The Force never bothered me anyway.
When did the movies ever rely on EU material for canon, though?
She’s too fat to play Mara Jade.
The Enterprise would totally kick a Star Destroyer’s ass in a space battle. It’s got phasors for christ sake!
This is a GREAT example of the bizarre entitlement attitude many geeks (across many fandoms) have. And I say this as someone still annoyed with the changes Lucas made to the original trilogy.
Being a geek about anything inherently means being emotionally connected/attached to it. That’s awesome - it means you get a lot of entertainment and happiness out of it. But your emotional connection does not mean YOU have ANY ownership of it. You wouldn’t know that if you went by how (many but not all) geeks react when they don’t like something that happens in {fandom}. How dare they??? They’re fucking morons!!! They just ruined the entire {fandom} universe!!! They need to get fucked by a cactus!!!
Grow.up. The reason your fandom exists is that people worked their asses off to create something amazing. Now you want to hobble their creativity so they do everything exactly as you would like it. What if they don’t want to? What if they NEVER wanted to go in that direction?
There’s no problem with disagreeing with a creative choice. Of course that’s going to happen. Extended debates about it can be interesting, too. But acting like they have an obligation to you personally is narcissistic and self absorbed. It assumes every fan agrees with your opinions or that your opinions are the only valid ones.
Just treat the EU as an AU. What’s so hard or terrible about that?
I’m pretty sure Lucas himself said they were never going to be canon when he let the authors start writing them.
Watch your mouth! She’s voluptuous, not fat. But I do agree she’s not right for the part.
Anyway, while the EU is beloved, it’s not canon in the sense of restricting or overriding any further portrayals of the SW universe. If that was the case, no one could make any sequel movies except by adapting and filming EU novels, and the movie makers don’t want to be restricted by that . In any event Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford are just too old to play their characters in any immediately-post ROTJ role.
It’s a film franchise. The books ain’t canon. And neither is the Star Wars Christmas Special. So there!
I’ve read maybe 20 or 30 of the EU books, I liked some of them quite a lot, and they were definitely canon. But if I were in Disney’s shoes I’d do the exact same thing. They need to create stories that appeal to a broad audience (ie retell w/o a set future and known results), and given their execution of doing so with Marvel while deviating from the comics, I’m happy to give them a fair shot.
To everyone who’s urging ridiculous things like restraint and practicality and maturity,
:p.
Ok.
And now some stuff is going to happen on film that will overrule C-canon. So what’s the problem again?
I mean, you just admitted that.
Banquet Bear:
In the EU, the leader of the pre-Empire Senate was referred to in many different works as “The President of the Senate.” But in “Phantom Menace,” we learn his title is actually “Supreme Chancellor.” Thus proving the EU was not canon.
In the EU, Raith Sienar gave Grand Moff Tarkin the plans for the Death Star. In actuality, that was false: in “Attack of the Clones,” it was clearly the Geonosians giving the plans to Count Dooku (Tyranus) to take to Chancellor Palpatine (Siduous). Thus proving the EU was utterly wrong, and therefore not canon. Same objection to the superlasing beam (in the EU developed by Lemelisk).
In the EU, the Clone Masters were the opponents of the Republic in the Clone Wars. Wrong! It was the Separatists.
The EU said the the Republic fought in the Great Sith War. Except not, since in Attack of the Clones we learn that there hasn’t BEEN a full scale war since the creation if the Republic.
In short: the prequel films laid waste to a whole bunch of EU “canon but not.” Disney is not any more obligated to follow EU fake canon than that.
Or do you take the position that the prequel films are themselves not canon?
I take the position that the prequel films don’t actually exist. Like the alleged sequel to Highlander.
And people are taking my venting OP way too seriously. I was kind of holding out for a Thrawn trilogy series of movies, and I was fine with recasting the leads. Now? Who knows? I’m mildly upset about that.
Yeah, the EU is still there. I didn’t like seeing it summarily downgraded by Disney, though. I’ll live, but my interest in the new SW films has waned a bit. We’ll see.
Coruscant was first named by Zahn in the Thrawn novels, and then adopted for the movies.
I think that if you’d started a thread before this announcement was made saying “will/should thew new SW sequels be set in the EU”, you would have gotten a resounding chorus of “what the heck are you talking about?”, as people asked you to explain the issue. But among people who did know what you were talking about, I suspect the majority answer would have been “almost certainly not, the logistics of that are daunting if not impossible”. Frankly I’m surprised that you’re surprised that this is what was announced.
Darn straight. Why would something taking place a Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away be set in the European Union?
Hell even Lucas didn’t follow canon. Darth Vader is not Luke’s father except he now is after Lucas rewrote ESB after Leigh Brackett died.
You are not giving Abrams enough credit. He is an extraordinary hack. Returning after his mysterious disappearance in Central Asia some seven years ago, he returned with the power to cloud mens’ eyes. Who knows what juvenile fanaticism lurks in the hearts of men? J.J. Abrams knows. {cue weakly sinister laughter, then a cough}
I understand they’re planning to spin off a My Little Tauntun cartoon. Hey, at least they’ll treat the Ewoks with all of the respect they deserve, probably by reinventing them in fluorescent colors and making them communicate in dolphin squeaks.
Given the manipulations Lucas has done on the original films plus how he has utterly destroyed any credible canon with the explanations in the prequels, I would argue that The Star Wars Holiday Special is the only legitimate untouched canon left. Yes, I said that; Bea Arthur tonelessly croonig a pointless tune in a badly conceived variety segment is more authentically Star Wars than Han Solo performing inhuman contortions to avoid getting blasted by Greedo because he was too slow on the draw. Whatareyagonna do about it?
“Sorry about the mess.” {throws a coin on the table and laconically strides out of the SMDb cantina}
Stranger
I still say SDMB shot first.
Well, I may not be the best to speak on this: I loathed the entire concept of the NJO books and quit reading the first one 40 pages in and never read again (and everything I heard about them sounded dreadful and OOC from other books). But I think blaming Disney is ill-thought-out. My understanding is that the Expanded Universe has been considered “glorified fanfic” by Lucasfilm since long before Disney came into the picture. I swear I remember this being discussed when the prequels came out…