Lucasfilm Announces Break With Star Wars Expanded Universe 157
RogueyWon writes: "A recent blog post from Lucasarts had confirmed that the new Star Wars movies planned for release by Disney will formally break continuity with the Expanded Universe novels, comics and video games. They say, 'In order to give maximum creative freedom to the filmmakers and also preserve an element of surprise and discovery for the audience, Star Wars Episodes VII-IX will not tell the same story told in the post-Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe.' The news is unlikely to be a surprise, given George Lucas's previous pronouncements on the issue."
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
We found out that by keeping the time- and storyline, we could not cram enough cuddly merchandising crap into the show. Expect a lot more fluffy aliens, cutsie droids, and if you thought that Episode 1 was an overblown trailer and ad for the podracer computer game, we have a big surprise for you in Episode 7!
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Spot on. And yeah, no surprise in this announcement. I have no doubt Jar-Jar (or some other equally annoying creation) will be the lead in the next 3 movies \TV shows.
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NO NOT ANOTHER JAR JAR!
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So you mean the first film will be an awesome fresh take on the franchise, and the second will be a ham-fisted sexist attempt at fan service?
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thank goodness that movies 7-9 won't be stuck in a little narrative box
Thank you, precisely. I say this as someone who has read 15 or so Star Wars EU books and thoroughly enjoyed many of the video games: the EU was >50% shit sandwich.
In fact, it was destined to be shit. Timothy Zahn kickstarted it with some very good (but not as good as some people believe) SF with the Thrawn trilogy. Lucas never thought he was going to go back to Star Wars, so he waved his hand "whatever" and was pleasantly surprised when the royalty checks started rolling back in. "Shadows of the Empire" was interesting (in part because it was the first time sexuality was openly introduced into the Lucas prudish universe) and a few other things. Star Wars video games were great, but who ever imagined those were canon when what you as a player did could impact them? ("History records that Darth Revan boned Bastila... wait, no he didn't. But she became his Dark Side apprentice... wait, no she didn't. It turns out Revan died in a casino on the underworld of Taris because he couldn't make any money playing Pazaak.")
But mainly it just quickly descended into "resurrected or clone Empire person or weapon of the year" bullshit and just wanked itself (and milked its readers) for years.
Then Lucas decides to make Episodes 1-3 and right there you have already invalidated 50% of the mythology of the EU. Spaarti cylinders? Whatsisface the Death Star designer? Using the Force is like some sexually transmitted disease? Jedis can't date? And, if Force ability was hereditary, WHY THE FUCK wouldn't you want Jedis to breed lots of little Jedis? Huuuuuhhhhhh? So the EU was already dead even then.
For the record: despite all its story consistency failings, Episodes 2 & 3 were NOT THAT BAD. Episode 3, in fact, was a genuinely enjoyable movie! Episode 1 was exactly the steaming shitpile that everyone makes it out to be, except for the first 15 minutes, the pod races and Darth Maul's battle with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon.
But of course it still carried on, and of course the results were mixed. "New Jedi Order" was an interesting idea badly implemented, and I'm sorry but the death of Anakin Solo was a terrible idea. The later series had their ups and downs... take for example the latest, "Fate of the Jedi." There were very enjoyable parts, especially the "Luke and Ben road trip" aspects of visiting all the Force users across the galaxy. But a previously unknown super-Force-user had to be invented out of nowhere, and somehow they repeated the NJO "the bad guys must control Coruscant" story line, and it just ended up being a mess. Would you really expect a new Star Wars movie with Han, Luke and Leia to be constrained by the frequently awful story lines of the last 30 years?
So long story short: the EU was kind of a hot mess and was destined to go away the second anyone tried to remake Star Wars. And even if I miss Kyle Katarn, Admiral Thrawn, the Witches of Dathomir and Mara Jade, it's a trade-off I'm willing to make for decent new movies.
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For the record: despite all its story consistency failings, Episodes 2 & 3 were NOT THAT BAD. Episode 3, in fact, was a genuinely enjoyable movie! Episode 1 was exactly the steaming shitpile that everyone makes it out to be, except for the first 15 minutes, the pod races and Darth Maul's battle with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon.
interesting... i agree the movies got better from 1 to 3. 3 still had its problems - noooooo! do not want! but 1 was abysmal. interesting you call out the moments you chose. the first 15 mins were a super let down for me. trade dispute with the trading guild the fuck? CGI droids? the only cool part here was when they plunged their lightsabers into the metal wall to cut a door. the pod race went on about 10 mins too long, and featured that kid which made it even more annoying. the darth maul battle was prett
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Star Wars video games were great, but who ever imagined those were canon when what you as a player did could impact them? ("History records that Darth Revan boned Bastila... wait, no he didn't. But she became his Dark Side apprentice... wait, no she didn't. It turns out Revan died in a casino on the underworld of Taris because he couldn't make any money playing Pazaak.")
This is nothing new, as the same problem existed for game sequels for a long time now. And there is already a well-known way of dealing with non-railroaded games as part of the canon - only one particular sequence of player choices is deemed canon, and all others are AU.
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schnell,
I wish I had mod points and you had not been modded to the top already. As someone who completely agrees with everything you said and has apparently read the same amount of novels and feels the same about what has happened in them, I would feel threatened by not using the EU which I have been a loyal follower for almost 20 years now, BUT, seeing that the misses have been more than the hits lately, maybe it's time.
Just one thing J.J. -- PLEASE, PLEASE, please!!! No time travel. I hate time travel. Es
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The sad thing is that 1-3 actually has a very compelling story that they're trying to tell. A beautiful deconstruction of Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey," which a lot of people associate strongly (and wrongly) with the original 3 movies
The prequels start out with a very simple "Chosen One" story arc. QuiGon was so completely convinced that Anakin was this ONE of prophecy that he (and later Obi Wan) completely ignored the fact that their Chosen One was a complete head case and spent all his time with some
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Step Zero: Mod parent up.
Step One: Invent a new universe.
Step Two: Film it with a compelling script and actors.
Step Three: Fight off copyright lawsuit.
Step Four: Profit!!
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Meesa sorry yousa getsa jar jar
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So they want to sell a cheap light gun game where all they have to do is show the movie and hand you a light gun?
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Disney hasn't done this with any of the Marvel movies; why do people assume they are with the Star Wars movies?
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Because Lucas has already been leaning to these things? And with the cart blanche from this we have every faith that Disney will go the extra mile.
Besides there were some great stories in the EU (among some not so great or even bad). Just throwing the baby out with the bath water can only mean bad things...
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Name ANY worth shit outside of I, Jedi or the Thrawn trilogy.
You cant because there isnt. FUCK the EU with a barge pole
Knights of the old republic? Shadows of the empire? The Dark forces/Jedi Knight series? Rogue Squadron?
There's four for you right there.
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Shadows of the Empire is an awesome book. So much good backstory and plotting. Loved it.
Knights and Rogue are also excellent.
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Yep. Add Visions of the Past / Spectre of the Future to that.
If you want to "breaks free of old conventions to tell a new story" just TELL a new story. If your new story needs to re-hash "old characters" to get people interested in it, then it's probably a not very interesting story to begin with.
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Honestly I found the Thrawn trilogy much better on TVTropes than as an actual book.
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Personally there was the first Star Wars film that came out when I was 7. Full stop. Even Empire and Jedi seemed a bit unnecessary to me. I do remember talk of there being 9 films at the time though.
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Obvious troll is obvious. But episode I seriously???
No, tard, he was referring to "I, Jedi".
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Because it simply was by no means necessary. There is no need to butcher a super hero movie on the altar of merchandising. They come packed with merchandising opportunities aplenty, no need to include cutsiepoo crap sidekicks.
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Disney hasn't done this with any of the Marvel movies; why do people assume they are with the Star Wars movies?
The Marvel movies are not completely consistent with the huge comic "continuity", in fact the published comics themselves do not always maintain continuity. I don't know that trying to be thusly consistent is a good goal.
At best, the Marvel movies have been fairly self consistent with the movie storylines. Certainly the trailer for "Guardians of the Galaxy" does not look like it is going to be very consistent with the published comics.
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Certainly the trailer for "Guardians of the Galaxy" does not look like it is going to be very consistent with the published comics.
From what I've been reading, it is consistent, with the most recent version of the Guardians, not the Martinex/Charlie-27/Vance Astro/etc etc Guardians you're probably thinking of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... [wikipedia.org]
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Certainly the trailer for "Guardians of the Galaxy" does not look like it is going to be very consistent with the published comics.
From what I've been reading, it is consistent, with the most recent version of the Guardians, not the Martinex/Charlie-27/Vance Astro/etc etc Guardians you're probably thinking of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... [wikipedia.org]
Which is, I guess, an indication that being "consistent with the comics" at best can be understood to mean "consistent with some group of comics picked from fifty plus years of inconsistent storylines, restarts and re-imagings".
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Which is, I guess, an indication that being "consistent with the comics" at best can be understood to mean "consistent with some group of comics picked from fifty plus years of inconsistent storylines, restarts and re-imagings".
Indeed! It's better than it was though. I'm old enough to remember the Captain America TV Movies (which the recent movie homages with the motorcycle), the Spider Man TV show with Nicholas Hammond, the Cathy Lee Crosby Wonder Woman TV Movie and the Dr. Strange TV movie.
Re:Translation (Score:4, Interesting)
We found out that by keeping the time- and storyline, we could not cram enough cuddly merchandising crap into the show. Expect a lot more fluffy aliens, cutsie droids, and if you thought that Episode 1 was an overblown trailer and ad for the podracer computer game, we have a big surprise for you in Episode 7!
I can only agree with you there, the extent to which boosting merchendising sales has taken priority over making a good film sucks ass. Antoher thing I hate is when film sequels and in particular TV scifi shows get cancelled and you are left with a half told story because some beancounting corporate functionary did an Excel session and determined that the fucking merchandise sales weren't good enough even thought he film/show itself was quite well received by the viewing public. Some of us actually watch a film for the sake of the story being told and not because we like 2-3 hour infomercials.
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Episode Seven: Jedi Academy of the Ewok Homeworld.
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I have a very bad feeling about this.
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Turn the movie around...
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I have altered the canon. Pray I don't alter it further!
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I would think it has more to do with the fact that most of the writing and plotlines in the expanded universe are absolutely shit. I've struggled my way here and there through a few, and they're just terrible, most of it on the level of amateur fan fiction.
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To be fair, more than half of the clone wars series was too. There were a few authors that did a good job. Personally I like the majority of Zahn's work better than the original Star Wars Story itself. It is an incredible saga showcasing the triumph the human(oid) mind, and will above all else. The original hand of Thrawn trilogy was so artistically done. Allegiance, & Choices of one were just as good.
If Disney / Lucas cared at all they would make those into a subset of movies of some kind. They flesh o
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Oh please
THe new driods are cute even if 3cpo doesn't like em! [youtube.com]
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No, I do not think that is the translation.
I think the translation goes more like "We do not care about those fans who read all that anyway. Their money is nice but what we really want is the mass market plus their families. So why should we bother if we carefully created a movie that fits in the existing content when we could just slap the name Star Wars on some script someone (whoever) produced and call it a day? Yes, that is what we thought, no cry in the corner, you are standing in the way of all those
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Well, write for your audience. And let's be honest here, what do you think is the audience for a rather badly drawn cartoon series with a plot that fits on a sheet of paper per season?
I've watched a few. I even tried to enjoy them. It just doesn't work out. The characters are stereotypes and shallow, the plot predictable, the storyline unbelievable, with the only surprises being the deus-ex-machinas when the writers painted themselves in a corner.
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I'm not surprised. Books, comics and video games tend to not be canon for Star Wars, and only half heartedly canon in Star Trek.
My personal opinion is that only Film-TV can be canon. Everything else in another format needs to be adapted to that format to be canon. This is why I never read fanfic trash on the internet, as much as someone might have a good head on their shoulders for writing fanfiction, it will never be canon. Parodies I sometimes see (eg robot chicken) but they're easily forgettable.
So the Lord of the Rings movies are canon, screw those dusty old books. Why rely on Tolkien when I can have Peter Jackson tell me about Hobbits?
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I'm of the view ideas can be limited in scope, underutilise the potential, and be poor in execution; something ripe for continuation or revisioning in the hands of another. i.e. canon can just plain suck, so fidelity to such is a waste.
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In the company of people who know how to dress and who have spare cash 'cause they don't have kids to worry about?
But I guess we're going off topic now.
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I read a few of those long long ago but don't remember many plot details except maybe for some anti-Force sloths. Were Han, Luke and Leia in those novels and if so, how old were they? That may be part of the problem in adapting them.
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The Thrawn stories would make a great movie plot, but any movies out of them would neither fit into the Star Wars nor the Disney catalog of movies. Any movie about Thrawn would be a diplomacy/political thriller. Thrawn is an admiral, and a very fine one (from a purely military point of view). A Thrawn movie would have a completely different air to it than what you'd expect from a Star Wars movie, it would be a war movie, not unlike a lot of movies about contemporary admirals and generals, rather than the fa
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It's so true - because Star Wars never sold toys with the first 3 movies. Those were pure art.
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Spoiler Alert... (Score:3)
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Dunno. Haven't read them,
However, all Disney is saying that they aren't going to be bound by the countless shitty "expanded universe" stuff... because most of it is retarded fan bullshit.
They may well decide to go with the one you mention - but they don't want to be forced.
Good, I say... every time I hear about how fans really want a movie about Ramala Minoon - a black lesbian Jedi whose legs only work via the force - and featured in book 3 of the Dark Jedi academy decology
It frankly makes me want to take
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I read a LOT of the Expanded Universe stuff around 7 or 8 years ago, when I had a job that involved a lot of international travel. The novels are a decent way to pass the time when you are constantly crammed into planes, or sat in a strange hotel room feeling jetlagged.
I think the issue is that the Expanded Universe stuff mostly fits into two camp. The first - which is typified by the Timothy Zahn stuff - is the stuff that is decent sci-fi (better than franchise-fiction has any right to be) but which is fun
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Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps not enough opportunities for tie-in marketing in existing plot material?
Because a lot more goes into movies then just finding a good plot. They do focus groups on what will sell this year. Which words and titles are most popular. This is about making money, not art. Ever wonder why we get 3 movies released at nearly the same time with very similar plots? How many asteroid destroys the earth movies can we squeeze into one year? This year the hot topic seems to be Artificial Intelligence. A few years ago it was the earth getting back at us for polluting. Then there was the alien invasion summer.
How can they use existing plots when those books were written decades before anyone would do a focus group to know what the public was currently panicking about? Without targeting the publics flighty paranoia, how are you ever supposed to make money?
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No, they have Media companies. They are tied into the news companies, so they can drum up interest in a topic as they please. Asteroids pass by Earth all the time, why is one more interesting than the other, around the same summer that they plan to have Deep impact and Armageddon released?
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I think they'll treat it as a partial reboot. They'll re-use the good ideas from the EU (Thrawn, Rogue Squadron, the Corellian trilogy, etc.) and ignore the bad ones (the Sun Crusher storyline, for one). But the only "canonical" things would be the movies and maybe the TV shows.
Just like how most Batman continuities have similar events re-occur, I expect they'll re-tell the good EU stories simply because they're good stories and the fans want them. The chronology and specifics may differ, but if they're eve
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Wasn't the sun crusher the ship that discovered the empire and the sith and started the first emperial invasion?
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Or, you know, it's possible that the screenwriter and director they hired to work on the new movies thought that Timothy Zahn's work didn't provide the groundwork for the sort of movie they wanted to make, and so they went another direction. It may be as simple as "going a different direction.
Last I heard, the movie was being directed by Abrams, who I'd imagine would like to write his own story. One of his more recent projects included a reboot of a scifi series that was badly in need of an overhaul. If
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I didn't even think Zahn's Star Wars books were all that good. It's been years since I read them. I've read other stuff by Zahn that is a lot better. Some of the plotlines and characters were interesting, but the writing was atrocious.
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Why is simple enough. The Thrawn stuff is five years after Jedi, not thirty, so you'd have to re-cast the original trilogy roles (Luke, Leia, Han, Lando) in order to film them. And the twenty-five years of stuff in the EU timeline after Thrawn is full of really stupid stuff.
Jar Jar Abrams (Score:3)
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...as if a million fanboys suddenly cry out in terror, and will suddenly be silenced. I fear something terrible will happen.
And there was a great disturbance in the Force... (Score:3, Funny)
...as if a million Star Wars EU geeks had suddenly cried out in terror, and then immediately took to the Internet to vent their rage.
Dan Aris
But wait... (Score:4, Funny)
...What about "Children of Star Wars"? What about "Star Wars Messiah"? Does Leia kill herself? Is Luke Atredies REALLY the Kwisatz Haderach?
I realize this is George Lucas' universe, that he "made up myself", but come on, aren't there another nine books of story to tell?
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Heh, Carrie Fisher might have a shot at pulling off a reverend mother superior. And, if you put Idaho Duncan in a stormtrooper uniform..
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No, she fell to the Dark Side and tried to kill Jake Blues.
Good. (Score:5, Interesting)
I grew up with the expanded universe, and it was good back then, but at this point it's super depressing. They've killed off a bunch of main characters (both from the films and the EU), and they've sketched out a future that makes it clear that there is no hopeful future in the EU, just an endless cycle of collapse and ruin.
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Yeah that darth mouse [youtube.com] is a scary one.
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Yup, I stopped reading the expanded universe during the New Jedi Order series. It's been many years since I read a NJO series book but it seemed like they were all filled with war and unhappiness. Bad stuff happened in other books too but it didn't seem hopeless and the other books/trilogies/series generally had a happy ending of some sort.
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New Jedi Order is really where it all went wrong. That was when they decided to let evil win.
They always will, because 'good' is dumb.
Good. (Score:2)
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"Expanded Universe"? (Score:2)
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Officially licensed fan fiction.
I think the real outrage is that they're breaking with the EU before they break the other fan fiction, a series of moves that oddly were written and directed by the original author himself....
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How is this surprising? (Score:2)
This should come as no surprise to anyone who understands how the world works. Spin-off works have never been binding on any franchise flagship. Sure, the Star Trek films and TV series have been free to pick up bits of continuity from the novels or comics, but they've freely ignored them when it suited the purposes of the story they were telling. Marvel Comics can take what they want from the films (e.g. Phil Coulson), but they're still going to ignore them and tell their own stories. Episodes I-III alr
Yoda version (Score:1)
A fork in the universe, I see.
Take it, they will.
At least in Star Trek... (Score:1)
...they did the whole 'we're going back in time to change everything' thing.
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only way (Score:2)
Am I the only one who thinks this is old news? (Score:1)
Only logical that it's gone (Score:3)
I have a much neater solution. (Score:5, Funny)
Someone from the future travels to the past, changes something fundamental and the universe slips into an alternate reality from which it can never return and in which no event can be expected to unfold as it did in the original.
Not only will this by definition never be inconsistent with the EU, it will give the writers ways of amusingly rehashing old stories by subtly altering some key elements things, like who gets to die of radiation while saving the crew. Maybe, in Episode VII, Luke will hack off Vader's hand?
What?
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Someone from the future travels to the past, changes something fundamental and the universe slips into an alternate reality from which it can never return and in which no event can be expected to unfold as it did in the original.
What do you think this is, Star Trek?
Neater and messier at the same time! (Score:1)
He did the same thing to star trek (Score:3)
they rebooted the universe... they blew up Vulcan... they have old spock as some kind of time traveler from a future that doesn't exist.
Etc.
So imagine if they do the same thing to star wars... You could see Tatooine blown up in the first movie. You could see a time traveling vador giving force advice to yoda or something. Who the hell knows.
Generally not a fan of this sort of thing but it is what is happening.
Star Wars was never intended to be serious drama. (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, breaking continuity does make it harder to suspend disbelief. Most movie viewers can get over that within a few minutes, and I'm not really watching Star Wars for the dialog, social commentary, or even the technical predictions. I'm there to see the money shot, and hopefully a fun story to keep me from disbelieving while I wait for Luke's X-wing to fly down the trench. You know what impressed me even when I was a teenager? The fact that fast moving objects actually looked blurry, and that the Millennium Falcon was dirty. That was the first interstellar vessel I ever saw represented on film as having grease on the walls. Hell, there were even chrome (fuzzy) dice hanging from the rearview mirror, and it was the first time that I saw such incredible detail - detail which correctly got blurred when the viewpoint moved quickly. I just want the underlying story to not ruin my ability to suspend disbelief, so that I can enjoy the money shot.
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Good and Completely Unsurprising (Score:1)
When the prequels, came out, Lucas tossed everything the EU under the bus, including everything stated and implied in the films. ("I just remember my mother was always very sad," No! That was your adopted mom!) About the only thing he kept was Obi-Wan and Anakin fought over lava. So none of this is surprising.
When milking an existing franchise there's this need to be different-yet-similar, and a need to ramp everything up a notch or two. Eventually, everything gets a bit stupider as a result.
Years, ago I in
Not caring much either way it goes (Score:2)
Frankly, I had forgotten about the new movies before seeing that /. headline.
Let me guess, there will be space planes, robots, creatures and sword fights. I think I summed up the movie already.
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Let me guess, there will be space planes, robots, creatures and sword fights. I think I summed up the movie already.
Exactly what I wanted. I'm getting in line tomorrow for tickets.
So Star Wars Episodes VII-IX will not be canon (Score:2)
Ah, the Name-space-time Problem. (Score:2)
Why the fuck even call it "Star Wars" then? Because you bought the rights to it and a combination of plot elements, etc? Is it illegal for other fictional works to reference another? No. So, why even call it "Star Wars"? Name Recognition, ugh.
We solved the Rifts issue [palladiumbooks.com] of namespace-time decades ago with GURPS. [sjgames.com]
Creators exist within a culture and leverage the entirety of existence by reworking the tiniest layers atop it all. Without the culture they are irrelevant. [slashdot.org]
All your Metaverse are belong to us.
Not a bad idea, I'll give Disney a fair chance (Score:1)
I wonder if the reasoning for this is along similar lines as the Star Trek venue in the theaters.
While at first my reaction was negative -- after thinking about it, I would imagine that the folks at Disney are well-aware of how devout Star Wars fans feel about the the spirit of the story and the characters and worlds behind it; further, if they mess this up not only will they lose the income potential, they will have a lot of very angry fans on their doorstep. It could be that Star Wars doesn't live in a
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What makes Star Wars work is:
(1) No time travel
(2) No time travel
(3) No time travel
For some reason, time travel has become the be-all and end-all trope of speculative fiction in comics, movies, and books.
Your fictional works are reflective of your Technological Epoch.
At risk of violating the prime directive, I'd also say that Star Wars works because:
(0) No quantum coherency remodulation.