Am I the Only Fan of the Original Expanded Universe

[The Negative Zone]

I think its kind of silly to not read parts of the new canon. Sure, the Legends timeline is discontinued that doesn't mean you can't still enjoy it. Besides you're missing out on all the new stuff.

[paurru]

Lol. Not really. I'm not missing anything from not reading any of the new stuff.


The new Thrawn novel I really don't need. I know enough of Thrawn from outbound flight and the Heir of the Empire trilogy

[WebLurker]

I think its kind of silly to not read parts of the new canon. Sure, the Legends timeline is discontinued that doesn't mean you can't still enjoy it. Besides you're missing out on all the new stuff.

For some people, the changes are too much to switch over. They don't want a different version of Star Wars, they want the old version that has meaning to them. With that gone, Star Wars has no meaning to them.

While I personally think that Disney is building a superior canon than the old one, I can understand the POV of people who feel like Star Wars has changed beyond recognition; I refuse to have anything to do with the current Amazing Spider-Man comics despite being a huge Spidey fan for similar reasons.

The new Thrawn novel I really don't need. I know enough of Thrawn from outbound flight and the Heir of the Empire trilogy

Well, I did like the new Thrawn novel. It was pretty good on it's own terms and did cover something that Legends never did; Thrawn's rise through the ranks. So, I think it justified its existence and does have something to offer old school fans of the character, but, at the end of the day, you should do what makes you the happiest.

[Starter Set]

For some people, the changes are too much to switch over. They don't want a different version of Star Wars, they want the old version that has meaning to them. With that gone, Star Wars has no meaning to them.

While I personally think that Disney is building a superior canon than the old one, I can understand the POV of people who feel like Star Wars has changed beyond recognition; I refuse to have anything to do with the current Amazing Spider-Man comics despite being a huge Spidey fan for similar reasons

That's very true. I had a similar reaction concerning Abrams and Star Trek.

It's not "my" Star Trek. That's not how Star Trek should be in my very modest opinion. You like it, fine, i have no problem with that but me, i'm not touching that, no dice, no sir.

So yeah, i can totally see the point of the person who started this thread.

Even if i think that Disney did take the best decision for the franchise on the long term in order to stay relevant and attractive to the new generations of fans/customers.

[The Negative Zone]

For some people, the changes are too much to switch over. They don't want a different version of Star Wars, they want the old version that has meaning to them. With that gone, Star Wars has no meaning to them.

But the new EU and Legends are a collection of stories that vary widely in tone. Plenty of eu stories are different versions of Star Wars. I can see why old eu fans wouldn't take to new children of Han and Leia or why Thrawn fans don't care for a new version of Thrawn, but what does that have to do with enjoying something like Marvel's Darth Vader?

[WebLurker]

But the new EU and Legends are a collection of stories that vary widely in tone. Plenty of eu stories are different versions of Star Wars. I can see why old eu fans wouldn't take to new children of Han and Leia or why Thrawn fans don't care for a new version of Thrawn, but what does that have to do with enjoying something like Marvel's Darth Vader?

Different chain of events. Legends covered similar ground in a different way. It's not part of their Star Wars, so it's not "real." Some people don't mind crossing into different continuities, others do very much.

A lot like comics, Legends doesn't always fit together (the "different versions"), but retcons, explanations, and the occasional decanonizing, made everything fit together close enough to create a bigger, single world that had history and heroes beyond the films. For some people, that timeline and world is worth more than the materials that built it (or that the world makes up for the bad stuff).

It is worth noting that most fans I've seen who don't want anything to do with Disney's Star Wars and refuse to even touch it are the fans who loved the Legends tie-ins more than the movies. For them, that stuff, not the movies, is what made Star Wars worthwhile. Me? While I've enjoyed the tie-ins for years (and think that they made the franchise more fun than the movies alone), I was always a movies first person; for me, the movies are what made the tie-ins worth reading in the first place.

I suppose its a bit like asking a die-hard fan of DC's '90s comics to try New 52; it may be new materials with the characters, but it's not the same to them, while to someone less locked into a specific way, it's not so big a deal.

[godisawesome]

I occasionally find myself apathetic towards new material when it feels limited compared to what the Legends variation was; ergo, since Disney will most likely not touch anything they haven't forged in the films yet, it feels a lot like we're just twiddling our thumbs and telling obvious and safe stories about half the time. The really good stuff is the new material which isn't all that divested conceptually from what you could get in Legends for the OT timeline: stuff like Doctor Aphra or Lost Stars, both of which I'd recommend. Other stuff seems at times maddeningly limited M even though you can clearly tell why; Bloodline may be a good book, but it mostly seems like they hired a great writer to perfectly execute an extremely limited view at the Post-Jakku Galaxy designed to justify the FO being larger in TLJ than the North Korea analog it was implied to be before hand.

Still, it probably is a good thing that there's a floor to the quality of the work output; presumably, I'll never have to peruse another book where a series I started out liking proudly features a Jedi diving in front of a totally sane but still totally-okay-with-purging-the-Jedi Clone Trooper and taking a lightsaber stab from a panicked youngling desperate to escape so that her family can then murder some more Jedi.

[ChrisIII]

You know, I'm wondering if perhaps Disney might once again consider doing somewhat akin to what Lucasfilm did with the INFINITIES stuff (Both the miniseries and the short stories in Star Wars tales)-provide a possible continuation. They're not beyond releasing merchandise from discontinued EU, or re-releasing the older books with new cover artwork (Well, at least the Thrawn stuff). For instance, the fall line of merchandise has a figure of Jaina Solo, and recently a Darth Revan figure was also released.

Although technically the latter fits with THE OLD REPUBLIC which is pretty much the only LEGENDS thing still producing the ocassional new content; although as a character that's pretty from the era of the film's he'd be fairly easy to integrate into canon, like Darth Bane was (Although he was given a more Vaderish look).

[WebLurker]

You know, I'm wondering if perhaps Disney might once again consider doing somewhat akin to what Lucasfilm did with the INFINITIES stuff (Both the miniseries and the short stories in Star Wars tales)-provide a possible continuation.

Well, in the Disney era, we are getting some "Infinities" stuff, like Jeffery Brown's cartoon books, the Lego animation projects, and the Shakespeare Star Wars books as some examples. However, what I'm noticing is a couple things. First of all, the priority seems to be canon. As I understand it, they've outright come and said as much. I'm not sure if they want to invest the resources into making Legends material when they could be using that to advance canon or write something that connects to the new movies that are big with consumers. (It's also worth noting that Legends is a niche market inside of another niche market).

Secondly, non-canon stuff seems to be limited parodies and other obviously "don't take them seriously" stuff. I'm just guessing here, but maybe their avoiding doing "Infinities" stuff that serious enough in tone to be easily mistaken for a canon story?

Finally, the new model that Star Wars is operating under is synergy among the various departments. Continuing Legends doesn't really lend itself well to that; for as much as they borrow "as is," they also make a lot of changes.

They're not beyond releasing merchandise from discontinued EU, or re-releasing the older books with new cover artwork (Well, at least the Thrawn stuff). For instance, the fall line of merchandise has a figure of Jaina Solo, and recently a Darth Revan figure was also released.

It is worth keeping in mind that reprinting old books takes less resources (and no slots in the limited number of new Star Wars books Del Rey can make per year) than creating new ones from scratch. The action figures were selected by fan poll.

Although technically the latter fits with THE OLD REPUBLIC which is pretty much the only LEGENDS thing still producing the ocassional new content; although as a character that's pretty from the era of the film's he'd be fairly easy to integrate into canon, like Darth Bane was (Although he was given a more Vaderish look).

Maybe? I do know that in the Mortis episodes from The Clone Wars, a deleted concept was to have Reven's ghost or image appear as an ancient Sith Lord who factored in somehow. It sounded like the game's idea of him repenting was being ignored for him just being a life-long Sith. So, even if stuff does make it into canon, it's not always the same as it was before.

[Taral-DLOS]

In response to the subject line of the thread that drew me in: I too am a fan of the Legends timeline. In fact, I'm trying to re-read all of it in chronological order (I'm working on some The Old Republic novels while watching an LP of Knights of the Fallen Empire). There are some bad parts, but generally I have a lot of fun with it.

In response to the overall sentiment: I love the new movies and new canon too. People can like more than one thing.

[sunofdarkchild]

I very much prefer the original EU from the Zahn trilogy through the New Jedi Order series, but everything since then has been pretty bad. Legacy of the Force was so bad in everything from the concept itself to the execution that that I actually support the decision to get rid of the whole EU, even though it meant throwing out the good as well. At least now I can have my EU ending with The Unifying Force and never have to see a reference to Jacen Solo becoming a Sith lord tarnishing future books ever again.

[Grind]

I'm another fan of the EU. I had it all, old Marvel comics, Dark Horse, all the novels, West End source books you name it. Then Disney pulled the rug out from under my 30 years of fandom. It's taken me just this long to finally pick up a couple of the new comics. I've always been a comics fan. I will not read any of the new books. I understand why it was done, but there's still a bad taste in my mouth.

[ChrisIII]

This actually happens a great deal with a lot of tie-in fiction; there's always something that might get contradicted, or de-canonized, from the 'core' product. Star Wars is actually no stranger to this-George's view of the Clone Wars, the history and heirarchy of the Jedi/Sith, Boba Fett's backstory and so on were often at odds with the EU, although various retcons tried to tie everything together, it was kind of a tangled web. So I can't blame Disney for wanting to clean house a bit.

Here's some other examples. Star Trek licensed fiction has had quite a few hiccups, the largest being Kirk getting control of the Excelsior since DC had to keep the comics published between III and IV of the movie era. Then IV comes out, pretty much taking place exactly where III took off, and then they sort of had to come up with a complicated explanation for things. The Jurassic Park series brought the hunter character back from the dead and had the main characters go on another adventure together which was contradicted by the sequels. The ALIEN series's versions of events after ALIENS was so different they actually went back and edited the graphic novels to clumsily make everything fit together. Doctor Who, despite it's flexibility, has had issues with this too, especially since some of the more recent episodes have actually adapted novel and audio stories. It's not as much a problem with say, Marvel or even stuff like Terminator because the concept of shifting timelines and alternate earths is pretty much already there (Although I suppose this works with Doctor Who as well).

Adhering to the licensed spin-off material really isn't that fair to those who only really want to see the movie and can't afford, or want to read, the comics/novels/games etc. They're made for a mass audience. Sure, they do occasionally throw a few bones to some fans (For instance, Lucas including some visual nods to Dark Horse comics, most notably Aayla Secura, but that's mainly because he saw a picture of her and was intriqued by the design.)

[Grind]

This is on another level from something contradicting continuity. 90% of continuity got flushed down the toilet. About 35 years worth.

[Carabas]

This is on another level from something contradicting continuity. 90% of continuity got flushed down the toilet. About 35 years worth.

A good 90% of it was as much in continuity then as it is now though: not.

The EU was tolerated as long as it didn't deal with stuff Lucas was interested in. Once Lucas became interested in something the EU had done, like say Mandalorians, then huge parts of the EU were gone, just like that.
If Lucas would have been interested in doing an Episode VII, the entire EU Skywalker soap opera from the Thrawn trilogy on would have been gone.
They had these ridiculous levels of canonicity back then, and the only level that really counted for anything was G-Canon, as in just the movies, basically.

Now there is one, unified canon (with some exceptions like the Bioware stuff), and the Lucasfilm Storygroup seem dedicated to bringing back as much characters and concepts from the old EU back as possible.