Lucasfilm Makes It Official: Star Wars: Expanded Universe Is Dead

Ratty

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FoolKiller said:
nima55 said:
Well glad I wasted a bunch of my time. Now I know how Star Trek fans feel about their franchise on being two movies.
Actually, Star Trek did one of the better retcons I've seen. It made me want to watch them.

This sucks for the movies. They underestimate nerd rage.
Well, Star Wars is more a popular phenomenon than a nerd phenomenon. This move makes a lot of sense from that perspective. The EU has built up its own timeline that's so detailed it's bound to clash with whatever the people making the movies going forward intend to do.

Which could lead someone randomly picking up a Star Wars book at wal mart for the first time to go "Hwah? Who are these characters? Chewbacca was alive in the movies!" And Disney wants to bring in more casual consumers, because they far outnumber the hardcore devotees. And they don't have to worry too much about alienating the devotees because let's face it most of them will complain but still support the brand anyway.

I'm not a fan of the word "synergy" but that's exactly what this move allows Disney to do. The movies are going to promote a million different products more effectively than ever, and all those products will in turn promote the movies. "Want to know the lead-up story to the upcoming movie? Read this book and buy all these mediocre video games." "Want to know what that character's deal was? Watch this TV show and buy this comic book series." If you want the "whole story" it's gonna cost ya a lot more than a movie ticket.

Whereas the Old EU was just like "So we're not getting any more Star Wars movies, let's publish a bunch of books/comics etc. to satisfy demand for Star Wars content." an endearingly naive motive in comparison.

Star Wars has not yet begun to be milked.
 

Dastardly

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Apr 19, 2010
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MovieBob said:
Lucasfilm Makes It Official: Star Wars: Expanded Universe Is Dead
Paid fan-fiction is not treated as official. No surprise here. This is why an "extended" universe shouldn't just focus doing new stuff with main characters and/or their kids. It's a GALAXY. Why not make new characters, new places, new slang, new technology?

They used to do that, but it's gotten more and more infected by canon. So this move was not only inevitable, it was essential.
 

pspman45

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the fact that people are upset about a major film company declaring fan fiction un-cannon simply baffles me. who the hell would want to pay some random author money to make a movie when you could come up with something yourself? pretty much all of the expanded universe is crap anyway, so I'm happy that we'll be getting something different
 

Da Orky Man

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Apr 24, 2011
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Understandably, the Star Wars EU continuity was starting to rival Marvel in it's complexities and plot holes, so this is probably needed. Only ever read the Jedi Academy Trilogy, so I don't have much riding on it. Plus, maybe they'll be a happier outcome than the apparent 15-minutes of peace followed by a few dozen civil wars the EU made happen.
 

remnant_phoenix

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Adam Jensen said:
I don't give a fuck what they say, Kyle Katarn is canon.
Huzzah!

This man speaks mighty truth!

And according to his forum name and avatar, he has excellent taste, so who are we to question him?
 

xdiesp

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Back in my day, kids weren't so stupid to believe that stories in comics & movies happened in a "universe". Settings were identity and the notion of a shared setting hardly of any importance. I guess fanboys nowadays need to hold the idea that somewhere, really, those events really have happened.
 

beastro

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Gabanuka said:
I really don't see why this is a big deal.

So what, the extra stuff no longer match to one official fictional history. It's no like the stories fade from existance, they still exist and are still great.

Hell most of the best DC comics are Elseworlds. All Star Superman, Red Son, Kingdom Come, etc
Because it cheapens and bastardizes a work, not that I'm complaining about this, I'm basking in schadenfreude over this atm.

And before you try using comics as an example to counter them, please consider how low in regard comics are considered to begin with.
 

Kyrinn

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Honestly...good!
The extended universe was really nothing more than glorified fan fiction and wasn't really all that great anyway. Ever since I heard that episode VII was going to happen I was hoping the EU would get re-written, even if that means another 3 movies on the same level as the prequels.
 

Comrade_Beric

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May 10, 2010
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Personally, I never saw much other than Grand Admiral Thrawn as worth lifting out of the EU and even he I wouldn't lose sleep over not seeing. The rest really looked and felt like complete tripe to me.
 

Hutzpah Chicken

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I'm sure that elements of the Thrawn trilogy and other really big stories will probably carry over into the new films. I've said it many times before and I'll say it again, one of these spin off movies has to be about Rogue Squadron.
 

Drizzitdude

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Though he may be gone he will never be forgotten; Kyle Katarn will always live on in our hearts, in his deeds, his legends and the lessons he taught us. He was the one who taught me the way of a true hero. "Remember Jaden, abilities are inherently good or evil, it's how you use them" thus began my force lightning filled killing spree, slaughtering hordes of foes and force choke/flinging enemies off of edges. I recall laughing maniacally while I dangled them over the abyss, giving them a few precious seconds to think on their life choices before dropping them to their enevitable demise...*cough* err...eh-hem... for the greater good of course...true hero and such.
 

sumanoskae

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All this means is that the films (And presumably certain games) won't acknowledge the EU; this is nowhere near enough to kill the expanded universe.

Lucas Film can call it whatever the fuck they want; fans will continue to respect the EU, and book authors will as well if they don't want to incur the wrath of the fanbom. I'll bet that despite all this, Wookiepedia will do nothing more than pop a disclaimer over their articles and carry on as if nothing happened.

While Lucas was busy drawing up the concept for that insufferable creature that shall not be named, the EU authors, Bioware and Obsidian were dreaming up Darth Bane, Darth Nihlus, Darth Sion, Kreia, Bastila, HK-47, Korriban, Malachor V, The Starforge, the Mandalorians, the origins of the Jedi and the code of the Sith.

The EU of Star Wars dwarfs the official cannon, and is almost universally considered to be superior to the prequel trilogy, and is sometimes even thought to eclipse the originals.

George Lucas may have created Star Wars, but it has survived and thrived in the hands of of it's fanbase; if they want people to hold the films in a higher regard than the games and novels, they should start by making them better.
 

sumanoskae

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Kyrinn said:
Honestly...good!
The extended universe was really nothing more than glorified fan fiction and wasn't really all that great anyway. Ever since I heard that episode VII was going to happen I was hoping the EU would get re-written, even if that means another 3 movies on the same level as the prequels.
I have to ask, have you read and/or played any of the EU material?
 

sumanoskae

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xdiesp said:
Back in my day, kids weren't so stupid to believe that stories in comics & movies happened in a "universe". Settings were identity and the notion of a shared setting hardly of any importance. I guess fanboys nowadays need to hold the idea that somewhere, really, those events really have happened.
Internal consistency is important in any story; if things can just happen for no reason than the entire point of hypothesizing is lost.
 

Kyrinn

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sumanoskae said:
Kyrinn said:
Honestly...good!
The extended universe was really nothing more than glorified fan fiction and wasn't really all that great anyway. Ever since I heard that episode VII was going to happen I was hoping the EU would get re-written, even if that means another 3 movies on the same level as the prequels.
I have to ask, have you read and/or played any of the EU material?
I'm not sure what games count towards the EU material other than Jedi Academy so I'm going to say no in terms of games.
Books, I have read quite a few of some years back. I remember really liking them at first but I started to dislike them the more I read. To me the books read like fanfiction, which ended up putting me off them.
 

Therumancer

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Nov 28, 2007
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It doesn't surprise me at all, though I imagine it's going to make some people really unhappy in the fan community.

That said, such an official statement might have just been the first shot in a war that is going to wreck the entire thing depending on how it goes. Simply put, Star Wars has had some rather interesting contractual issues over the years and right now I'd imagine a lot of writers publishers are currently going over the fine print in their contracts and/or contacting their lawyers and notaries (notaries being important because they can be used to argue what the understanding of a complicated agreement was, which can trump what was actually written, this is why for a lot of contracts both sides will have at least one notary present to counter-sign... it can get complicated, I learned some stuff about it in school, but Contract Law wasn't a specialty).

So far George Lucas has pretty much "sold" the rights to Star Wars and the canon twice. The first time was in the creation of a bunch of "Young Adults" books with titles like "Prophets Of The Dark Side", and "The Glove Of Darth Vader" which weren't exactly wonderful. In this version which was the official future by agreement, The Grand Moffs decided to produce a false heir to step in on Papaltine's throne, who would actually be their puppet. This was a guy called Triclops (if I remember) who didn't have force powers, but faked them with cybernetics to "prove" he was the heir, using things like Tractor Beams to perform telekinesis, and energy projectors in his hands to throw "force lightning". The second time was when he sold the rights to "Dark Horse Comics" which lead to them doing a lot of work, George actually got into a legal battle with them over this when he wanted control of the property back, part of the settlement was if I remember that "Shadows Of The Empire" would be officially considered part of the canon along with some other things. In these cases George pretty much sold Star Wars because he underestimate how much money could still be made off of the property and how long it would go on, and pulled the "original creator" card to get sympathy when in court.

I'm unsure of the status of the current EU which picked up with Timothy Zahn's writings about Thrawn, and what was agreed on then. Indeed it was around this time that the term "expanded universe" started slipping into the popular vernacular. It went on so long to become unwieldy, with too many writers, and too many contradictory ideas addressing the same basic material (like Mandolorians and their nature). With the sheer number of people involved though a lot if it is going to come back to what agreements the publishers had.

See, "canon" can be a valuable thing. Half the point of a lot of published novels, and what allegedly makes them better than someone's "fan fiction" is that they were done under the license and had to be picked up/approved by the publisher holding it. Your published work being "true" and "the real continuation" is a big part of the selling point and something your professional career and the value of the parts of an ongoing IP you developed are going to be under.

I remember years ago, George Lucas allegedly said there would never be Star Wars sequels because he wasn't going to step into this minefield. He's sold the rights yet again, and honestly the current overall holder is big enough where I don't think he'll ever get full control back again (he's not dealing with a comics company this time), but even "The House Of Mouse" could be in for some serious headaches if individual writers and publishers show up contract-in-hand and a valid argument. The sheer number of suits, settlements, and/or pay outs could be staggering.

I'm also reminded of Sony running "Star Wars Galaxies" back in the day and how they apparently needed to get permission when they added things into the game, not to mention it's tie ins with things like the "Death Troopers" series (Zombie Storm Troopers). It seemed like very careful track of the rights and what was being used for what was still going on, and now all those same bean counters are going to be equally defensive here. Except in this case there will probably have to be guarantees of "this remaining canon" and "you'll need to mention these things in your material to validate my work or I'll sue for breach of contract" or whatever else.

I'm probably overthinking things, but it will be interesting to see how things turn out. To be honest it seems like the rather broad strokes they are taking here could backfire on a lot of levels. The guys doing the new movies of course want to pursue their own vision and not feel tied down by anyone else's work. Of course the guys who themselves were in the same position when they were writing and got the rights, think the same thing. I was never heavily invested in the EU to begin with (and feel some of it was rather dumb, and missed the point) so I'm fine with them axing it, but then again I neither had a career based around producing Star Wars material, nor did I invest heavily in EU material to the point where it becoming devalued or irrelevant bothers me.
 

MrBaskerville

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Who cares anyway, it's not like the books are going to dissapear and the movies have to work on their own. It would suck if you suddenly had to read a bunch of Star Wars books to watch a movie. Besides, who cares about continuity anyway? At this scale it just gets ridiculous imo.
 

Magnus Greel

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Most of the chucklecunts celebrating this probably haven't even picked up one of the books in their life.

They can go fuck themselves frankly.
 

Oroboros

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This really doesn't surprise me that much, now with JJ at the helm of the new Star Wars movies. Supposedly he left the NuTrek movies over merchandising rights-he was opposed to the idea of pre-NuTrek products being sold alongside and thus competing with NuTrek merchandise. He wanted to be the sole voice on Trek, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that he'd demand that he be the sole authority on NuWars canon. Guy's just got too big a head to tolerate other folk infringing on his artistic vision.

On the one hand, this gives me a huge sigh of relief because the EU's no longer so huge and bloated with an all-inclusive canon and makes it easier to pick and choose things I like and ignore what I don't-since it's all essentially equally non-canon. (excepting whatever fanboy dross that JJ shoehorns in like he did in the first two NuTrek films). This means I no longer have to deal with that 'no canon darkside endings' garbage policy Lucas had for the video games, and can more easily ignore TOR.

On the other hand, that effectively closes the door on a lot of things I liked about the EU. All the nice starfighter additions (wouldn't be surprised if stuff like E-wings and TIE-defenders etc don't appear in the new movies) and of course a lot of the post-RoTJ stuff like the Jedi Knight/Jedi Academy games got another nail in their coffins.
 

Sonic Doctor

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SonOfVoorhees said:
For the fans, cannon is what they want it to be. If anything Disney are retarded to not dip into all those EU characters and stories. Now if SW7 sucks arse originality wise then they will look worse off.
I seriously don't see how people didn't see this coming. They chose a director that already stuck his shit covered hands in one great science fiction franchise, and now they gave him the other giant chunk of sci-fi to tear the hell up.

JJ Abrams borked up the Star Trek franchise and now he's moved onto Star Wars. I just happen to be an unlucky person that I love both franchises.

I have a feeling that this is happening because they've given Abrams a large part of control of this, then he heard that the EU was something that Star Wars fans loved, so he said, "Oh they love that, then we've got to get rid of that." He probably was afraid it would get in the way of his "creativity" and "vision".

The man is like a plague on sci-fi, whatever he touches, gets sick, turns black, and falls to bits.

With my luck as a fan of a lot of science fiction franchises, I'm just waiting that after Abrams rampages through Star Wars, stamping it out, I'm going to hear he is doing a "re-imagining" of the Stargate franchise.

Though, I don't know how much more damage he can do to Stargate, since whoever got a hold of it at "SyFy" already took a wrecking ball to the franchise by making Stargate Universe(which made them cancel the Atlantis series for it, and when it failed, got the planned Atlantis movie production pulled), but I'm willing to bet Abrams will be more than happy to come along and beat a dead horse into smaller bits.

nima55 said:
Well glad I wasted a bunch of my time. Now I know how Star Trek fans feel about their franchise on being two movies.
I'm feel you are talking about JJ Abrams and his Star Trek movies right(as they changed Star Trek canon by becoming a core part of the Star Trek MMO). Yup, he is quite the villain isn't he. I feel the pain all around. The man is a menace to lovers of science fiction, and as I a said above, I'm willing to bet he had a hand in saying that the EU of Star Wars isn't canon now.