Poll: StarWars Expanded Universe Getting Axed and If People other than me and a select few "SW Nerds" Care

[Brian Tams]

I enjoyed the Extended Universe while it lasted, even the war with the Vong.

However, I am excited for a fresh take, so I'm not mad, maybe just a little sad that the EU won't continue in at least book form.

 

[Hap2]

At times like these, I really wish people would read carefully instead of flying into a panic because a few moronic journalists couldn't bother to do so (goes to show how lazy some journalists are getting too - instead of reading the source material carefully, they copy each other, and end up spreading their mistakes all over the internet).

All Disney has said is that they won't be following the EU books that came after the Return of the Jedi - they might incorporate some elements, but they won't be adhering to that particular storyline. They did not say they were discarding the entire EU.

I quote from the press release itself: "Star Wars Episodes VII-IX will not tell the same story told in the post-Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe."

http://starwars.com/news/the-legendary-star-wars-expanded-universe-turns-a-new-page.html

How journalists pulled "the entire EU is dead!" out of that, I'm not sure.

Particular games, such as KoTOR, Republic Commando and The Force Unleashed are still, for all intents and purposes, canon. Particular books following the Return of the Jedi, however, are not.

 

[Jingle Fett]

snip

This again? The EU is not necessarily getting the axe, not all of it. Let me quote myself from MovieBob's original article here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.848364-Lucasfilm-Makes-It-Official-Star-Wars-Expanded-Universe-Is-Dead?page=1]

C'mon people, learn to read

they will now do so in the context of an official unified canon maintained by an official Lucasfilm Story Group, which will also decide which characters and concepts from the former EU can be repurposed by future filmmakers and authors

This means that not necessarily all of the EU will be dropped. A lot of it may be, but they can cherry pick what they like and leave out what they don't like. This means if they feel like it, they can keep characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn, Mara Jade, Admiral Daala, etc....And drop the stuff they don't like (like the Yuuzhan Vong or some of the weirder/crappier stuff).

They're basically saying that Star Wars is not constrained by the EU. The new movies can go in whatever direction they please. However, if there's some fan favorite characters or some aspect of the EU the Lucasfilm Story Group wants to keep, they can make whatever changes to that character's story needed to make them work within the context of the new movies.

For example, if they want to include Mara Jade, they have the freedom to adapt her storyline to take into account the 30 year difference between the movies and books so that it all fits together. Maybe they change it so she was in carbonite for 30-40 years when the empire fell and when she gets out she's finding out what happened during the gap. So maybe she still holds the initial grudge against Luke, but never ends up marrying him because he's an older man. That sort of thing. Likewise, Grand Admiral Thrawn could also be set to appear 30 years later than he did in the books and the filmmakers make the adjustments to his story so it works with the timeline of the new movies.

Now obviously the Lucasfilm Story Group might or might not do that, for all we know they might scrap everything. But that's just an example of the sort of thing they can do. They have the freedom to pick and choose what they want to keep, change, and drop, which in turn allows them the freedom to make better stories. They have the freedom to choose how closely or not closely they stick to the EU.

Secondly, all the EU stuff will continue to be made available under the label of Star Wars: Legends. So it's not gone, it's not being erased, it's not disappearing, it's still there. Furthermore, nothing says it can't continue to grow in it's own little non-canon environment parallel to the actual canon. So if there's some ongoing EU series, it will most likely be able to continue under the Star Wars: Legends label. So if you want to plug your ears and pretend the new movies don't exist, you can do that. In other words, Disney gets to have its pie and eat it too. Allowing the EU continue is just smart business, it's more money for the mouse. So overall, I don't think there's much need to be upset.

 

[NateA42]

At times like these, I really wish people would read carefully instead of flying into a panic because a few moronic journalists couldn't bother to do so (goes to show how lazy some journalists are getting too - instead of reading the source material carefully, they copy each other, and end up spreading their mistakes all over the internet).

All Disney has said is that they won't be following the EU books that came after the Return of the Jedi - they might incorporate some elements, but they won't be adhering to that particular storyline. They did not say they were discarding the entire EU.

I quote from the press release itself: "Star Wars Episodes VII-IX will not tell the same story told in the post-Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe."

http://starwars.com/news/the-legendary-star-wars-expanded-universe-turns-a-new-page.html

How journalists pulled "the entire EU is dead!" out of that, I'm not sure.

Particular games, such as KoTOR, Republic Commando and The Force Unleashed are still, for all intents and purposes, canon. Particular books following the Return of the Jedi, however, are not.

Sorry bud, you missed this twitter interview http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/User:Toprawa_and_Ralltiir/Canon

Q: does this mean everything post Return of the Jedi is no longer cannon, but everything before is canon or is it all non-canon now?
JH: It's all non-canon, but it all exists as a resource that could be used down the line.

Source: Jennifer Heddle @jenheddle Senior Editor at Lucasfilm/LucasBooks

 

[mrdude2010]

I think anything that axes that incredibly stupid Bobba Fett storyline where he survives is a credit to the series.

It's a shame some of the better parts of the expanded universe are going to be gone; some of them were very impressive, but the garbage vastly outweighs the good, and it makes it a lot easier to preserve continuity.

 

[NateA42]

I think anything that axes that incredibly stupid Bobba Fett storyline where he survives is a credit to the series.

It's a shame some of the better parts of the expanded universe are going to be gone; some of them were very impressive, but the garbage vastly outweighs the good, and it makes it a lot easier to preserve continuity.

I don't see why everybody thinks he couldn't have survived...he escaped from a plant* that takes weeks/years to digest it's food and it's acid couldn't eat through his armor because it was was made out of Mandalorian steel.

 

[breadsammich]

That whole statement from Disney seems more like covering their bases to me...

This way, they don't have to worry about any kind of continuity issues, but they can still pull from the expanded universe if it doesn't conflict with their story.

I don't really know anything about the expanded universe though. *shrug*

 

[NateA42]

That whole statement from Disney seems more like covering their bases to me...

This way, they don't have to worry about any kind of continuity issues, but they can still pull from the expanded universe if it doesn't conflict with their story.

I don't really know anything about the expanded universe though. *shrug*

They want to wipe the slate clean so they can create their "own" stories but still want to copy stories from the now "Legends" EU works.

 

[Jingle Fett]

I think anything that axes that incredibly stupid Bobba Fett storyline where he survives is a credit to the series.

It's a shame some of the better parts of the expanded universe are going to be gone; some of them were very impressive, but the garbage vastly outweighs the good, and it makes it a lot easier to preserve continuity.

The storyline where Boba Fett survived was actually really well executed and it's more than plausible for him to survive. The sarlacc takes a thousand years to digest anything (stated directly in the movies) and this combined with Fett being covered head to toe in body armor (and said armor being very high quality and having a small built in oxygen supply) means he would definitely be alive for at least a little while inside the stomach.
In the book the stomach acids did corrode a lot of his armor but he survived by basically blasting his way out of the stomach (temporarily killing the sarlacc). Remember, Fett is armed to the teeth with blasters, thermal detonators, flamethrowers, blades, grappling hooks, and an explosive rocket. Then there's the fact that he has a jetpack (while it malfunctioned when Han hit it, that doesn't necessarily mean it was completely non-functional). So him basically blowing up his way out of the sarlacc, lying in the sun near death, and then being rescued by a scavenger isn't impossible. Not as impossible as dino-legs Maul anyways (which frankly is beyond any form of credibility IMO).

The only kind of person who could in theory survive being eaten by a sarlacc is pretty much a jedi/sith with a lightsaber, or a person like Boba Fett.

 

[RandV80]

I've mostly stopped caring what they say is canon anymore now because of what other told me how I can look at things. My real thought now is since they axed a lot of the universes species what happens to them?
Are a lot of species going to be replaced with Disney friendly stuff? I mean I think we can all tell that the Zeltrons aren't coming back (not that they really matter) but as of now there was no Sith species; then again there was no Sith species once the movies came out either.

Also is SWTOR canon under this new thing? I can't find anybody who knows for sure, that and I'm pretty sure Sony doesn't understand anyways.

SWTOR sucks by the way, it's a crappy WoW clone with sub-par story telling skills but some cool/interesting/intriguing side stuff you can find that plays NOTHING into game at all.

I'm not fully up to speed on The Old Republic Lore, but I get the general premise of the 'Sith race'. What I don't get, is how can there be a Sith race in in the first place? I can understand how it can make things more interesting, since it turns the Jedi vs Sith battle into various shades of grey, but in the original trilogy it's clearly a matter of black or white. Luke has to master & suppress his turning into some sort of Buddhist space monk in order to become a true Jedi, otherwise he'll risk succumbing to the dark side of force and turn into a Sith. I don't see how the 'Sith' could have been an actual species with their own planet, just like the 'Jedi' aren't a specific species but rather a multiracial order.

 

[NateA42]

I'm not fully up to speed on The Old Republic Lore, but I get the general premise of the 'Sith race'. What I don't get, is how can there be a Sith race in in the first place? I can understand how it can make things more interesting, since it turns the Jedi vs Sith battle into various shades of grey, but in the original trilogy it's clearly a matter of black or white. Luke has to master & suppress his turning into some sort of Buddhist space monk in order to become a true Jedi, otherwise he'll risk succumbing to the dark side of force and turn into a Sith. I don't see how the 'Sith' could have been an actual species with their own planet, just like the 'Jedi' aren't a specific species but rather a multiracial order.

Lets just call the the evil force uses the dark side and the sith species the sith for now. The dark side force users were the first to encounter the sith race, the sith were a martial and militant people so the dark side force users took over the planet and claimed the title "Sith" for themselves but this time not as a denotation of species but as the name of an organization.

 

[Veylon]

I disagree, because my absolute all time favourite book series, the X-Wing series, is now little more than fan fiction. It was really good, it fit into the universe well (or at least as far as I've read. I haven't read from where the second author takes over), and I got to experience a well written Star Wars story, mostly from the eyes of a pilot, something which appeals to me greatly.

Hopefully X-Wing, or at least elements of the X-Wing story line, will survive the 'Great EU Purge'.

EDIT: I also disagree, because amongst the crap, there were some absolutely stellar pieces of work that would stand up as good sci-fi in their own right, but instead serve to enrich the Star Wars Galaxy and make it that much more exciting and fascinating.

The X-Wing series was almost certainly the best part of the EU. It's one of the few to dispense with the superweapons, dispense with the lightsabers, dispense with destiny, and just show people doing their damnedest with what few resources and wits they have to work with. If Disney every wants to do another Star Wars TV series, this would be a great place to start.

 

[Neverhoodian]

The storyline where Boba Fett survived was actually really well executed and it's more than plausible for him to survive. The sarlacc takes a thousand years to digest anything (stated directly in the movies) and this combined with Fett being covered head to toe in body armor (and said armor being very high quality and having a small built in oxygen supply) means he would definitely be alive for at least a little while inside the stomach.

See, this is part of the reason why I stopped caring about the EU; authors often wouldn't stop and think things through for a bit.

I always interpreted the "thousand-year digestion" quote as deliberate exaggeration on Jabba's part to psyche his victims out. It's hard to believe that such a large creature would get by on such an inefficient digestion system, particularly when it's burning calories with those flailing tentacles and beak mouth. Even if it did take a thousand years, wouldn't the victim die of thirst or starvation long before that point? Are they saying the Sarlaac somehow keeps its prey alive by sustaining them with nutrients...while it's digesting them? Even if that were the case, wouldn't the victim die of old age? It just raises too many questions.[footnote]As you can probably tell, I've never read the books that describe how Boba supposedly escapes.[/footnote]

You see this happening in the prequels as well. Palpatine's single line about the Republic that has "stood for a thousand years" contradicted EU sources that stated the institution was over 25,000 years old. Rather than reaching the more logical conclusion that Palpatine simply misspoke and used the word "years" when he meant "generations," EU authors rose to the occasion to make an overly convoluted explanation to reconcile it.[footnote]http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ruusan_Reformation[/footnote]

Some EU authors took the line in Attack of the Clones about 200,000 clone trooper "units" with "a million more well on the way" to mean that the "Grand Army of the Republic" consisted of 1,200,000 troops. That number may seem impressive...until you realize that the United States military is larger. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces#Personnel] Given that the U.S. has difficulty maintaining bases and combat deployments on Earth alone, would you expect an army of comparable size to be capable of waging war on a galactic scale?! It makes far more sense when you consider "units" as divisions or armies, but no. Many EU sources stubbornly insisted that each "unit" meant a single clone trooper.

In short, EU often got silly, even for a setting that features space wizards and laser swords. Nerd rant over.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Seems to me like a bunch of fanfiction, and while I have no want to see Disney do anything with Star Wars, I don't particularly believe in the sanctity of the extended universe either. Enjoy it for what it is, non-canon material.

I was going to make a clever joke by half quoting you but I don't want to insult. The whole thing is it WAS canon; now if you want to say Lucas was just being nice/humoring/profiteering the authors by allowing it to become canon then that fine but it was canon and saying it was fanfict is wrong.

Also from what I get out of Disney is that Legends is they want to say it is quasi-canon as to not upset people but if it's going to take a backseat the a crappy new movie (I meant that as saying IF the movie is crappy) then was it really worth it?

I was referring more to the qualities of it that resemble fanfiction, in that fan favourite characters become ridiculous, but fair point. There is some significance to whether something is canon or not and Disney did decide that it would plant its foot in the middle of that issue. Calling it quasi-canon is a poor excuse, if you can do whatever you want while making reference to it if you like then it's not canon until it's referenced.

 

[NortherWolf]

Yay the big bad witch is dead! Death to the EU!
No seriously, most of it seems to be absolute shit. Special Mary Sue Snowflakes becoming dah greatest Jedi evur hile running around with their best friend who's a smuggler with a heart of gold and fighting a family member who's a Sith.
Sure, there's gems out there, but that doesn't stop it from being a sea of crap with a few grains of awesome.

 

[Winnosh]

I'm not fully up to speed on The Old Republic Lore, but I get the general premise of the 'Sith race'. What I don't get, is how can there be a Sith race in in the first place? I can understand how it can make things more interesting, since it turns the Jedi vs Sith battle into various shades of grey, but in the original trilogy it's clearly a matter of black or white. Luke has to master & suppress his turning into some sort of Buddhist space monk in order to become a true Jedi, otherwise he'll risk succumbing to the dark side of force and turn into a Sith. I don't see how the 'Sith' could have been an actual species with their own planet, just like the 'Jedi' aren't a specific species but rather a multiracial order.

Lets just call the the evil force uses the dark side and the sith species the sith for now. The dark side force users were the first to encounter the sith race, the sith were a martial and militant people so the dark side force users took over the planet and claimed the title "Sith" for themselves but this time not as a denotation of species but as the name of an organization.

The Sith race are just the indigenous people of the planet that the exiled jedi that fought the others settled on after the great hyperspace war. Over the years they took over the planet, converted those people to their way of belief and the two became synonymous. Sith are trained Darkside users who go through all the trials and such. The Sith race are the red skinned aliens. Some who use the force and some who don't.

 

[NateA42]

I'm not fully up to speed on The Old Republic Lore, but I get the general premise of the 'Sith race'. What I don't get, is how can there be a Sith race in in the first place? I can understand how it can make things more interesting, since it turns the Jedi vs Sith battle into various shades of grey, but in the original trilogy it's clearly a matter of black or white. Luke has to master & suppress his turning into some sort of Buddhist space monk in order to become a true Jedi, otherwise he'll risk succumbing to the dark side of force and turn into a Sith. I don't see how the 'Sith' could have been an actual species with their own planet, just like the 'Jedi' aren't a specific species but rather a multiracial order.

Lets just call the the evil force uses the dark side and the sith species the sith for now. The dark side force users were the first to encounter the sith race, the sith were a martial and militant people so the dark side force users took over the planet and claimed the title "Sith" for themselves but this time not as a denotation of species but as the name of an organization.

The Sith race are just the indigenous people of the planet that the exiled jedi that fought the others settled on after the great hyperspace war. Over the years they took over the planet, converted those people to their way of belief and the two became synonymous. Sith are trained Darkside users who go through all the trials and such. The Sith race are the red skinned aliens. Some who use the force and some who don't.

I knew that lol, I just put it simpler

 

[Jingle Fett]

The storyline where Boba Fett survived was actually really well executed and it's more than plausible for him to survive. The sarlacc takes a thousand years to digest anything (stated directly in the movies) and this combined with Fett being covered head to toe in body armor (and said armor being very high quality and having a small built in oxygen supply) means he would definitely be alive for at least a little while inside the stomach.

See, this is part of the reason why I stopped caring about the EU; authors often wouldn't stop and think things through for a bit.

I always interpreted the "thousand-year digestion" quote as deliberate exaggeration on Jabba's part to psyche his victims out. It's hard to believe that such a large creature would get by on such an inefficient digestion system, particularly when it's burning calories with those flailing tentacles and beak mouth. Even if it did take a thousand years, wouldn't the victim die of thirst or starvation long before that point? Are they saying the Sarlaac somehow keeps its prey alive by sustaining them with nutrients...while it's digesting them? Even if that were the case, wouldn't the victim die of old age? It just raises too many questions.

You see this happening in the prequels as well. Palpatine's single line about the Republic that has "stood for a thousand years" contradicted EU sources that stated the institution was over 25,000 years old. Rather than reaching the more logical conclusion that Palpatine simply misspoke and used the word "years" when he meant "generations," EU authors rose to the occasion to make an overly convoluted explanation to reconcile it.

Some EU authors took the line in Attack of the Clones about 200,000 clone trooper "units" with "a million more well on the way" to mean that the "Grand Army of the Republic" consisted of 1,200,000 troops. That number may seem impressive...until you realize that the United States military is larger. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces#Personnel] Given that the U.S. has difficulty maintaining bases and combat deployments on Earth alone, would you expect an army of comparable size to be capable of waging war on a galactic scale?! It makes far more sense when you consider "units" as divisions or armies, but no. Many EU sources stubbornly insisted that each "unit" meant a single clone trooper.

In short, EU often got silly, even for a setting that features space wizards and laser swords. Nerd rant over.

Oh I agree that the EU is often quite silly. No disagreement there, that's why I mentioned dino-legs Maul (IMO one of the worst offenders). And I agree, many of the writers probably don't really think things through all the way...but at the same time, many things that readers consider to be "plot holes" or "impossible" are actually entirely possible and the result of the reader not thinking things through, not the author.

About the sarlacc, whether it's hard to believe that or not, the thousand year digestion time is what Jabba says and that's all we have to go on. But it's not a big stretch to believe that Jabba was being accurate though (we're talking about the star wars universe where you have creatures like rancors and space slugs).
You call it's digestion inefficient, but it lives out in the middle of the desert where it probably rarely gets any food. It's also really really old. So in that case, having a long digestion time is a really good idea, it has to make its food last. It might go decades or centuries without food. It would only be burning calories when the tentacles and beak are waving around, but it doesn't have to do that 24/7; it's quite possible or even likely the sarlacc goes dormant until it senses movement or something like that.
Furthermore it's digesting many corpses at the same time (about a dozen just from Return of the Jedi, let alone however many over the centuries), so presumably it has enough sitting in its gut to sustain it for years at a time if needed. Meaning, it can afford to digest them slowly because it's digesting many at the same time. And real life desert creatures like tarantulas have been known to go as long as a whole year without eating, so I wouldn't say it's too impossible for such a creature to exist.
Now obviously a person in the gut would be dead long before being fully digested due to thirst, starvation, lack of oxygen, and acid burns but that doesn't really change anything.[footnote]That paragraph ended up being longer than I thought, sorry about that, I just like talking about this stuff lol[/footnote]

My general point wasn't about the sarlacc though. It was that Boba Fett surviving being eaten by the sarlacc is actually one of the more reasonable aspects of the EU. Whether the thousand year digestion time was an exaggeration or not, the point was that there's in-universe evidence to suggest the sarlacc takes a long time to digest stuff and Boba Fett is covered in armor, so him falling in wouldn't be an insta-death. His suit is high quality mandalorian armor and has a built-in oxygen supply and stuff. And even if the acid did digest stuff quickly (unlikely), Fett's armor could still theoretically protect him until he could get out. He's a galaxy class bounty hunter and has possibly been in even worse situations. He'd survive being inside the sarlacc longer than most people and unlike most people, he also has the tools necessary to get out (jetpack, grapple hook, blades, explosives, etc). The book series about that storyline is the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy and it's actually really good, surprisingly dark and serious, I highly recommend it.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

like how the Marvel Animated Universe ends in a giant apocalypse and everyone dies.

Just knowing that, and trying to go back and watch old X-Men cartoons. All that struggling, all the conflict and pain and it was all for nothing. They LOSE in the end.

Wait! What?!?

Seriously? I never heard that one. Are you taking the 90's animated universe or the more modern one?

The 90's Animated Universe. Earth-92131

I could be wrong, because googling turns up nothing. But what I recall reading was that there was some space crystal, it cracked and the resulting energy destroyed everything.

It was long time ago. Like a decade or so. I've been believing this for so long.

 

[loc978]

Yay the big bad witch is dead! Death to the EU!
No seriously, most of it seems to be absolute shit. Special Mary Sue Snowflakes becoming dah greatest Jedi evur hile running around with their best friend who's a smuggler with a heart of gold and fighting a family member who's a Sith.
Sure, there's gems out there, but that doesn't stop it from being a sea of crap with a few grains of awesome.

One can say that about any genre of entertainment, and really, Star Wars is big enough at this point to be considered more of a subgenre than a single property.

Don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean I oppose the decision either, I simply don't care what is or is not official canon. That stopped being an indicator of quality with the release of episode one (and honestly, the Holiday Special made it suspect before that), and everything that has happened since has only reinforced my opinion on the matter.

Theodore Sturgeon is still correct [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_Revelation].