Tarkin And The Star Wars EU: Same As The Old Boss
- Thread starter Fanghawk
- Start date
I've never been too fussed about canon and continuity in Star Wars. Most of the EU is trash, anyway, and then you get the insane power creep that makes you wonder why Dath Vader didn't just use Alderan as a wrecking ball to wipe out solar systems, all of which seems to stem from what is essentially paid fanfic. Stuff that makes Jar Jar not seem so bad.
What's good is good, but I have no trouble jettisoning the rest like contraband at the first sight of an imperial presence.
Also, fifty years of development? Surely it hasn't been fifty, has it?
What's good is good, but I have no trouble jettisoning the rest like contraband at the first sight of an imperial presence.
Also, fifty years of development? Surely it hasn't been fifty, has it?
I don't think axing the original EU was a bad horrible evil thing like many think it is. (Possible EU Spoilers)
Most of the EU was on the adventures of the gang AFTER Endor, which is the new trilogy's playground. They wanted to offer a story that wasn't decades old and they needed a clear line to do it. We have the Yuuzhan Vong War and aftermath, various family members becoming
Sith Lords, ect. We need new ideas and something to be surprised and exited by.
When the axing took place, I knew that much of the older EU would probably stay intact/be used as a basis for the existing characters, plots and places. And you don't know. The Thrawn Trilogy could have happened in the new canon. The new trilogy is set, what 25-40 years after Endor? There are things Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewy could have been doing before they become the older and wiser mentors of these new characters.
This is why I get so irritated when geeks get butthurt over things. Just wait and see, and things may play out well
Most of the EU was on the adventures of the gang AFTER Endor, which is the new trilogy's playground. They wanted to offer a story that wasn't decades old and they needed a clear line to do it. We have the Yuuzhan Vong War and aftermath, various family members becoming
Sith Lords, ect. We need new ideas and something to be surprised and exited by.
When the axing took place, I knew that much of the older EU would probably stay intact/be used as a basis for the existing characters, plots and places. And you don't know. The Thrawn Trilogy could have happened in the new canon. The new trilogy is set, what 25-40 years after Endor? There are things Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewy could have been doing before they become the older and wiser mentors of these new characters.
This is why I get so irritated when geeks get butthurt over things. Just wait and see, and things may play out well
The only thing that disappoints me is that the Yuuzhan Vong are out. Now, I know they were really scattershot with their portrayal, sometimes being really cool villains, and other times being cartoon goofs who killed Chewie by dropping a moon on him. But what they always were were ambitious. It was the first real time the EU stepped out of its comfort zone to change the Star Wars galaxy, and I applaud them for that. And the final few books, culminating in The Unifying Force, are just fantastic.
But everything after The Vong War? Absolute garbage that I will not miss one bit.
But everything after The Vong War? Absolute garbage that I will not miss one bit.
Considering the large picture, I had nothing against them axing the old EU.
It is no wonder, though, that the draw on it heavily.
And they should.
While Bane and Plagueis are canon, there is no reason to change anything about them. (At least as long as no Old Republic Movies are made)
Same goes for practically everything belonging to the periods before Menace.
Now, what they also should do, is bringing some characters from the old EU back. Thrawn and Pellaeon are good characters that would work in every
setting, even without Luke, Leia and Han as good guys. They are also fan favorites. It can only work for them to use these characters.
I need to find a place that sells Tarkin in English now.
It is no wonder, though, that the draw on it heavily.
And they should.
While Bane and Plagueis are canon, there is no reason to change anything about them. (At least as long as no Old Republic Movies are made)
Same goes for practically everything belonging to the periods before Menace.
Now, what they also should do, is bringing some characters from the old EU back. Thrawn and Pellaeon are good characters that would work in every
setting, even without Luke, Leia and Han as good guys. They are also fan favorites. It can only work for them to use these characters.
I need to find a place that sells Tarkin in English now.
The problem with using Grand Admiral Thrawn in the new setting is that he was a distinctly non-Sith opponent - you can't really have antagonists like that now that everything's been pushed into the "Jedi vs. Sith" framework.
This is really the important point. Sure, there are some good bits, but even the most rabid Star Wars fans readily agree that there's plenty of crap as well. That wasn't a problem when the core of the franchise was basically dead and fans could simply pick and choose which extra bits they liked. But with Disney wanting to Marvel it up into a single unified shared universe, it was basically a choice between going through every single piece of Star Wars related media that had ever been produced and deciding whether it should be canon or not - and expecting people to actually care enough to look it up and not get at all confused - or to simply bin everything and start from scratch. Given that the majority of Star Wars fans barely even have a clue that the EU exists at all, the latter was the obvious choice.Zachary Amaranth said:
Count me among the ranks of people who never thought there was anything wrong with the Yuuhzan Vong. I found them by far the most interesting antagonists since Thrawn's demise.
They were religious fundamentalists, which makes them pretty relevant to modern day readers(*), they had a good justification for the in-universe impossibility of merely "Jedi-ing them away", the fact that they had nothing to do with the Empire or Sith led to many interesting situations, namely : is it okay if we forge an alliance with the Empire remnant, despite our deep political and ethical disagreements ? (I recall a pretty well-written mundane chit-chat between Han and Leia and Supreme Commander Pelleaon... which involved gardening practices and "culling the weak" to allow a better development of the promising, strong buds.)
Of course, the quality of the writing varied between authors, but overall, I found those books pretty good.
(*) Funny story : Star by star, the book where Coruscant skyscrapers were being reduced to rubble by a massive YV offensive, was written shortly *before* 9/11.
Certainly though, the old EU was also full of crap, but the blame laid mostly on the fact that the Holiday Special was technically canon, and so was Vader's Glove [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jedi_Prince] (except all of the contradictions in them that were so bad they couldn't be explained away - and the SWEU was known for being able to explain away pretty much anything).
Anyway, I'm still not convinced by this promise of a "single cohesive canon". As it stands, it looks like an half-a**ed excuse for Abrams to write whatever will strike his fancy without needing to worry about other people's work.
I'll change my mind if it remains "single" and "cohesive" after 30 more years of books, comics, video games, movies, tabletop RPG booklets, TV series, and so forth. Which won't happen. Currently, my bet is on a flat-out reboot of the original trilogy around 2030, if not before.
EDIT - Also : a good read [http://www.myuselessknowledge.com/swfa/GlovePart1.html] about the Vader's Glove series, which could certainly help provide a good justification for the whole axing the EU thing.
They were religious fundamentalists, which makes them pretty relevant to modern day readers(*), they had a good justification for the in-universe impossibility of merely "Jedi-ing them away", the fact that they had nothing to do with the Empire or Sith led to many interesting situations, namely : is it okay if we forge an alliance with the Empire remnant, despite our deep political and ethical disagreements ? (I recall a pretty well-written mundane chit-chat between Han and Leia and Supreme Commander Pelleaon... which involved gardening practices and "culling the weak" to allow a better development of the promising, strong buds.)
Of course, the quality of the writing varied between authors, but overall, I found those books pretty good.
(*) Funny story : Star by star, the book where Coruscant skyscrapers were being reduced to rubble by a massive YV offensive, was written shortly *before* 9/11.
Certainly though, the old EU was also full of crap, but the blame laid mostly on the fact that the Holiday Special was technically canon, and so was Vader's Glove [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jedi_Prince] (except all of the contradictions in them that were so bad they couldn't be explained away - and the SWEU was known for being able to explain away pretty much anything).
Anyway, I'm still not convinced by this promise of a "single cohesive canon". As it stands, it looks like an half-a**ed excuse for Abrams to write whatever will strike his fancy without needing to worry about other people's work.
I'll change my mind if it remains "single" and "cohesive" after 30 more years of books, comics, video games, movies, tabletop RPG booklets, TV series, and so forth. Which won't happen. Currently, my bet is on a flat-out reboot of the original trilogy around 2030, if not before.
EDIT - Also : a good read [http://www.myuselessknowledge.com/swfa/GlovePart1.html] about the Vader's Glove series, which could certainly help provide a good justification for the whole axing the EU thing.
That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure if maybe you meant something akin to earlier versions of the stories, since Lucas had apparently been working on this since the dawn of time and stuff.Fanghawk said:
And in this light, I'm not particularly fussed by the razing of it, especially if it means we get better canon out of the new EU.Kahani said:
But as a life-long Star Wars fan and someone who's been involved in variations of the Star Wars RPG for over two decades now (first played it in 1991 or 1992), I'm going to keep what I like anyway. Regardless of canon. The nature of the EU never truly bothered me, but the fact that it was a mess means that its end doesn't really bother me, either.
If they manage to be cohesive for more than two years, it will have been more successful than the original EU.Dr_Fred said:I'll change my mind if it remains "single" and "cohesive" after 30 more years of books, comics, video games, movies, tabletop RPG booklets, TV series, and so forth. Which won't happen. Currently, my bet is on a flat-out reboot of the original trilogy around 2030, if not before.
The EU was one of the things that cemented my love for reading growing up. With that being said, there was almost as much bad stuff as their was good. For every Thrawn there was um ... that dude from The New Rebellion? Seriously, does anyone remember who he was? (No looking on wookiepeida, you!)
There were a couple of things that killed the EU for me. First, as the books went on, the villains, and especially the Empire, was portrayed as increasingly cartoonishly incompetent. No wonder this galaxy spanning empire was over thrown by college students and teddy bears. Second, the universe kept feeling smaller and smaller. It felt like everything kept happening on Yavin IV, Tatooine, or Kashyyyk. An smart individual would have started investing real estate on Back Water Nowhere III. Finally, perhaps it was a sign of me growing up or my tastes changing, I just got sick of the whole Rebellion/New Republic vs Empire/Imperial Remnant. I remember reading some of the novels, set at least 7 or 10 years after Endor and thinking "No one has bothered to sue for peace? Where are the diplomats? Why is this still being fought?"
There is a special place for some of the EU in my heart. The Thrawn Trilogy, Shadows of the Empire and a few others are still dear to me. But there was a lot of bad stuff, too.
There were a couple of things that killed the EU for me. First, as the books went on, the villains, and especially the Empire, was portrayed as increasingly cartoonishly incompetent. No wonder this galaxy spanning empire was over thrown by college students and teddy bears. Second, the universe kept feeling smaller and smaller. It felt like everything kept happening on Yavin IV, Tatooine, or Kashyyyk. An smart individual would have started investing real estate on Back Water Nowhere III. Finally, perhaps it was a sign of me growing up or my tastes changing, I just got sick of the whole Rebellion/New Republic vs Empire/Imperial Remnant. I remember reading some of the novels, set at least 7 or 10 years after Endor and thinking "No one has bothered to sue for peace? Where are the diplomats? Why is this still being fought?"
There is a special place for some of the EU in my heart. The Thrawn Trilogy, Shadows of the Empire and a few others are still dear to me. But there was a lot of bad stuff, too.
I don't remember his name unfortunately. I do remember that he wears a skull mask and the reason is because, when Leia takes it off, he has the face of a kind, young man. And Leia realizes he had to wear the mask because there was no way a face like his could strike terror and fear into his followers.wetfart said:
I think the reason the Empire became so bad and "cartoony" is because the head was cut off. It was shown that, without the unifying force and fear of the Emperor, the remaining command structures were left in the hands of fat politicians who were more interested in power for themselves than anything else. As such, they kept going to extreme lengths, but were stupid easy to put down because they didn't band together.
And there were several attempts to broker a peace, but it always came back to the Moffs and Governors undermining the talks to get more power for themselves. It was basically like trying to talk to North Korea. Complete insanity. Eventually it worked though.
Anyway, the reason I'm upset about the E.U. getting cut is because I literally grew up with those characters. Jacen and Jaina are my age now. I was reading about their adventures in the Young Jedi Knight series when I was in grade school, the same age as them. I watched them grow up in the books alongside myself. I loved reading about how things slowly changed in the galaxy, and continuing the adventures of my favorite characters. To have Disney come and say, "Yeah, sorry, that never happened," hurts a lot. This is part of my childhood.
Recently, I have heard a rumor that Mara Jade will be appearing in Rebels, and I've even seen a picture of her and the Emperor, so I have had some hope restored, but I fear that I'm dreading her arrival too. Because if she shows up, then I doubt she's going to be in the new movie as Luke's wife, because that would mean finding an older lady to play her and I just can't see them doing that. I hope I'm wrong, but if one of my all-time favorite characters suddenly doesn't go through one of her most important roles, I'm going to be heartbroken.
You know, given that they are planning on doing the whole spin-off movie thing, I could see a Mara Jade movie happening if she does show up in Rebels and retains her popularity. They couldn't do any of her more iconic moments due to Mark Hamill having gotten old some time in the last 35 years, but an Emperor's Hand movie? I could absolutely see Disney doing something like that.Sniper Team 4 said: