But the problem being that they never officially declared it as a separate continuity They basically called it non-canon so they can work off a clean slate for the next three movies Instead of using the EU that exists to just make the next three movies It's quite baffling actually. The fact that they have an EU timeline to go off of, one fans have grown to love. And decide to ignore it to write something else up Wouldn't it take more work, and anger a lot more people to write something separate up from EU then just sticking with the timeline?
They are scum Gob. Lucas himself did not give a damn about EU. He himself said that EU could become non canon, if he ever wanted to make new movies past ep 6. EU was doomed from the start, eventually a new movie was going to come and render it irrelevant.
Well, in all honesty, I get the feeling Lucas isn't the only one to blame. Call this a conspiracy theory, but JJ Abrams does seem as if she's a likely culprit here. Whatever the quality of his films, he has a lot of pulling power when it comes to these settings and I could see him suggesting to just do away with the EU for his own benefit. He did the same with Star Trek after all, in order to give him a clean slate to work with, but promptly fell back on the massive stockpile of stories he could mine for nostalgia. Personally, I think the same thing is happening here. Disney wanted a wider audience, he, Lucas or one of the others could have helped to push to kill off the EU in a misguided attempt to appeal to a wider audience (which isn't working all that well I might add, given sales seem to have dropped for a lot of new releases, save for one or two exceptions) and boost profits. At the same time, they want to probably milk the EU for all its worth so they occasionally reprint the odd novel under the non-committal "Legends" brand, after insulting anyone who liked that setting as well, but start using its ideas. Disney have already hinted heavily that they want to see EU characters and stuff appear in the new universe, but purely for marketing potential. Thrawn is still a big enough of a name in sci-fi fan circles to get attention, and the same goes for many others. They murdered the old universe, but they don't want to just ditch everything and start over because they want the sales those characters brought. They could have had the same result by just letting the EU keep going, but that would interfere with their own ability to just rip off old stories of have Abrams pill another Star Trek: Into Darkness. So, the end result is something they hope will drag in a lot of fans but also pull in a lot of the older audience by ripping off bits from the universe they called old, flawed, and badly put together and trying to fabricate stories from them. This is purely speculation based upon pat behavior and recent releases mind you, but we've already had the disastrously bad Star Wars: Aftermath all but holding up a neon sign saying "THE SHADOWY CHARACTER IN THE BACKGROUND IS THRAWN!! THRAWN WILL BE IN FUTURE BOOKS!!! BUY OUR NEW STUFF!!!!" TL: DR - It's DC Comic's New 52 problem all over again, except a dozen times worse.
As has been noted already 'JJ Trek' did it properly, mainly due to the fact that such time travel mechanics are a part of Star Trek. The 'prime' universe (Shatner, Stewart, Brooks, Mulgrew etc) still exists and novels are still being written for it. Mining the original series for ideas also works. I don't mind the Star Trek reboot. The problem with Star Wars is that Disney wants the old fans AND make new fans. To get the old fans they roll out Han, Luke and Leia, limiting Disney to when and how they do the film (right in the middle of a war against a race of insectoids) or they make up a new timeline. If the new films were set 200+ years after A New Hope there wouldn't be a problem (the furtherest the EU got was 137/138 ABY).
It's just sad really. Sure EU had some really shit story arc's, but it was a long and ultimately wonderful expansion to the original movies. To see it all pretty much rendered to nothing, is just honestly depressing. The "Legend" books are just kicking a dead horse at this point.
Not quite true. Star Trek Online is in a third universe that differs from the novel universe in that the Borg still exist in STO.
Honestly, I actually agree with just about all of that. Hadn't thought of it before but, if they were set in the Infinite setting or in the wake of that event, then it would be perfect for a new film. Creators would be given carte blanche to push ahead with the future and shape events as they progressed, and it was far enough along to sidestep most of the issues involving the Vong invasion or what happened to the main characters. Even the whole Sith-Imperial War being brought up could just be pushed into the background, or with just general points brought up to justify the existence of the Sith and other elements people hadn't seen before like the Imperial Knights or Galactic Alliance. Better yet, if creators did want to make use of the old characters it would be without infringing upon the new ones. Events could be told via flashbacks, recordings or old events and conversations made via force ghosts, allowing people to see the stars in action again with the core focus still being on the new heroes. ... Bugger, that would have made a hell of a lot of sense actually. Anyway, sorry, to just elaborate on my points, the initial approach by Abrams did work indeed. A new world to work in without erasing the old one was fine, and it was good for re-energizing the franchise. However, the chief problem is that I personally don't think he did it for that reason. I think he wanted the freedom to tell his own stories and events, but also to take the bits he wanted from the old universe and recycle them as he needed. In the 2009 film it was relatively good and you only had the kobayashi maru test and Spock's childhood being repeated. However, the next film just seemed to be relying heavily upon mining the old story ideas. Pike was killed off so he wouldn't get in the way, Khan was suddenly thrown in, we had a massive Section 31 style conspiracy and an entire death sequence more or less taken entirely from an older film. So, it unfortunately slid into being Wrath of Khan 2: Wrath Harder and kind of undermined the identity of the new franchise to a degree. I could easily see him doing the same thing here, as we've already had some authors grabbing every EU bit they can get their hands on and trying to write them as "new" stuff into their stories, but without the effort of having to actually read or follow on from the other books. Definitely, and the truly sad thing is it's honestly one of the few franchises where you could legitimately say that something good just about always came out of the bad as well. The issues surrounding Palpatine being cloned might have arisen, but we got Crimson Empire and a multitude of great new characters out of it. Legacy of the Force might have devolved into a raging cluster-fuck thanks to in-fighting between two authors, not to mention the mass character deaths, but it set the stage for Mercy Kill and other tales. Hell, the Holiday Special introduced Bobba Fett for crying out loud.
Bobba Fett The character with literally One line of dialogue throughtout the original series. But damn did he look cool
Apparently they went back and re-dubbed him with the voice of the actor that played Jango fett and the Clone Troopers. I haven't heard it, but Jeremy Bulloch did such a great job originally it has left me wondering why?
