Star Wars- EU and the Sequel Trilogy

[consortium11]

So no, they cannot use anything of the old EU, because to do so would be to say that some of it IS Canon, which would defeat the whole Legend labeling thing.

Direct quotes from Jennider Heddle, senior editor at LucasBooks (emphasis mine):

Q: So is the old EU, at best, just an alternate universe now?
JH: Basically, but a lot of EU elements have become or might become canon moving forward. It's still there to use.

Q: does this mean everything post Return of the Jedi is no longer cannon, but everything before is canon or is it all non-canon now?
JH: It's all non-canon, but it all exists as a resource that could be used down the line

Q: so will we be getting a list of ANY books considered canon? Maybe Plagueis? Or is it just the movies, Rebels and Clone Wars?
JH: Movies, Rebels, Clone Wars, and all content (books, games, etc) moving forward. But EU still exists as a resource

Q: Nice appearance in the vid...did any existing stories make the cut? Or all new material being created?
JH: Existing stories are there as a resource. But only new stories going forward are part of this "one universe."

I mean... from the official release about this...

While the universe that readers knew is changing, it is not being discarded. Creators of new Star Wars entertainment have full access to the rich content of the Expanded Universe. For example, elements of the EU are included in Star Wars Rebels. The Inquisitor, the Imperial Security Bureau, and Sienar Fleet Systems are story elements in the new animated series, and all these ideas find their origins in roleplaying game material published in the 1980s.

I'm not sure why the concepts difficult to grasp. What is now official canon is what occurs or is mentioned in the "official" Star Wars releases, primarily the movies (original, prequal and upcoming) and the various official TV shows. If they decided to use a concept/character/storyline that exists in the EU... even if they use it word for word... it becomes canon because it's in the new releases. But that has no impact on anything else from the EU being canon or not.

[Florence]

Direct quotes from Jennider Heddle, senior editor at LucasBooks (emphasis mine):

I mean... from the official release about this...

I'm not sure why the concepts difficult to grasp. What is now official canon is what occurs or is mentioned in the "official" Star Wars releases, primarily the movies (original, prequal and upcoming) and the various official TV shows. If they decided to use a concept/character/storyline that exists in the EU... even if they use it word for word... it becomes canon because it's in the new releases. But that has no impact on anything else from the EU being canon or not.

Thank you so much for that! I hadn't seen those questions and answers from Jennifer Heddle and that actually clears things up SO MUCH!

I still think its an incredibly stupid idea to declare The Old Republic non-canon, though. I imagine its fairly unlikely they'll set anything in that era any time soon, so... I guess one of my favorite parts of Star Wars is basically dead :U GG Disney. I think more and more I'm just gonna ignore these movies as canon and enjoy the old EU, unless they really blow me away.

Also, Republic Commando? Given that Delta Squad bloody appeared in Clone Wars... eh, definitely gonna be favoring the old EU for some time I think. I doubt I'll be buying any of the new canon stuff either. I just can't really build up the will to care about any of their new canon. I was already pretty emotionally invested in the old EU.

Though it DOES, in their defense, seem that's only how things are RIGHT NOW. Based on those answers, it does seem there is at least a SLIM possibility that older (chronologically speaking) stuff may be... recanonized? in the future. It seems like for right now they're just throwing a big "didn't happen" blanket on the whole thing while they work out the details.

I do hope they at least plan on having something resembling the old EU; ie. they still plan on letting books and games tell their own stories. If they restrict everything to basically being movie tie-ins, the franchise is pretty much as good as dead as far as I'm concerned.

Reading her repeatedly state that basically everything is Legends made me think of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shs7VQhVvxA&feature=youtu.be

[Florence]

At launch, SWtOR had 1.7 million subscribers. The SWtOR tie-in novels published prior to the game's launch sold less then 100,000 novels. So even assuming that everyone who bought a SWtOR novel also picked up SWtOR at launch (Which is being very generous) then fewer then 1 in 17 people did such. That's pretty damning on the side of the story right there and then.

And while yes, I'm sure that you and people you know bought SWtOR for the story, I also suspect that your sampling is somewhat skewed in being existing Star Wars EU fans. Again, the majority of MMO players don't care about story or the like. They're more in it for the idea of progression, achievements, endgame, getting loot and interaction with other players, with story being a bonus. Hell, most people I speak to simply skip the cutscenes or use the myriad of alternate leveling paths available that will take the least time and effort - and as such have the least story interaction - to get to the endgame.

Plus the number one selling point of SWtOR at the moment which has actually succeeded in pulling in people? Try it for free, and play Galactic Starfighter to boot. Not the story by any stretch.

Again, the majority of people who play a MMO don't care that it's canon. Hell, the majority pf people won't really understand the significance.

It will never cease to baffle me why anyone would play TOR for anything but the story, or I suppose the space shooter part... but there's other games that do that better if that's all you want. Honestly, apart from that it's a pretty sub-par WoW-clone. Everything that sets it above and beyond its peers comes from the storytelling and the dialogue.

Galactic Starfighter is fun and all, but its hardly the best space shooter ever made, by a long shot.

I'm not saying your wrong, I'm just saying if you're right, I simply don't understand humans xD Or at least MMO gamers. Then again, with WoW dominating the MMO market, I've NEVER really understood MMO gamers. Only MMO that ever really drew me in was The Matrix Online and that was pretty much a financial disaster. SO yeah. MMO Gamers are a weird and confusing species xD

[consortium11]

Though it DOES, in their defense, seem that's only how things are RIGHT NOW. Based on those answers, it does seem there is at least a SLIM possibility that older (chronologically speaking) stuff may be... recanonized? in the future. It seems like for right now they're just throwing a big "didn't happen" blanket on the whole thing while they work out the details.

I think that's basically how it will work.

As things stand Jaina Solo is non-canon. Yet if she appears in the new movie she becomes canon. Almost certainly not in the exact same form as in the EU, but she is canon. If someone in the movie mentions Darth Revan or Meetra Surik/Jedi Exile then they become canon... again, likely not in the exact same form as KoTOR 1/2 and TOR  but still canon. If someone name-drops this Grand Admiral no-one has seen for years called Thrawn, then he becomes canon... again, likely not in the exact same form but still canon.

As I said previously, yes, they could press the big red reset button and wipe everything from the EU completely out going forward. But I doubt they will. After all, there's a reason the current hot topic in discussions about the movie is who exactly is playing Jaina Solo and not who is playing "generic main character". It's sort of a reverse but also the same Marvel film situation; in the Marvel universe the "main" canon is the comics, primarily set in what became known as universe 616, with the films operating in their own universe, taking liberally from the existing canon but not bound or controlled by it, able to pick and choose what they wanted and change it as necessary. This forms the opposite; the movies are the main canon but they can still pick and choose from the EU if and when they want to.

[Chris Brady]

If they do reuse the old stuff, 'recanonize' as you are calling it, that would be a bad idea.  Namely because of all the confusion it will cause.  "This Jaina is not the same Jaina as the one in the books.  Yes, she is Han and Leia Solo's daughter.  No, she doesn't have any brothers.  Yes, I know that in the books she does.  No, this is not the boo-.  Yes, her name is Jaina.  But she doesn't have any...  Why are you walking away?"

If they're going to put all the previous non-Movie stuff as non-canon, better let it rest on it's own, and not bring back some of the more popular elements, cuz you'll just muddy the pot then.

[consortium11]

If they do reuse the old stuff, 'recanonize' as you are calling it, that would be a bad idea.  Namely because of all the confusion it will cause.  "This Jaina is not the same Jaina as the one in the books.  Yes, she is Han and Leia Solo's daughter.  No, she doesn't have any brothers.  Yes, I know that in the books she does.  No, this is not the boo-.  Yes, her name is Jaina.  But she doesn't have any...  Why are you walking away?"

If they're going to put all the previous non-Movie stuff as non-canon, better let it rest on it's own, and not bring back some of the more popular elements, cuz you'll just muddy the pot then.

If this applied then wouldn't pretty much every comic-based superhero movie be a flop due to the confusion? To give an obvious example, there are huge differences between the movie versions of the Avengers and their comic book counterparts... yet I understand that film wasn't exactly a failure. Likewise, for all the vast issues with episodes 1-3 was it a real concern that they were "confusing" because they included events which had already been covered (albeit often somewhat vaguely) in the EU up to that point but massively changed them?

[Florence]

If they do reuse the old stuff, 'recanonize' as you are calling it, that would be a bad idea.  Namely because of all the confusion it will cause.  "This Jaina is not the same Jaina as the one in the books.  Yes, she is Han and Leia Solo's daughter.  No, she doesn't have any brothers.  Yes, I know that in the books she does.  No, this is not the boo-.  Yes, her name is Jaina.  But she doesn't have any...  Why are you walking away?"

If they're going to put all the previous non-Movie stuff as non-canon, better let it rest on it's own, and not bring back some of the more popular elements, cuz you'll just muddy the pot then.

I think you're seriously overcomplicating the issue. I don't see how it would be confusing to anyone. The entire Star Wars fan base who actually care about Jaina already know about this. The people who don't won't even know there WAS a Jaina before these films. And if any new fans look into this, they'll see the nice big "THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN; LEGENDS" sticker on any of her old stories. Perhaps they could slap a new sticker like "TOTALLY DISNEY CANON APPROVED" on new stories that ARE canon.

As consortium said, if this was that bad of an issue, it would already have been an issue effecting the prequel trilogy. Sure, they kind of sucked, but it had nothing to do with confusion about what's canon; it had to do with Episode 1 being 'god awful', Episode 2 being 'meh', and Episode 3 being 'kind of alright'. No one, to my knowledge, had any trouble following the new prequel trilogy, or any of the EU that span of of it because "This totally contradicts the accounts of the Clone Wars we were given in the Thrawn Trilogy or in Marvel Comics' Star Wars 68: The Search Begins! I don't know what's canon anymore!"

And to be clear; the contradictions in those, especially Star Wars 68, are a doozy. I mean, according to Star Wars 68, the Mandalorian Protectors fought for the Empire (They didn't), alongside Storm Troopers (They didn't), under the command of Boba Fett (Nope.), and that during this time Fenn Shysa became familiar with Princess Leia (Hadn't been born yet.)

Or the confusing claim that the early batches of clones that the fleet went up against during the clone wars were crazypants and dangerous. Ya know. Even though one would assume the fleet in question, being an Imperial Fleet, had fought for the Republic, and thus would have been fighting ALONGSIDE the not-all-that-crazy Clone Army. The entire character of Joruus C'Boath is a confusing head-scratcher that had be given all sorts of retcons to make sense.

Yet the prequel movies failed to tank because of this. No one was baffled by why the new movies contradicted their established EU.

I may favor the old EU to their new canon, at least for the foreseeable future, but I hardly think continuity confusion will be a major issue they'd face simply be rebooting characters' stories.

Comics have been brought up and frankly that's an excellent place to draw another example from too. DC has, off the top of my head, rebooted their continuity no less than 2-3 times. Yet people still seem to manage to enjoy the new comics as they come out. (Sort of. I personally hate the New 52, but that has nothing to do with being confused as to what's canon. It's because the New 52 has largely been written by idiots. And any of the writers who AREN'T idiots, have had their work made more stupid via executive meddling.)

I fully understand that just because the character of Batman is still called Batman, it doesn't mean that his pre-52 adventures are still canon. Some might be, if they choose to reference them, but I don't ever get confused by why a New 52 Batman comic is contradicting an old Batman comic. I understand, this is a new continuity.

Star Wars fans, I dare say, are at least as smart, on average, as your average DC comic fan. I think we can give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they're capable of wrapping their head around the concept of 'a continuity reboot'.

tl;dr, I think you're seeing a problem that simply isn't there. People are smart enough, on average, to understand that a continuity reboot means that new material over-writes the old material. No one asked why the Dark Knight Batman didn't know the Joker, even though he'd fought him in a previous movie.

[Chris Brady]

What does comic book movies have to do with this?  Every comic fan knows that alternate universes, timelines and retcons is normal for comics.  They've been going on over 70 years if not more.  More importantly, none of them are direct sequels to earlier projects, they often are stand alone affairs (like the retelling of the Avengers.  Which took elements of both Marvel's standard universe (AKA 616) and their Ultimates line.)  These new Star Wars films don't even have the excuse that Star Trek used, where it's an alternate timeline, due to interference from disgruntled future aliens.

These are direct sequels claiming than anything that isn't the Clone Wars or the 6 films is more or less dead.  To bring any of that back is to bring various "Well, if they bring THIS back, why can't they bring that?  Or that?  And that?  And that?"  And even worse, if you do bring certain things back, but change it, you have to be careful how much you change or lose the impact that thing had to some fans.  Word of mouth works.  I hate to say it but it really, really, really works.

[Callie Del Noire]

I've been of two minds on this...

The EU had some great storylines and some AWFUL ones. I personally hated the Vong. It was what finally what broke my interest in the series.  It, like most things, had good and bad.. but then I'm the grognard who grits his teeth who sees the 'revised' Solo/Greebo scene.


From the movie/series point of view.. yeah it will most likely be better to NOT use the EU as a format for storylines. Pull elements from the books but make a new story line. 20 years of books with at times conflicting elements isnt' the way to go. I was expect this sort of 'edit' outlook from the moment Disney shut down a lot of Star Wars projects after getting the franchise.

Realistically it was the only way to go. I HOPE they take a leaf from the Marvel Movieverse and build a concise and well laid out storyline from here on in, because.. Marvel phase 1 thru 3 seems to be making cash hand over fist for them.

I'll take a wait and see attitude though.

[Florence]

What does comic book movies have to do with this?  Every comic fan knows that alternate universes, timelines and retcons is normal for comics.  They've been going on over 70 years if not more.  More importantly, none of them are direct sequels to earlier projects, they often are stand alone affairs (like the retelling of the Avengers.  Which took elements of both Marvel's standard universe (AKA 616) and their Ultimates line.)  These new Star Wars films don't even have the excuse that Star Trek used, where it's an alternate timeline, due to interference from disgruntled future aliens.

These are direct sequels claiming than anything that isn't the Clone Wars or the 6 films is more or less dead.  To bring any of that back is to bring various "Well, if they bring THIS back, why can't they bring that?  Or that?  And that?  And that?"  And even worse, if you do bring certain things back, but change it, you have to be careful how much you change or lose the impact that thing had to some fans.  Word of mouth works.  I hate to say it but it really, really, really works.

I'm not sure which part of this you're night understanding: THEY. ARE. ALREADY. DOING. THAT.

The Imperial Inquisition is FROM THE EU. It is being introduced into the "new canon" via Star Wars Rebels. They are already taking some of it back. It is already happening. There is no maybe, no question about it, it is a thing that is happening. Definitely. Without ambiguity.

They've also been very explicitly clear that elements of the EU MAY be used in future things. There's not much wiggle room around how you can interpret that except "elements of the EU may be used in future things." All this stuff you seem convinced will destroy the franchise are things they are definitely, without question DOING.

The only question is HOW MUCH they will do it. Will they only include more general things like organizations, planets, species, technology, etc. or are they going to bring in specific characters or events (presumably most events made canon would have the circumstances in them changed, and be more like things referenced rather than explored, like 'Oh yeah, I fought in the battle of _________.')

The reason comics were brought up is that comics managed to handle characters being recycled and re-imagined all the time. Whether its a comic book reboot, or a movie spinoff, or a cartoon series, or video games. People have no problem accepting that this character with the same name, similar appearance, similar origins, similar abilities, similar role, etc. is a unique and different entity than the original incarnations of said character.

Its not like comic book fans are some special, unique race of man that are capable of understanding this bizarre and strange concept. Its something that happened once in comic books, and the fans went "Oh, okay." Then when it happened again in the future, they continued to go "Oh, okay." Star Wars fans, I am quite confident, can adapt just as easily.

I've been of two minds on this...

The EU had some great storylines and some AWFUL ones. I personally hated the Vong. It was what finally what broke my interest in the series.  It, like most things, had good and bad.. but then I'm the grognard who grits his teeth who sees the 'revised' Solo/Greebo scene.


From the movie/series point of view.. yeah it will most likely be better to NOT use the EU as a format for storylines. Pull elements from the books but make a new story line. 20 years of books with at times conflicting elements isnt' the way to go. I was expect this sort of 'edit' outlook from the moment Disney shut down a lot of Star Wars projects after getting the franchise.

Realistically it was the only way to go. I HOPE they take a leaf from the Marvel Movieverse and build a concise and well laid out storyline from here on in, because.. Marvel phase 1 thru 3 seems to be making cash hand over fist for them.

I'll take a wait and see attitude though.

I agree, pretty much. I hope they don't reinterpret entire story arcs. If we have to have this continuity rebooted, I'd rather see familiar characters in new storylines. If its gonna be different, make it fresh, rather than just a cheap imitation. I hope they keep fan favorite characters like Mara, Jaina and Kyle, but with new storylines.

As much as a fresh take on the fall of Jacen Solo COULD actually make for an interesting movie, I'd rather they avoid retreading territory we've already explored. The whole Darth Caedus idea may be new and exciting for new comers and strictly movie fans, fans of the EU would just be sitting there going "Seen it :U"

I'd rather see an alternate take on what happens to Jaina and Jacen, explore a different path their lives could have taken under different circumstances.

Of course, maybe they won't use Jaina OR Jacen. Maybe it'll be some new brat, called Tootie Solo, who knows? But personally, I think the best way they could appeal to EU fans and non-EU fans would be to use familiar EU characters and explore sort of what their stories could have been under different circumstances.

[Stella]

Of course, maybe they won't use Jaina OR Jacen. Maybe it'll be some new brat, called Tootie Solo, who knows? But personally, I think the best way they could appeal to EU fans and non-EU fans would be to use familiar EU characters and explore sort of what their stories could have been under different circumstances.

Tootie Solo! I'm definitely referring to Daisy Ridley as Tootie Solo until further notice.
Maybe forever...

I don't think she'll be Jaina ... and I don't think Jacen or Anakin are likely to appear.