Do these Kathleen Kennedy comments worry or bother you ?

[The Negative Zone]

There's little reason to be concerned about these comments. It wasn't expected of the Sequel Trilogy to adapt the Legends canon. Disney likely would not allow it, George probably wouldn't even have done it.

As usual, people are just being mad for no reason.

[WebLurker]

I'm old enough to be an original generation Star Wars fan. It was the classic trilogy that won me over as a child. Although unbalanced, the EU was great for SW fans during those long, dark periods of inactivity movie-wise. I can understand it being many fans first point of contact and therefore being held in fond regard due to that.

I'm a second-gen fan ('90s kid) and too young to remember the so-called dark times of the franchise. Heck, when I first really started watching the stuff was when the prequels came out and I didn't get into the tie-ins until well after that, so I don't really remember a time when the tie-ins were the keeping the franchise alive.

I guess I just don't appreciate being told that the novels that I spent 20 years buying and reading, that were often sold as an 'official' continuation of the saga (or as close as to 'official' as was possible at the time), were suddenly being thrown into the metaphorical dustbin. Disney wants to sell me a brand new EU? Nope. Goodbye.

I can understand that, even if I was able to make the jump myself. Star Trek would probably be my thing where if there was a hard reboot or something, I'd be checking out (and in fact, I kinda did for awhile during the height of the JJ Abrams movies).

I'll stick to a continuity that, warts and all, didn't turn Han Solo into a deadbeat dad and then just killed him off to give Harrison Ford the onscreen death that he's wanted ever since ROTJ. Even Mark Hamill fundamentally disagreed with the direction that Luke Skywalker's character and story arc unfolded during the sequel trilogy.

Can understand that, although I think I found both Han and Luke more interesting in the sequel movies then I did Legends. Seemed like they weren't stagnant like the were in the old books. Course, I have found that I do tend to like more flawed characters and find them more interesting when done well.

I'm not really interested in turning this into some sort of argument though and absolutely agree that the old EU had backed itself into a corner by the end of it's life. I remember thinking 'Where the hell do they go from here?' after reading those Legacy Of The Force' books.

I think the old guard movie characters needed to hand things over to the next generation and let them become the leads. The novels started to do that with New Jedi Order, but then backed off for whatever reason, and so kept the movie characters going forward, despite them being really old at that point and having plateaued in character development a long time ago.

Frankly, I thought that the EU canon was basically falling apart already by the time the prequels came out. The EU tried so hard to maintain the "used future" look and feel of the original trilogy, and had already created quite a bit of backstory for the Old Republic era. When the prequels pretty much ignored all of that in favor of the polished and modern setting that was, if we're being honest, probably what Lucas had wanted for Star Wars all along, it became pretty difficult to reconcile the old with the new which probably explains why the prequels were hated for so long.

I didn't think the two designs were too hard to reconcile; in the prequels, we saw a lot of the urban and civlian parts of the galaxy, while the originals focused on the frontiers during war. Heck, the Clone Wars had proto-original trilogy designs in them.

Of course, now that all of the hate is being turned onto the sequel trilogy, despite it sticking much closer to the original trilogy in tone, fans are now all claiming to love what was there before, including the EU and even the prequels.

Seems like every new thing meets with resistance.

Of course, the problem now is that shunting off basically everything to Legends means that there are huge gaps in the continuity that won't be filled anytime soon, and in many cases will see many elements lifted from Legends and put back into canon, like with Thrawn. So for now we're sort of stuck with this bastard timeline that doesn't really know what it wants to be, because those Legends stories still exist in our reality and will end up inspiring new authors to write parts of them into canon, whether they are conscious of that or not.

Dunno, they've been filling gaps pretty quickly, sometimes borrowing from Legends, other times doing their own thing. Funny thing is, to me, it seemed like Legends hardly ever had a clue about what it wanted or was going to be, while the new one seems far more planned out and better coordinated in terms of getting to a common end.

But hey, maybe that's okay, Star Wars fans should really just try to stop arguing about continuity and just enjoy the content we have. There's no sense in trying to go back to a mythical age where everything about the franchise made sense and fit nicely with everything else, it's about as futile of an exercise as trying to do that with real history.

It does seem like fandoms get overly worried about continuity, at the expense of all else. I've heard tie-in writers for other franchises express a great deal of dislike for the concept in regards to have fans treat it.

[Killerbee911]

It's hard to imagine a time when Star Wars wasn't the ubiquitous pop culture presence it is now, but the early 90s were definitely a low ebb for the franchise as fans had mostly moved on, the prequels were still years away, and the merchandising well had more or less run dry. Those EU novels, comics, and games really helped to keep the flame burning, so to speak, and were actually the entry point into Star Wars for a lot of fans who would've been too young to catch the initial theatrical releases of the movies.

That being said though, the old EU fiction was straight garbage no matter how much you slice it. Pretty much cookie cutter genre fiction with derivative plots, lousy writing, and pretty much no character development, as the main heroes had to remain effectively indistinguishable from how we last saw them in the films. And as time went on the timeline just got so bloated and became impossible to rectify, wiping it entirely was a necessary step.

So you are perfect person to ask then, Which is the better way to build

A. Completely ground zero. Throw everything out
B. Gut out all the bad stuff from the EU and keep the good things

As person who never read this stuff and seeing that the current run doesn't have a direction. To me as Bad EU could possible be it was clear direction and you could put all those high price writers to work on fixing it even if it means throwing out large chunks. To me even if you are throwing away almost everything attached them and just building from say Mara Jade Skywalker, Jaina Solo, Jacen Solo, Anakin Solo, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Corran Horn,etc it seems like a better direction than Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo Ren,etc and no plan on where to go with them. Now Marvel is starting from better stories but they haven't told direct adaptation of anything Marvel comics in the MCU. They are honestly using the comics as a framework and making their own fiction. That just seem like a better plan than having to build from nothing.

I agree with clearing house if you have something better to do and better story to tell. And clear direction where you want to take the property but it seems they decide to throw out everything and now they kinda don't know where they are going. Now I am still enjoying what they are doing but lacking the foresight to be able to use all of your assets seems scary to me. But as someone mention Star Wars never had source material before so this is nothing new.

[Arsenal]

It makes the most sense to throw everything out and start to build something new while incorporating some of good stuff from the EU as time goes on. Which is what they did & currently still doing.

There is still a lot of unaccounted for time between ROTJ & TFA so it’s likely we’ll see even more EU stuff introduced in that time period once the ST is concluded.

[thwhtGuardian]

The hand-wringing about tossing out the old EU has always struck me as odd, I mean when Dark Horse got the licence from Marvel all that stuff got forgotten as well so it's not a new concept.

[AJBopp]

I've only read a half dozen or so of the EU novels, but for the most part (there was one exception I can recall about Luke helping Lando find a bride) the authors of the books seemed more interested in telling a story they were interested in, and saw Star Wars as an excuse to inject the story into. Rather than wanting to tell a Star Wars story. They largely missed the lightness and humor of the Star Wars universe, took themselves way too seriously, and just generally didn't feel like Star Wars.

The new trilogy feels much the same, to be honest. It's not canon, it's just another variation of Legends. Disney ccan call it canon all they want to, but they're not convincing me until they decide to actually do Star Wars.

[WillieMorgan]

I've only read a half dozen or so of the EU novels, but for the most part (there was one exception I can recall about Luke helping Lando find a bride) the authors of the books seemed more interested in telling a story they were interested in, and saw Star Wars as an excuse to inject the story into. Rather than wanting to tell a Star Wars story. They largely missed the lightness and humor of the Star Wars universe, took themselves way too seriously, and just generally didn't feel like Star Wars.

The new trilogy feels much the same, to be honest. It's not canon, it's just another variation of Legends. Disney ccan call it canon all they want to, but they're not convincing me until they decide to actually do Star Wars.

That's a valid point in relation to the old EU. There was one novel in particular, The Crystal Star. I forget the name of the author but it was a completely separate, fantasy-based story-line that blatantly had the Star Wars characters and galaxy then sellotaped over it to try and sell a few more copies and cash in on the license. God, that was a low point.

Still better than The Last Jedi though

[PwrdOn]

So you are perfect person to ask then, Which is the better way to build

A. Completely ground zero. Throw everything out
B. Gut out all the bad stuff from the EU and keep the good things

As person who never read this stuff and seeing that the current run doesn't have a direction. To me as Bad EU could possible be it was clear direction and you could put all those high price writers to work on fixing it even if it means throwing out large chunks. To me even if you are throwing away almost everything attached them and just building from say Mara Jade Skywalker, Jaina Solo, Jacen Solo, Anakin Solo, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Corran Horn,etc it seems like a better direction than Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo Ren,etc and no plan on where to go with them. Now Marvel is starting from better stories but they haven't told direct adaptation of anything Marvel comics in the MCU. They are honestly using the comics as a framework and making their own fiction. That just seem like a better plan than having to build from nothing.

I agree with clearing house if you have something better to do and better story to tell. And clear direction where you want to take the property but it seems they decide to throw out everything and now they kinda don't know where they are going. Now I am still enjoying what they are doing but lacking the foresight to be able to use all of your assets seems scary to me. But as someone mention Star Wars never had source material before so this is nothing new.

I'm more in favor of an approach that keeps everything in the EU canon as long as it doesn't explicitly contradict anything from the new films, so most of the major plot threads will get overwritten but all of the side stories and world building, which as I'm concerned was always the EU's strength, will stick around. This is basically how things worked before Disney came along, see Boba Fett's origin for an example, and is basically what people are going with now in practice, since it will take some time for the new stories to fill out all the gaps left by Legends. In any event, I'd prefer the new stories to focus on new settings and time periods, rather than trying to retell the same story already established in Legends.

[Xero Kaiser]

I guess at this point, I don't like the idea of a Star Wars universe without Rey, Finn, BB8, Jyn Erso, and the others.

If, for whatever reason, the current canon was burned to the ground, the only characters I'd miss would be The Mandalorian


....maaaybe Finn.

[WebLurker]

If, for whatever reason, the current canon was burned to the ground, the only characters I'd miss would be The Mandalorian


....maaaybe Finn.

Fair enough.

[H-E-D]

Kylo Ren is probably the best new character the franchise has seen in some time. Old-school fandom has a bizarre aversion to intensely emotional characters (see also: people calling Tobey's Peter Parker "whiny). But they shouldn't.

[thwhtGuardian]

Kylo Ren is probably the best new character the franchise has seen in some time. Old-school fandom has a bizarre aversion to intensely emotional characters (see also: people calling Tobey's Peter Parker "whiny). But they shouldn't.

He could be if he wasn't treated like a joke repeatedly. His first scene could have established him as a real force to be reckoned with...until Poe made a joke about him. What could have been a power emotional scene of him losing his cool...gets negated and played for laughs by two storm troopers. And it happens over and over again.

[H-E-D]

I've never felt the Kylo was treated as a joke.

[LordMikel]

I've only read a half dozen or so of the EU novels, but for the most part (there was one exception I can recall about Luke helping Lando find a bride) the authors of the books seemed more interested in telling a story they were interested in, and saw Star Wars as an excuse to inject the story into. Rather than wanting to tell a Star Wars story. They largely missed the lightness and humor of the Star Wars universe, took themselves way too seriously, and just generally didn't feel like Star Wars.

The new trilogy feels much the same, to be honest. It's not canon, it's just another variation of Legends. Disney ccan call it canon all they want to, but they're not convincing me until they decide to actually do Star Wars.

If you are missing the humor, Aaron Allston brought it the best. His Enemy Lines: Rebel Dream and the sequel were fantastic. Let me see if I can recall the scene well enough.

Wedge: "Hey Luke, I've got a question."
Luke: "No Wedge, we aren't being paid."

[LordMikel]

So you are perfect person to ask then, Which is the better way to build

A. Completely ground zero. Throw everything out
B. Gut out all the bad stuff from the EU and keep the good things

As person who never read this stuff and seeing that the current run doesn't have a direction. To me as Bad EU could possible be it was clear direction and you could put all those high price writers to work on fixing it even if it means throwing out large chunks. To me even if you are throwing away almost everything attached them and just building from say Mara Jade Skywalker, Jaina Solo, Jacen Solo, Anakin Solo, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Corran Horn,etc it seems like a better direction than Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo Ren,etc and no plan on where to go with them. Now Marvel is starting from better stories but they haven't told direct adaptation of anything Marvel comics in the MCU. They are honestly using the comics as a framework and making their own fiction. That just seem like a better plan than having to build from nothing.

I agree with clearing house if you have something better to do and better story to tell. And clear direction where you want to take the property but it seems they decide to throw out everything and now they kinda don't know where they are going. Now I am still enjoying what they are doing but lacking the foresight to be able to use all of your assets seems scary to me. But as someone mention Star Wars never had source material before so this is nothing new.

Actually I'd like to throw out one additional thing they could have done. The EU was approaching an ending. They should have done a 5 book ending series and hit that end we were promised.

But yes, I might have done a bit of melding.

Take Wedge for example. He leads Rogue Squadron which is prominent in the books. Establishes Wraith Squadron. Is a General. Gets married with two kids. That is some solid framework. Let's plan on using ahis General, his squadrons, if we need to do married and daughters, we can use that as well, depending on how much focus he gets in script.

Leia. She had a lightsaber in the EU. That would have been cool to see on the big screen. She was also happily married to Han, so that annoyed me that they weren't. That stems from my "Hollywood can't write happily married couples" attitude.

Chewbacca. Died in the worst possible death scene, so if we chose to forget that, I'm all in for that.