Star Wars: Disney scraps the Expanded Universe

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I have mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I don't have a lot of confidence that Disney will do a good job with the franchise -- the announced ideas are too commercial and feel too rushed to give the universe what it deserves. On the other hand, Lucasfilm has a pretty mixed record with handling the franchise itself.

On the one hand, there is some great material in the EU -- Old Republic, Clone Wars, X-Wing, great short story collections about minor characters, and some of the early EU novels among them. On the other hand, there is a lot of drivel there, too, that has piled up to be wildly inconsistent (e.g. Boba Fett origins, neglecting wild gyrations fans have gone through to reconcile multiple versions). The EU particularly seems to suffer of late from much the same problem as the Forgotten Realms does, with not a lot of room to maneuver, and too many stories about the setting (super-weapon of the week, universe-threatening events) versus immersed in the setting.

The best period of the EU was a long time ago, before the dark time, before the prequels -- but unfortunately that problematic change is one that isn't getting rebooted by Disney who is driving their decisions based on visual media and not written product. We shouldn't be surprised; that's their business model.

 

[Scorpio616]

Is this really that far from EU's canon status before the sale? From what I remember, all the EU was at best a "soft canon" until it wound up in a movie.

Honestly this just sounds like 'Nothing from EU is canon unless we decide to use it' rather than "Nothing from EU will be used'.

 

[delericho]

Is this really that far from EU's canon status before the sale? From what I remember, all the EU was at best a "soft canon" until it wound up in a movie.

Honestly this just sounds like 'Nothing from EU is canon unless we decide to use it' rather than "Nothing from EU will be used'.

Actually, the read I got from the original announcement was that they had someone sorting through it. Some bits of EU were going to be 'promoted' to "full canon" status, while others were going to be 'demoted' to "not at all canon" status. (And, here, EU means "everything outside the 6 movies" - so even things like "Clone Wars" could be up for the axe.)

 

[wingsandsword]

Is this really that far from EU's canon status before the sale? From what I remember, all the EU was at best a "soft canon" until it wound up in a movie.

Honestly this just sounds like 'Nothing from EU is canon unless we decide to use it' rather than "Nothing from EU will be used'.

Here's a primer on how Star Wars Canon used to work, pre-Disney. There were a lot of misconceptions about it.

There was an elaborate "tier" system. Almost everything was canon, except for a few intentionally non-canon things. Lucasfilm kept a full time employee with a database (called the Holocron) whose job was just to track the canon.

At the top was "G Canon", the stuff George Lucas writes. This meant the 6 movies. While Lucas didn't feel confined by the other canon, he didn't overrule it too much in the Prequels because he'd always told EU writers to not touch the Clone Wars or the rise of the Empire because he was going to do that himself. Thus, there were some contradictions in the Prequels with established materials, but with some retcons to patch things together they were kept relatively light. (Boba Fett's Origins, the history of the Republic/Russan Reformations, and Jedi being celibate were the big changes/retcons).

The next tier was "T Canon", television. This was for the The Clone Wars series that started a few years ago. It gave fans and canon keepers a few headaches because Lucas wanted it on a higher tier than other EU materials, but the authors of it ignored some little details of the EU. It didn't create any really large canon headaches, but putting it on a tier to itself was a pain for tracking things.

The next tier was "C Canon". This was "continuity". This is the vast, vast bulk of the Expanded Universe. All those novels on the shelves, (almost) all those comic books and graphic novels were at this level. They all "happened" and had to co-exist, and authors had to make them fit with each other. The plotlines of the video games and the "fluff" materials from RPG materials were at this level too (but not gameplay details/mechanics)

The tier below that was "S Canon" This was "secondary", mostly for some very old materials from pretty early in Star Wars before continuity was tightly watched that slipped by. They generally didn't "happen", but if individual characters/plot events/other elements from them could be fit into the bigger picture of Star Wars, they would be.

The only tier that was non-canonical was "N-Canon" for non-canon. This was meant for things that explicitly were not meant to be part of the Star Wars canon. Mostly some comic books that told explicitly joke/humor tales or alternate universe "what if" stories like "what if Leia used the thermal detonator on Jabba" (that one ended with Palpatine surviving at Endor, and Anakin being redeemed without dying and now wearing a white suit of armor to join up with the Rebels).

Since George Lucas was done making movies, that basically meant that future canon authors pretty much had to work within the established canons, and the stuff he did was in a part of the continuity that had been carved out for him to work in since the beginning.

 

[wingsandsword]

I do understand a little how you feel though because even though I don't feel it for star wars, I'm sure there are other things I would feel it for.

To get a scale on what this would be like for other fandoms. . .

If Marvel decided they were ending the main Earth-616 continuity and doing an Ultimate-style new continuity that everything would be in.

If WotC decided they were rebooting Dragonlance and ONLY the Chronicles Trilogy was being kept in common with the new continuity.

If the BBC announced that starting with the new Dr. Who series, all the classic old pre-2005 episodes were no longer canonical and would be ignored.

That's what scrapping the whole Star Wars EU is like, a 25+ year very elaborate, expanded continuity being thrown out. New material may be like the old one, but it's still a vast bulk of continuity and acquired lore being chucked, and for fans who have been around for decades it can be pretty hurting.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I was 6 or 7 when I saw Star Wars in 1977. It's impacted my life in a huge way for a long
time. I love the OT. So much so that I still have my laserdisc player because I STILL have my
OT (unaltered) laserdiscs.

While I've read and enjoyed some of the expanded universe stuff most notably the Thrawn series and the X-Wing series. I enjoyed those because they seemed like natural extensions of the films. I could have easily seen these as followup TV series (X-wing) and movies (The Thrawn Series). That being said I tried reading some of the other EU stuff and hated it. It just seemed like fan fiction gone horribly awry.

I'm actually glad that the EU stuff has been ruled out for the movies. As far as I'm concerned the films and the Clone Wars TV series (which is just light years better than the prequel films) are the only canon I need. Everything else is just extra goodies in some cases or pure garbage in others.

I'm not an ultra obsessive fan who gets personally offended at stuff like this. I enjoy the SW stuff I enjoy and pretty much ignore the stuff I dont. Doesnt make me any less of a fan.

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Few people can agree on what was crap and what was the good parts though. I think this is a good move.

I have to agree with this assessment - it was a sprawling mixed assortment of things, so massive and so convoluted it was difficult to tell one thing from another. Dropping a lot of it, aside from the movies and TV shows, is not automatically a bad thing in my mind.

 

[sabrinathecat]

I would keep the WEG RPG books as cannon. They were based on materials originally written by Lucas, scrapped scenes, early drafts, and concept sketches by ILM. In point of fact, WEG's books were the bible and cannon for all novels up until the Prequels.

Early Marvel Comics were fun as a kid, but not the same quality.
Timothy Zahn's books were mostly good (except where he had to include material from Kevin J. Anderson)
Michale Stackpole's books were mostly good (except where he had to include JKA)

Kevin J. Anderson's work was mostly crap (though he can describe scenery well enough), and he should be relegated to kids comics, and generally not taken seriously.

 

[Crothian]

I would keep the WEG RPG books as cannon. They were based on materials originally written by Lucas, scrapped scenes, early drafts, and concept sketches by ILM. In point of fact, WEG's books were the bible and cannon for all novels up until the Prequels.
.

That's over 150 gaming books; I know I have a copy of each title. There is a lot of crap in that d6 Star Wars collection with a few gems here and there.

 

[Umbran]

If Marvel decided they were ending the main Earth-616 continuity and doing an Ultimate-style new continuity that everything would be in.

So... New 52, you mean?