Star Wars Canon about to be completely redefined

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Ralin
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Re: Star Wars Canon about to be completely redefined

Post by Ralin »

Batman wrote:And yes, it HAS been his universe from the word go. If and to which extent he allows the contributions of the people he allowed to play in his sandbox affect where he takes the franchise is completely up to him, because guess what? It's his sandbox.
You keep saying that as if it has any relevance? Yes, Lucas started Star Wars and he owned it. He's not the one who made it the great setting it is, and he's a shithead for ignoring the work of much better writers than himself.
And frankly ignoring the EU is one of the smartest things Lucas did because the vast majority of it sucks.
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Re: Star Wars Canon about to be completely redefined

Post by Napoleon the Clown »

The EU isn't what made SW "great" either. The stuff that made SW into something of any value came from other people involved in the writing process of the OT. Lucas didn't ignore them until SW had blown up beyond anybody's wildest expectations.
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Re: Star Wars Canon about to be completely redefined

Post by Knife »

The EU didn't make Star Wars great, it was great before any of that shit happened. The EU cashed in on the greatness of SW. Sure, some of it was good, but most of it was shit. That said, over 30 years of EU has been produced, most of it dealing with events after RotJ. There is no way any sane studio or director is going to thread a needle through all that shit to make a movie consistent with 30 years of kitbashed bullshit. Ain't going to happen.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong

But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
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Re: Star Wars Canon about to be completely redefined

Post by Guardsman Bass »

I'm pretty excited about a potentially clean or near-clean slate on the post-ROTJ events. Everything in the existing EU is weighed down by the 50+ (?) years of post-ROTJ stuff that came before it, so it will be nice to see what other authors could do with what Disney decides is the canon after the end of ROTJ and before Star Wars VII.

They can always bring back some of the favorite EU characters in new forms. In fact, I strongly suspect that if any EU characters get carried over because Disney thinks they might good for sales, you'll get a shout-out to them in Star Wars VII. Abrams loves doing that kind of fanboy-pandering stuff.
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Re: Star Wars Canon about to be completely redefined

Post by PainRack »

Knife wrote:The EU didn't make Star Wars great, it was great before any of that shit happened. The EU cashed in on the greatness of SW. Sure, some of it was good, but most of it was shit. That said, over 30 years of EU has been produced, most of it dealing with events after RotJ. There is no way any sane studio or director is going to thread a needle through all that shit to make a movie consistent with 30 years of kitbashed bullshit. Ain't going to happen.
Well..... people has been saying for years now that the Thrawn trilogy is a potential SW movie in making.


The funny thing is, with Disney taking over the reigns, it might actually be more feasible....... although I guess the casting calls kinda rule this out:D
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Re: Star Wars Canon about to be completely redefined

Post by Ralin »

PainRack wrote: Well..... people has been saying for years now that the Thrawn trilogy is a potential SW movie in making.
I like the Thrawn trilogy as much as anyone does, but I don't see it translating well to film.
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Re: Star Wars Canon about to be completely redefined

Post by the atom »

Guys, I don't know how to explain this, but like, people have bought KJA Starwars books in numbers significant enough numbers enough that he was apparently able to write more then one without getting instantly fired. It's entirely possible that somebody somewhere out there *gasp shiver* likes his books.
Havok wrote:All that means is that whatever comes out now is canon. JJ Abrahms and Kasadan don't give a fuck about canon and they are beholden only to the movies. Just the fact that this movie is even coming out practically already invalidates everything post ROTJ. Just because now everything is canon, doesn't mean EVERYTHING is canon. Sorry kiddies, you're fucked.
Probably, but that's a pretty decent long shot from ringing the funeral bells for the entirety of the EU. Not that I can say I really care all that much since I basically only ever read the graphic novel versions of the Thrawn Trilogy and Dark Empire (ugh).
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Re: Star Wars Canon about to be completely redefined

Post by Napoleon the Clown »

Yeah, Thrawn Trilogy wouldn't be especially well-adapted to film. There's a fair bit of stuff going on between action scenes that relies on what the POV character is noticing and thinking about the events around them. Most of the people that go see a Star Wars movie don't go out to see a blue-skinned alien with glowing eyes discuss art and extrapolating how another species thinks based off of said art. (As an aside, I suspect that Thrawn simply likes art and uses the psycho-analysis thing as an excuse for collecting art. IIRC, Palleon speculated much the same.) Most SW viewers aren't going to go in wanting to listen to an internal monologue, either. It would be a pain to get across contemplations and musings of characters without the audible thoughts thing, and that doesn't really work with SW.

Thrawn Trilogy does have a well-written story, for the most part, and the characters are actually tolerable. But it isn't so outstanding as to warrant sparing it while everything else burns. Maybe pull a few things introduced there and incorporate them, but the trilogy as a whole? Neh.
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Re: Star Wars Canon about to be completely redefined

Post by Knife »

PainRack wrote: Well..... people has been saying for years now that the Thrawn trilogy is a potential SW movie in making.


The funny thing is, with Disney taking over the reigns, it might actually be more feasible....... although I guess the casting calls kinda rule this out:D
They're not going to use Zhan books as scripts, even if they translated well. Abrams and who ever they select to write a script are not going to want to be held down by a book a fair chunk of SW fans never read that was written 20 years ago. They will want to do their own thing, their own ideas. Abrams does like some fan service, I wouldn't be surprised if Thrawn or Boba Fett or something was in the new movies, but I just can't assume they will want to follow a script by someone 20 years ago.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong

But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
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Re: Star Wars Canon about to be completely redefined

Post by Lord Insanity »

Is anyone really surprised the new movie is basically going to ignore anything they want too? About the only thing I would even want to see from the existing EU is maybe Trawn in a bit part like General Veers in ESB. (Who cares about the art crap just having a competent officer in Star Wars is awesome.) Even that would be pure fan service and I certainly don't expect it.

Aside from KJA's crappy writing the basic story of Darksaber was pretty cool. Episode II even used the minor plot of "North Korea" wanting to build a "Nuke" and pissed all over the EU in the process. :lol:

I only ever read in order: the Trawn trilogy, Truce at Bakura, Courtship of Princess Leia, Jedi Academy trilogy, Black Fleet Crisis trilogy, Darksaber, and the Crystal Star. The Crystal Star was a flaming pile of dung that makes Darksaber look like a literary classic. I flat out stopped reading EU books after that until a few years later when the Trawn Duology came out. Reading that didn't convince me I was missing anything. I have completely ignored the EU since. A result of that is I greatly enjoyed the Clone Wars series and will probably enjoy Rebels. :wink:
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Re: Star Wars Canon about to be completely redefined

Post by Borgholio »

It's good that they are going to ignore most of the shit in the EU. I want it to be a good movie.
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Re: Star Wars Canon about to be completely redefined

Post by Abacus »

Napoleon the Clown wrote:Yeah, Thrawn Trilogy wouldn't be especially well-adapted to film. There's a fair bit of stuff going on between action scenes that relies on what the POV character is noticing and thinking about the events around them. Most of the people that go see a Star Wars movie don't go out to see a blue-skinned alien with glowing eyes discuss art and extrapolating how another species thinks based off of said art. (As an aside, I suspect that Thrawn simply likes art and uses the psycho-analysis thing as an excuse for collecting art. IIRC, Palleon speculated much the same.) Most SW viewers aren't going to go in wanting to listen to an internal monologue, either. It would be a pain to get across contemplations and musings of characters without the audible thoughts thing, and that doesn't really work with SW.

Thrawn Trilogy does have a well-written story, for the most part, and the characters are actually tolerable. But it isn't so outstanding as to warrant sparing it while everything else burns. Maybe pull a few things introduced there and incorporate them, but the trilogy as a whole? Neh.
If they can do a decent job of getting the Harry Potter movies onto film with even the harshest of book-lover-critics not wrenching their hair out -- then I think they can do a decent job of getting Thrawn and his 3 books into film (or a TV series like Game of Thrones; or hell give it to a Japanese anime studio and let them rip).

Ultimately, besides my own fanboy-love for Thrawn, I want him because of the fact that he isn't a Force-user. I'm kind of tired of the whole ying-yang, weepy-weepy stuff with Force users. Also, a little bit of military competence on the part of the Empire would go a long way towards making up for the sterling credulity of the stormtroopers in the original trilogy (look Ma'! I *can* shoot the side of a barn!).
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Re: Star Wars Canon about to be completely redefined

Post by Havok »

As I wrote in the canon thread...
Havok wrote:Why? If you aren't introducing Thrawn in Heir to the Empire then what's the fucking point? Mara Jade is already going to be unworkable, and for that matter so is Thrawn. What made him cool was that he had a connection to the Emperor and no one else, that his exile seemed plausible, that his story seemed plausible. So you are going to introduce him now, instead of 5 years after ROTJ, 32 years after ROTJ which is how much Luke Skywalker will have aged when this movie comes out? If he isn't the Grand Admiral coming back to reclaim the Empire then he is just a blue dude with red eyes.

The only way ANY of the post ROTJ EU can be shoehorned in is if they bring back the original cast in a "lets have us a flashback" movie capacity.
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