New Star Wars to suck at the Retcon root.

[Denzark]

So, no Grand Admiral Thrawn, Daala, or a planet landing on Chewbacca's head. On the plus side, no Yuuzhan Vong tosh either.

[url]http://www.businessinsider.com/disney-star-wars-expanded-universe-2014-4[/url]

[Houghten]

I don't care what they say about the Wraith Squadron trilogy; it happened and they can't takes it away from us, precious!

[Mr Mystery]

Nothing new. And quite a wise move.

It gives the overly entitled neckbeards with no movie making experience (and likely no work experience at all) a lot less to whine about, such as the casting choices for characters, how a scene should play out etc.

[Denzark]

Do you mean retconning or this info - I haven't seen it before... as to the neckbeards - if you keep sitting on that fence MM, you'll get splinters in the botty...

[Mr Mystery]

Nonsense!

MY CHEEKS ARE LIKE A SHIELD OF STEEL!

[Darren Richardson]

mehh, never read that extended universe tosh any way.....

Still it will piss off a lot of die hard fans.....

Which is good in my books, never really saw what others saw in it, just like star trek, it's overrated...

[daboarder]

WOW

that is....


a stupid move

a very stupid move

I mean there is more material and culture built around the expanded universe than all the films combined,,,,,,and what do the external rights holders think of this, take FFGs for example, most of their stuff is from the EU.....

think of it this way, lucasfilm and the EU has been one of the best examples of colaborative "world building" because they demand that all EU material is consistent with all other EU material.

[Nabterayl]

think of it this way, lucasfilm and the EU has been one of the best examples of colaborative "world building" because they demand that all EU material is consistent with all other EU material.

There's two sides to this move. Fixing the above is one of them. The EU has never been canon to Lucas. Yes, he borrowed from it during Episodes I-III and during The Clone Wars, but it was never real Star Wars - only a potential source of inspiration. The entire complicated hierarchy of Star Wars canon boils down to this:

1. People who make Star Wars movies only have to be consistent with other movies, but nothing else. (G canon)
2. People who make Star Wars TV shows have to be consistent with other Star Wars TV shows and the movies, but nothing else. (T canon)
3. People who make Star Wars anything else have to be consistent with everything else. (C canon)

As a result, even under the current canon regime, new movies or TV shows would automatically trump the entire EU.

What I like about this new move is that they're getting rid of that system. The hierarchy of which Star Wars media could ignore which other Star Wars media was always a product of Lucas running the show. Now that he's not, they're free to say that all Star Wars media have to be consistent with all other Star Wars media, and that's exactly what they have done. They're structuring things internally so they can say to someone designing a prop for a movie in 2025, "Hey, you can't do it that way, because we already know what that object looks like thanks to a comic book in 2018."

It is true that the flip side of this is that everything published up until now is on the chopping block. But that was actually true before this announcement, at least vis a vis TV shows and movies. And I doubt very much that they're going to approach this as a clean slate. As the announcement video points out, and various authors involved in the current EU have testified, people at Lucasfilm (except for Lucas himself) love the EU. Hell, even Lucas mined the EU. LFL isn't going to turn around and say, "Well we don't actually know who invented the X-wing or its model number, because nobody ever said it on screen." But they are going to say (as they already have been doing throughout their TV and film products), "We reserve the right to overwrite stuff that has only been published hitherto." I'm not expecting a blank slate situation - instead, I predict they'll take the position of everything being potentially real until the pressure front of the new EU has touched on the detail in question.

But the flip side is that once the new EU does touch on the detail in question, it's real for everything - books, comics, games, TV, film, etc. That is a huge plus in my book. And two decades of curating the not-really-real EU has given Lucasfilm the institutional experience to actually keep track of all of this stuff.

To me, that's more important than any particular detail of the current continuity. Yes, there are things about the current EU that are personally, fanboyishly important to me. But there are other parts of it that I think are an insult to Star Wars, and I can't imagine I'm the only fan who feels that way. What I really want is for Lucasfilm to take all of Star Wars seriously, and for the first time they've said they're going to do that. If they're prepared to do that, I actually don't want them to just wave a wand and say that the current EU - Yuuzhan Vong, Children of the Jedi, and whatever else you think is garbage - and all, is now set in stone. That would actually suck, and not just because it would mean the next thirty years of Star Wars films are book adaptations.

[daboarder]

except as per lucas's orders, the EU had to all be checked for consistency.

Furthermore the choice to kill of chewbacca was HIS. As in they directly ordered salvatore to kill off one of the main characters to get across the idea that "no one is safe"

I was in a conference call with DelRey and Lucasfilm when the editors expressed that they loved the outline. (paraphrasing here) “This is exactly what we want, but didn’t anyone tell you? You have to kill Chewey.”

I won’t type the next two words that came out of my mouth. After a couple of days of arguments and, well, terror, they had convinced me that they were doing it for the right reasons, and well, George was down with it, and it’s his galaxy far, far away, so I did it.

The responses have been mixed, with some people loving the new direction, other people devastated. I think it might be the only thing I’ve ever regretted; I don’t think I’d go back and do that one again.

So yeah they could say what they wanted but the involvement and effort show otherwise.

Personally if they get rid of all the crap post thrawn and keep the rest then thats a good thing in my opinion.


putting it in financial perspective,

Anything not an x-wing, a-wing, y-wing, b-wing or tie fighter, bomber or interceptor is basically EU content......

Now before "someone" jumps in and tries to say that it is "Disneys material to do with as they will", licence holders have rights, and a decisions by the licenser that drastically affects the value of the licenced material, like say, declaring that its all tosh and now "unofficial" with new "official licences" to be sold is potentially a breach of those rights.
This one is going to be interesting....

[Denzark]

No Tie Defender!!! WTFROFLBBQ? I hate retconning as a matter of principle...