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Disney buying Lucasfilm for $4 billion! More Star Wars movies coming!
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<blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 6040227" data-attributes="member: 14159"><p>The Thrawn books are basically what brought Star Wars back from being dormant.</p><p></p><p>After Return of the Jedi, Star Wars started to fade out. The Marvel Comics run lasted another year or two before wrapping it up. There were the Ewok TV movies, and that was about it.</p><p></p><p>In 1987 or so, West End Games got the license to make a Star Wars RPG. Basically they had to create much of the "expanded universe" from scratch. LucasFilm made it clear they wanted a coherent setting with consistency between licensed materials, but so little had been established that they had huge chunks to fill in. There were the 3 films, the 2 Ewok movies, Splinter of the Minds Eye, the Han Solo and Lando Calrissian novels, and the Marvel Comics, and that was about it in terms of canon.</p><p></p><p>Lucas just basically said to leave the Clone Wars and the rise of the Empire alone, he was going to do that himself. So, WEG filled in stuff about the Imperial era itself. </p><p></p><p>Then, when Timothy Zahn got the contract to write a new novel, set after Return of the Jedi, LucasFilm asked him to use the WEG materials to build off of. He has said he was originally offended, because he thought he had carte blanche to expand from the movies, but LucasFilm dropped off a crate of books at his house, he read through them, and basically liked what he saw, and worked in lots of references to them into his books.</p><p></p><p>Heir to the Empire was a bestseller, and that rekindled public interest in Star Wars. WEG saw sales skyrocket (and released a second edition, and started producing material set in the New Republic era, since Zahn basically created the New Republic).</p><p></p><p>The Thrawn novels on their own weren't selling merchandise like hotcakes, but that's what restarted the fire that had cooled down after the cinema screens went dark in '83. That's when merchandise started selling all over again, when comics started coming out again (this time from Dark Horse), when action figures started over again, when a steady stream of novels began to pick up, and so on, all following from the success of Heir to the Empire and showing that Star Wars could go on past the 3 films.</p><p></p><p>My big worry about the Disney buyout is the fear that Disney won't respect the canon, and will go off and make VII, VIII and IX completely separate from the established 20+ years of Star Wars continuity.</p><p></p><p>The dream scenario is a movie trilogy of the Thrawn novels, but realistically I don't see them doing it (would be the best-case scenario though).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="wingsandsword, post: 6040227, member: 14159"] The Thrawn books are basically what brought Star Wars back from being dormant. After Return of the Jedi, Star Wars started to fade out. The Marvel Comics run lasted another year or two before wrapping it up. There were the Ewok TV movies, and that was about it. In 1987 or so, West End Games got the license to make a Star Wars RPG. Basically they had to create much of the "expanded universe" from scratch. LucasFilm made it clear they wanted a coherent setting with consistency between licensed materials, but so little had been established that they had huge chunks to fill in. There were the 3 films, the 2 Ewok movies, Splinter of the Minds Eye, the Han Solo and Lando Calrissian novels, and the Marvel Comics, and that was about it in terms of canon. Lucas just basically said to leave the Clone Wars and the rise of the Empire alone, he was going to do that himself. So, WEG filled in stuff about the Imperial era itself. Then, when Timothy Zahn got the contract to write a new novel, set after Return of the Jedi, LucasFilm asked him to use the WEG materials to build off of. He has said he was originally offended, because he thought he had carte blanche to expand from the movies, but LucasFilm dropped off a crate of books at his house, he read through them, and basically liked what he saw, and worked in lots of references to them into his books. Heir to the Empire was a bestseller, and that rekindled public interest in Star Wars. WEG saw sales skyrocket (and released a second edition, and started producing material set in the New Republic era, since Zahn basically created the New Republic). The Thrawn novels on their own weren't selling merchandise like hotcakes, but that's what restarted the fire that had cooled down after the cinema screens went dark in '83. That's when merchandise started selling all over again, when comics started coming out again (this time from Dark Horse), when action figures started over again, when a steady stream of novels began to pick up, and so on, all following from the success of Heir to the Empire and showing that Star Wars could go on past the 3 films. My big worry about the Disney buyout is the fear that Disney won't respect the canon, and will go off and make VII, VIII and IX completely separate from the established 20+ years of Star Wars continuity. The dream scenario is a movie trilogy of the Thrawn novels, but realistically I don't see them doing it (would be the best-case scenario though). [/QUOTE]
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