New Star Wars to suck at the Retcon root.

[Nabterayl]

Yeah, the things I love about the EU are tech and culture, and ... a very few characters. And honestly even most of the characters I like, I like more in concept than the way they're actually written or the things they actually do.

Also, let's not forget that this is the second time the EU has been rebooted. Does anybody really miss the era of the Marvel comics, or The Splinter of the Mind's Eye, or the Lando Calrissian Adventures (I admit that the Han Solo Adventures were okay)?

And yet, even those were mined for what came after. Multi-phase lightsabers and the E-11 blaster rifle were taken from The Splinter of the Mind's Eye. The entire arc of the Han Solo Adventures was built into Ann Crispin's Han Solo trilogy in flashbacks, and that series also gave us Z-95 Headhunters. Lumiya, from the Marvel comics, was taken for the Darth Caedus arc.

I expect this reboot will be similar. We'll see a lot of tech and cultures ported over, one or two beloved characters will make it at some point in some form, and almost no plot points.

[Anggul]

Why does it matter to anyone what the owners state to be 'canon'? Them saying it is or isn't doesn't change your enjoyment or perception of it.

For example: If GW state that the Dawn of War novels were canon, it doesn't matter because we all know they're a load of crap and won't recognise them as canon because they make no sense.

It's the person's choice what they do and don't acknowledge as making sense or being better in their eyes, it doesn't matter what Disney say.

[Denzark]

to make a blanket statement that retcons in and of themselves is bad is facile.
Retcons are a tool and hating them is like hating a hammer. Feel free to, but it's just kind of a weird thing to do.

Well I guess I'm clearly facile and weird.

The reason I don't like retcons beyond the surface of wasted time, is the whole 'well this arc never happened. Its all one big fuc*ing holdeck episode, it was all in your mind' It is a touch of arrogance. It says that the new creators didn't like what the old creators did. Which is fine and justified sometimes, or often even.

But I detect 'corporatism' when someone says - yeah do you know what, the EU never happened. it isn't Star Wars, but it is 'Star Wars Legends'. WTF. You can have it as a 're-imagining' in some sort of fudged-up multiverse, but what you went from 1995 (Thrawn) until now thinking is canon, ain't.


I can't even begin describe how disappointing it is. I mean, OK. Do what Aliens did. Just smash us in the face with it - Ripley didn't find Newt after years - Newt dies in the escape pod and Ripley jumps off a bridge with a queen bun in the oven.

But don't condescend to the fans by telling them 'yeah, that is just a 'legend'.

[Nabterayl]

Why does it matter to anyone what the owners state to be 'canon'? Them saying it is or isn't doesn't change your enjoyment or perception of it.

For example: If GW state that the Dawn of War novels were canon, it doesn't matter because we all know they're a load of crap and won't recognise them as canon because they make no sense.

It's the person's choice what they do and don't acknowledge as making sense or being better in their eyes, it doesn't matter what Disney say.

This is the second time I've been involved in a major retcon of a sci-fi IP that I was personally, majorly invested in, and I think the differences are instructive. The first was the Earthsiege/Cyberstorm/Starsiege/Tribes universe. I was involved, to a not insignificant degree, in crafting the official lore of that universe in the Tribes era (if anybody remembers the Seventh Firetruce fiction that Sierra put out, I am that Nabterayl). I loved that property to death. But there were a lot of things about it that simply didn't match up with existing lore (e.g., Tribes lore virtually ignored Cyberstorm lore; I could go on for hours), and it was clear that subsequent products (e.g., Tribes: Vengeance) didn't feel beholden to any of the details that Sierra itself had published about the universe. And that was the critical fact. It may be immature, it may be lame, but I think there is something inherent to the fan experience that it is enhanced when the fan feels that the IP owner takes the IP as seriously as the fan does. This was not true of Tribes. I took Tribes way more seriously than Sierra did, way more seriously than Sierra does.

Contrast this with the case of Lucasfilm. Since 2000, Lucasfilm has had a full-time apparatus to make sure that everything Star Wars fits into the N/S/C/T/G Canon hierarchy. The existence of that hierarchy may be kind of bullsh*t, from one point of view, but from another ... what other company does that? What other company has people whose job it is to officially retcon that which needs to be retconned (e.g., the existence of the "A-wing" in X-Wing the computer game), or to fill in details like the official gender of the Jedi Exile from Knights of the Old Republic II (female), or to sit down with authors before they start writing their novels - before each new multi-novel story arc - to decide where they want the story to go, and who know where it can't go based on what's come before? While much of the actual product that came out of this machine was dreck, Lucasfilm is pretty much the only company ever to go to this much trouble. They are their own fans, in a way that no other IP I can think of is, and you can tell because they put in a huge amount of work into curating their canon the same way fans instinctively curate every canon they adopt. They are so much their own fans that they took a basically non-canon character and made her a central figure in a plot arc 24 years after she first appeared. Though fans may disagree with the artistic decisions that Lucasfilm has made over the years, you have to be daft to think that Lucasfilm doesn't take Star Wars as seriously as any fan.

And that's why this feels so serious to some people. We love Star Wars, in not insignificant part, because for once in our lives the IP owner takes our beloved IP just as seriously as we do. For that to suddenly be tarred with the "Some of this is true, but we aren't sure which parts of it, and won't decide until we have to" brush feels, from a certain point of view, like a reversal of that position. Ignoring that which has been published in the past, regardless of how terrible it is, is the exact opposite of treating an IP like a fan. And fans have loved that Lucasfilm has historically treated Star Wars more like a fan than almost any other IP owner. "What do you mean?" they cry out in horror. "I thought you took this stuff seriously!"

Of course, my own personal take is that they do take it seriously. The EU project will continue, except it won't be the "expanded" (i.e., not real) Star Wars universe anymore. It will just be the Star Wars universe. I choose to focus on the fact that they are actually now taking their canon more seriously, by not making the books third-class citizens. The approach is what endears the company to me, not so much the actual content.

I mean, OK. Do what Aliens did. Just smash us in the face with it - Ripley didn't find Newt after years - Newt dies in the escape pod and Ripley jumps off a bridge with a queen bun in the oven.

But don't condescend to the fans by telling them 'yeah, that is just a 'legend'.

How would they do that? Even only the post-Clone Wars EU has plotted out the major galactic events, almost year by year, for something like 130 years after the end of the First Galactic Civil War.

[Denzark]

How would they do that? Even only the post-Clone Wars EU has plotted out the major galactic events, almost year by year, for something like 130 years after the end of the First Galactic Civil War.

I'm sorry, I don't understand the question. They have announced that what we currently know as the EU, will in the future be known as something along the lines of 'Star Wars Legends'.

[Nabterayl]

I'm not sure I understand what you want them to do (to be clear: I'm not asking this in a combative way; I'm just genuinely unclear what your preferred behavior would be). Just collapse the three main canon tiers into one (effectively, elevate C and T canon to the level of G canon), and go from there, implications for future movie projects be damned?

[Denzark]

Mmmm. I think I would rather have them just proceed with the films as they desire and make absolutely no reference to the EU in terms of whether it is canon or not. I always ran under the impression that George Lucas set out 'rules of engagement' for where the story was going and what subjects the books should avoid, so that they would never clash with the films. It would seem this is not the case! They could have told all new stories outside the existing arcs, its not like I trust the creator of Jar-Jar to make a good fist of it.

[Nabterayl]

I think the problem with that is that unlike 40K, which has filled in basically no major events (through the device of saying, "No matter how big an event this may seem, the Imperium is so vast that it's actually just a drop in the bucket!"), the Star Wars EU has set out the major events of the galaxy for a good long while - and they're specifically called the major events of the galaxy (again unlike 40K, which has reserved the luxury of saying, "Oh well sure, it was a crusade involving hundreds of billions of soldiers. But it wasn't a major event."). So if you want to make more movies after Episode VI, you have only two options: make movie adaptations of the books, or tell stories that are not about the major events of the galaxy.

They're clearly planning to do the second, but they also want to be able to tell stories about the major events of the galaxy. And frankly I don't blame them for not wanting to make movie adaptations of the books. Now, under existing canon rules, they could just do whatever they wanted and it would still trump the published EU. So the published EU is on the chopping block either way. That's why I give them credit for restructuring the very rules of their own canon, to eliminate this idea that book canon is a third-class citizen in the canon world.

[Denzark]

I see what you are saying. But are they not saying CURRENT book canon is not only not a third-class citizen - it is not even substantively of this world as it is 'legend'?

[Nabterayl]

I see what you are saying. But are they not saying CURRENT book canon is not only not a third-class citizen - it is not even substantively of this world as it is 'legend'?

Yes, though as I've said, I expect that in practice what that means is that it's on the chopping block for being overwritten - and thus, how certain it is depends directly on how interested Lucasfilm is in revisiting the time period in question. I think we're much more likely to find out that Truce at Bakura never happened than we are to find that there never was such a person as Darth Bane, for instance.

Also, they aren't saying that they're doing away with the idea of an "expanded universe" in the sense of roleplaying games, novels, comics, and videogames. They're doing away with the idea of an "expanded" universe, in the sense that the RPGs, novels, comics, and videogames aren't "real" Star Wars that the TV and film storytellers have to take into account. They're still going to be publishing RPGs, novels, comics, and videogames (which might overwrite current C canon, it's true).