Gandalf wrote: ↑2019-12-30 12:05am
Also, how do you write sequels when there's so many shitty books with which you would have to keep continuity?
I suppose you don't. But who cares? Lucas didn't make any sequels, after all, and he wrote the rules of the canon system so that any film he made would trump any novel. He wasn't beholden to any other writer, because he was the owner of the franchise. And yet when we did get to hear what his ideas for a sequel film would be about, it turned out he wouldn't focus on galactic politics for once and instead turn his focus on the small-- literally, explore the implications of Midichlorians and other microcosmic entities that influence the Force and its direction. An idea that actually wouldn't have to disrupt too much of the existing canon. And if those ideas sound silly to you, then maybe you can see my point when I say "who cares?" Even Lucas didn't think anyone wanted to see that movie, and I for one actually think it would have been interesting if only because it was so different in scope. It would simply have depended on his ability to pull off the idea. We didn't need sequels (at least not ones focusing on the galactic scale); the Skywalker saga was completed with RotJ, and the best of the novel stories could more accurately be called the New Republic saga and the Solo saga as they follow Han and Leia's kids more than anything.
The problem here really is that too many people think of Star Wars as exclusively a movie franchise, even though right now the fandom has latched onto The Mandalorian, a TV series, as the best Star Wars story currently being told, and the continuation of The Clone Wars TV series as the most hype story in production. In other words, what the fandom wants right now isn't more movies, but more stories outside of that medium. We're tired of movies. Their bombastic nature that is paradoxically what draws us to them combined with their limited runtime means they have limited dramatic potential. Its inevitable that people get fatigued with movie-only franchises. That Star Trek chose to do both movies and TV shows is probably one of the reasons it stuck around so long; if it had just been movies, it wouldn't have its incredible longevity either. You can argue until you are blue in the face that the average Star Wars novel wasn't great and it wouldn't change the following: Star Wars has always been a multimedia franchise, with many entries outside of film that are highly influential in their own right and were demonstrable successes in their own media. Why do you think so many people want Darth Revan in canon? Why do you think people were hype about Thrawn making it into the new canon? Its because KOTOR is massively influential on modern video game storytelling (especially the Mass Effect franchise), and because there almost wouldn't
be a Legends canon if it weren't for Timothy Zahn's success. And of course, to a limited degree even Disney recognized the importance of multimedia projects when they decided to keep The Clone Wars in canon, and began greenlighting other TV series. Telling stories in other media decreases the risk of fandom burnout. Say what you will about the EU, but it was a smart decision on Lucas's part to let other people play in his sandbox. But it does mean that whoever inherits the franchise, whether it be Disney or some other company that has yet to exist, inherits a lot more than just a
movie franchise. People will not forget all those other stories, no matter how good or how bad some of them might have been.