc. notwithstanding ).

He's actually been even harsher than that about the Star Wars EU, literally saying that huge events in the EU absolutely didn't happen:

The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn't come back to life, the Emperor doesn't get cloned and Luke doesn't get married..."

So how the SW fans can continue to claim that their books "count" more than the Trek books really mystifies me.

 

[Leandar]

So how the SW fans can continue to claim that their books "count" more than the Trek books really mystifies me.

And it makes me wonder if the canon question will be revisited with Trek again now that the writers of Star Trek XI have now come out and said that they used some of the books for reference in preparing the script and that they consider some of them to be canon. It's gonna be interesting to see what happens a year from now.

And speaking of the SW books, what's disturbed me about the books and comics of the Legacy era and beyond is that with the resurgence and return (yet again) of the Sith, it has to me, completely undermined and devalued the story of the films. The whole point of the story of Anakin Skywalker was that he was the one to destroy the Sith and bring the Force back into balance. With his death and the death of Palpatine, that was supposed to be the end of the Sith forever. That was the whole (forgive me for sounding repetitive) point of the films. With the resurgence of the Sith, it's made Anakin's story and the whole thing about balance in the Force just another story to take it or leave it cause there's no way the Force is balanced now with the Sith back and in large numbers as back in the days of the Great Sith Wars.

 

[MHJH]

So how the SW fans can continue to claim that their books "count" more than the Trek books really mystifies me.

And it makes me wonder if the canon question will be revisited with Trek again now that the writers of Star Trek XI have now come out and said that they used some of the books for reference in preparing the script and that they consider some of them to be canon. It's gonna be interesting to see what happens a year from now.

And speaking of the SW books, what's disturbed me about the books and comics of the Legacy era and beyond is that with the resurgence and return (yet again) of the Sith, it has to me, completely undermined and devalued the story of the films. The whole point of the story of Anakin Skywalker was that he was the one to destroy the Sith and bring the Force back into balance. With his death and the death of Palpatine, that was supposed to be the end of the Sith forever. That was the whole (forgive me for sounding repetitive) point of the films. With the resurgence of the Sith, it's made Anakin's story and the whole thing about balance in the Force just another story to take it or leave it cause there's no way the Force is balanced now with the Sith back and in large numbers as back in the days of the Great Sith Wars.

I doubt the canonicity (is that a word?) of ST books will ever be revisited. Whatever makes it on screen becomes canon, anything else is not. And I prefer it that way, honestly. If ST books were canon, they'd probably not be allowed to do things like Destiny, which supposedly has huge consequences for the universe at large.

As for the Legacy comments, I completely agree. While the series itself is a great read, the basic gist of the series means Luke is a shit leader who had no idea what was REALLY going on in the galaxy, and Anakin's sacrifice was basically meaningless.

 

[Christopher]

Also, why does a Star Wars story need nine or more books to be told? It works well is Star Trek, where everything is episodic like the tv shows or we get a big story like the upcoming Destiny trilogy that would be kind of like the Trek movies.

I'd say Destiny is more like a half-dozen movies or so.

And it makes me wonder if the canon question will be revisited with Trek again now that the writers of Star Trek XI have now come out and said that they used some of the books for reference in preparing the script and that they consider some of them to be canon. It's gonna be interesting to see what happens a year from now.

The problem there is that the books they're referring to are older books like Prime Directive and Spock's World, and it's questionable whether those are compatible with the current book continuity or even with current canon.

Presumably when they refer to the "canon value" of the books, they don't mean that everything in the books is fully canonical, but that there's value in drawing on ideas and elements from them when creating new canon -- for instance, using Vonda McIntyre's names for Kirk's parents and giving George Kirk a backstory similar to what he had in McIntyre's and Diane Carey's novels (a Starfleet officer who was away from his sons for long stretches of time). Which is kind of the same thing the modern books do with respect to old novels, cherrypicking elements from them even when there are other aspects that have been contradicted. (For instance, The Final Reflection is incompatible with what we now know about Klingons, but the books have revived elements from TFR such as the Kinshaya, klin zha, and so forth.)

And speaking of the SW books, what's disturbed me about the books and comics of the Legacy era and beyond is that with the resurgence and return (yet again) of the Sith, it has to me, completely undermined and devalued the story of the films. The whole point of the story of Anakin Skywalker was that he was the one to destroy the Sith and bring the Force back into balance. With his death and the death of Palpatine, that was supposed to be the end of the Sith forever. That was the whole (forgive me for sounding repetitive) point of the films.

Well, maybe that's retroactively the point in light of the prequel trilogy, but there was nothing in the original films about destroying the Sith and bringing the Force back into balance. And there was no singular preconceived "point" to the original films other than to make entertaining movies; when Lucas wrote the original Star Wars (retroactively titled A New Hope), he hadn't even figured out yet that Vader was Luke's father. Insofar as there was a "point" to TESB/ROTJ where Vader was concerned, it was to tell the story of a son redeeming his father. All that stuff about destiny and balance comes from the prequel trilogy. Heck, "the Sith" wasn't even defined in the original trilogy; it was just a term that was used in passing once or twice. Vader was identified as a "Dark Lord of the Sith," but it was just a name until the prequels told us what "the Sith" was.

 

[MHJH]

Well, maybe that's retroactively the point in light of the prequel trilogy, but there was nothing in the original films about destroying the Sith and bringing the Force back into balance. And there was no singular preconceived "point" to the original films other than to make entertaining movies; when Lucas wrote the original Star Wars (retroactively titled A New Hope), he hadn't even figured out yet that Vader was Luke's father. Insofar as there was a "point" to TESB/ROTJ where Vader was concerned, it was to tell the story of a son redeeming his father. All that stuff about destiny and balance comes from the prequel trilogy. Heck, "the Sith" wasn't even defined in the original trilogy; it was just a term that was used in passing once or twice. Vader was identified as a "Dark Lord of the Sith," but it was just a name until the prequels told us what "the Sith" was.

That's a decent point about Legacy in light of just the original trilogy, but gven that Legacy came out after all six movies had, it's not unreasonable to expect them to keep consistent with the canon. It's one thing to worm around certain events (Trip Tucker, come on down!), it's another thing to tromp on what is supposedly the basic point of the story. If the writer of an ST book or comic series postulated that the whole "Seek out strange new worlds and civilizations" thing was all a bullshit cover story for a vast military expansion of starfleet, I might be entertained, but I'd question why it was in a Star Trek book.

And speaking of "Sith", as far as I can remember, that word was never used in the OT. Could be wrong, but I think that knowledge of the term before Episode I was completely from novelizations and EU sources.

 

[TheAlmanac]

^ There is a licensing office that is a counterpart to the CBS Licensing department, though I don't know the name(s) of anyone working in that office.

The main person who gets mentioned is Leland Chee, the "Keeper of the Holocron" who coordinates continuity between licenced Star Wars (and now Indiana Jones) material. He also maintains dedicated threads on starwars.com to answer (sometimes really esoteric) continuity-related questions from fans.

From what I understand, Lucas had to approve the death of Chewbacca personally and it was Lucas that requested Anakin Solo be killed off because he was concerned that the more casual fan might get him mixed up with Anakin Skywalker. I believe he would have to be the one to approve if, say an author wanted to kill Luke just for example here but otherwise you're right.

The authors originally planned to do just that (kill off Luke), but Lucas exercised his veto on that possibility, which left Chewbacca under the axe. I hadn't heard the Anakin Solo story, though.

 

[Man of Steel]

^ There is a licensing office that is a counterpart to the CBS Licensing department, though I don't know the name(s) of anyone working in that office.

The main person who gets mentioned is Leland Chee, the "Keeper of the Holocron" who coordinates continuity between licenced Star Wars (and now Indiana Jones) material. He also maintains dedicated threads on starwars.com to answer (sometimes really esoteric) continuity-related questions from fans.

From what I understand, Lucas had to approve the death of Chewbacca personally and it was Lucas that requested Anakin Solo be killed off because he was concerned that the more casual fan might get him mixed up with Anakin Skywalker. I believe he would have to be the one to approve if, say an author wanted to kill Luke just for example here but otherwise you're right.

The authors originally planned to do just that (kill off Luke), but Lucas exercised his veto on that possibility, which left Chewbacca under the axe. I hadn't heard the Anakin Solo story, though.

I think Lucas does approve any video game that is being developed. I know that the newly released Force Unleashed (developed in house)was approved by "The Big Giant Head Himself" and even considers it cannon.

 

[Dayton Ward]

Yeah, but which "level" of canon (Itself a stupid question, but that's SW "canon" for you)?

I seriously doubt that -- should Lucas decide to make another movie or whatever set between Eps III and IV -- that he'll allow himself to be guided by whatever plot elements are present in the game.

 

[PaulSimpson]

Yeah, but which "level" of canon (Itself a stupid question, but that's SW "canon" for you)?

I seriously doubt that -- should Lucas decide to make another movie or whatever set between Eps III and IV -- that he'll allow himself to be guided by whatever plot elements are present in the game.

I got the impression that this is going to tie in closely with the TV series set in the same period - but that could be adding two and two together and making ...

P

 

[Trent Roman]

I believe he would have to be the one to approve if, say an author wanted to kill Luke just for example here but otherwise you're right.

He has also nixed other storylines; for instance, he's said that the padawan who was Anakin's rival in the comics (I don't recall the name, not having read the comics) was off-limits to post-ROTS fiction because he might (and I stress the word might) use him for the live-action TV show they'll be making one of these years.

And speaking of the SW books, what's disturbed me about the books and comics of the Legacy era and beyond is that with the resurgence and return (yet again) of the Sith, it has to me, completely undermined and devalued the story of the films.

Agreed. Certainly there's an element of cyclicality to the Star Wars universe; every so often, the guardians of peace become complacent which allows for the ascendancy of followers of the Dark Side; there was major upheaval four thousand years ago (Exar Kun/KOTOR timeframe) and the Jedi and the Sith nearly wiped each other out a thousand years ago (Lord Hoth/Darth Bane timeframe) before Darth Sidious' rise to power. But I think it was too early to have another Sith resurgeance and another Empire; it makes everything that has been sacrificed in the name of peace and prosperity seem pointless if that peace only lasts a few decades. Legacy should have been set much further into the future, to both conserve the sense of accomplishment from the current era and avoid stepping on the toes of the current book line, which seems intent on prepping the galaxy for another fall.

I hadn't heard the Anakin Solo story, though.

Yup, worried the poor fans would get confused, which is a pretty ridiculous notion. Anybody that stupid probably isn't literate in the first place. And, of course, we have a character named Ben running around now, so...

From what I've heard, it was originally Jacen Solo that was going to bite the bullet in Star by Star. Looking at the series from that perspective, it actually makes sense. Anakin seemed to die in the middle of his character arc, with Tahiri and as the go-to Jedi in terms of personal experience with the Yuuzhan Vong, to the point of developing Vong-sense; that's because the editors and writers had originally intended on carrying those arcs further. It might also explain why the books immediately following Star by Star seemed confused about some of the plot arcs, particularly with regard to Jaina going over the same territory in the Rebel duology that she had in Dark Journey. That said, though, I've got to wonder if Traitor would have been the amazing book it was if Stover had started with a more pragmatic character like Anakin than with a highly empathic, semi-pacifist and ideological character like Jacen, who just had so much further to fall. Then again, a heroic death in Star by Star would have spared him the infantile character assassination of LOTF.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Stevil2001]

He has also nixed other storylines; for instance, he's said that the padawan who was Anakin's rival in the comics (I don't recall the name, not having read the comics) was off-limits to post-ROTS fiction because he might (and I stress the word might) use him for the live-action TV show they'll be making one of these years.

I'm not sure who you're trying to reference, because there is no such padawan. Quinlan Vos, maybe?

Anyway, George at least approves the comic covers or something-- Aayla Secura ended up in the movies 'cause he liked how she looked.

 

[DarKush]

He has also nixed other storylines; for instance, he's said that the padawan who was Anakin's rival in the comics (I don't recall the name, not having read the comics) was off-limits to post-ROTS fiction because he might (and I stress the word might) use him for the live-action TV show they'll be making one of these years.

I'm not sure who you're trying to reference, because there is no such padawan. Quinlan Vos, maybe?

Anyway, George at least approves the comic covers or something-- Aayla Secura ended up in the movies 'cause he liked how she looked.

The padawan might be a reference to Ferus Olin, from the teenage/young Jedi series that takes place simultaneously with the prequels and up to ANH I believe. I haven't read them, but I read that Olin was something of a rival to Anakin. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ferus_Olin

About canon, I think GL is a little all over the place about that. He's made a lot of conflicting statements about the length of the SW saga, and he has praised Dark Empire in the past, which introduced the Emperor's clones. He also intervened in NJO, which has already been mentioned, and I read somewhere that he decided to keep Quinlan Vos alive for the proposed TV show, even though he was scheduled to die in ROTS and there was a death scene was in the graphic novel.

I think the level of involvement Lucasfilm has in the Expanded Universe is good enough for me to feel that the post-ROTJ stuff is canon. Besides, I don't think GL could do much better now than the Thrawn trilogy, Dark Empire, NJO, Legacy, and even unfortunately LOTF.

 

[Trent Roman]

Quinlan Vos is the one under Lucas' protection. Sorry I got the character details wrong; like I said, I've never actually read the comics.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Stevil2001]

Yeah, I understand. You should read the comics, though-- they kick the tail out of the novel line these days, especially Knights of the Old Republic.

The padawan might be a reference to Ferus Olin, from the teenage/young Jedi series that takes place simultaneously with the prequels and up to ANH I believe. I haven't read them, but I read that Olin was something of a rival to Anakin. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ferus_Olin

I had thought about Ferus, but he has a whole series about his adventures after RotS, so clearly he wasn't off limits!

He also intervened in NJO, which has already been mentioned, and I read somewhere that he decided to keep Quinlan Vos alive for the proposed TV show, even though he was scheduled to die in ROTS and there was a death scene was in the graphic novel.

Vos's death scene had him standing on a tank in one panel, and an explosion in the same spot in the next. No body, which allowed him to show up in the last Clone Wars volume and explain that he'd just gotten really, really hurt. It's a shame he's unusuable now; he was one of the bright spots of the prequel EU, and I'd love to see him in Dark Times.

 

[Mike Farley]

Pretty much yeah. According to what I read, they came up with Splinter of the Mind's Eye as a cheap sequel if the first one didn't do well in theaters.

There's always been something slightly odd about that - why would an undistinguished scifi movie get a sequel *unless* it had done well...?

Well, back in the day, before big ass budgets became just another marketing gimmick (Look! We spent $2 bazillion dollars on this ! You have to see it!), most sequels were smaller budget, and less prestigious than the originals. The Planet of the Apes movies had to deal with steadily decreasing budgets for example. If Star Wars had just done "well" it probably would have gotten a low budget continuation...but it blew the doors off, and the rest is history.

 

[Leandar]

Even Star Trek dealt with that. Look at the comparative budgets from TMP to Star Trek II. Even without all the other previous costs put retroactively onto TMP's budget, it still had more than twice the money that Star Trek II had. In fact, many of the Star Trek sequels were comparatively low-budget.

 

[Christopher]

^^Make that "all," not just "many." Aside from TMP and the upcoming Abrams film, all the Trek movies were made on mid-range budgets. After the cost overages of TMP, Paramount was always determined to make subsequent Trek movies as economically as possible.

Estimated budgets for the Trek films, according to IMDb (and not adjusted for inflation):

TMP ('79): $35 million
TWOK ('82): $11 million
TSFS ('84): $17 million
TVH ('86): $25 million
TFF ('89): $27.8 million
TUC ('91): $30 million
GEN ('94): $35 million
FC ('96): $45 million
INS ('98): $58 million
NEM ('02): $60 million
ST ('09): $150 million

For comparison, here are the six Star Wars films:
ANH ('77): $13 million
TESB ('80): $18 million
ROTJ ('83): $32.5 million
TPM ('99): $115 million
AOTC ('02): $115 million
ROTS ('05): $113 million

 

[JD]

Wow, I didn't realize that the Trek movies had such low budgets. I would have figured that they would have spent alot more than that TOS movies. I can see the TNG movies having not having bugdets though, since Trek was going down in popularity as they came out.