The Glade 4.0

Surprised there's no discussion about the recent rulings re: the Star Wars EU (or rather, somewhat lack thereof now) here. Not a huge Star Wars fan beyond "hey, those are two-and-a-half really fun movies", but I'm frankly fascinating by how this is shaking out.

http://kotaku.com/star-wars-lore-is-cha ... 1568713480

I'll admit I haven't dug too greedily or too deep (****, I crossed the fandom streams! Augh, I did it again!) into it, but I think what's happening is that (in a nutshell) EU stuff that took place prior to Return of the Jedi is still canon (or as "canon" as any of the EU stuff ever really was), but everything post-RotJ is dubbed "Legends" and not "canon" anymore. Did I get that right?

I think they're tossing anything that isn't movie or Clone Wars TV show as "Legends"

Pisses me off, but I'm spitting into the wind on this one.

At one time, I believe George said the Zahn books were canon. Now, not so much. That being said, it has been established that the movies overrule everything else. I am not shocked.

_________________
Raell Kromwell

Clearing out what happened after RotJ makes sense, if you're going to be continuing on from that point.

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

From what I understand, they're nixing the Old Republic stuff, too. Comics, novels, KotOR/SWTOR, etc.

Clone Wars is still canon, along with the 6 movies.

I'm honestly kind of surprised how aggressively they're culling. I expected them to be more lenient and interested in incorporating existing EU lore (that could be -- Old Republic stuff seems rife for that) into their new works, since Disney hasn't had a big whole epic in mind from the beginning to conflict with these other creators...

I can only infer that this is a matter of convenience, rather than ego/artistic control, but rather an effort to trim the monumental task for their continuity folks down to something reasonable without employing an army of EU nerds.

I don't recall the elevation of Zahn to G-Level, Raell, but it did certainly seem to enjoy a degree of respect and admiration above the rest.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I'm not surprised, but I'm also not terribly upset, even though I've read about 75% of the EU. Disney was never going to tie themselves down with all the baggage. On the other hand it was always treated as second class, the prequels dumped all over it already.

I do like that from here forward Disney is going to sync all future media between books and movies to live in the same universe.

That's sort of how it's always been. George always saw the EU as "Its own thing." As long as it didn't override the movies, and knowing that the movies will always override the EU, he didn't care too much. Sometimes he'd incorporate a nugget from the EU into the movies (the name Coruscant), but this was rare.

Nothing will make Star Wars fans (on a Star Wars specific message board) froth at the mouth and rip each others' throats out faster than starting a topic with "Is EU canon?" There is tons of evidence (and lack of) for both sides of the argument.

Personally, I'm fine with it. The EU was great (well, anything that didn't have the phrase "White Current") and had its time. I feel it's time for new creative minds to come up with new stories. The old EU is still there and can still be read, and it's really in the same boat it's always been: "Cool Star Wars stories that fans can believe are canon, until a movie says otherwise."

_________________
Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

EU "Canon" conflicts even with itself much of the time. And Lucas already ignored it when he made the crappy prequel trilogy - "The Clone Wars" were a very different beast than anything Zahn had in mind - with jedi clones going mad and turning to the dark side.

The thing with treating The Clone Wars cartoons as canon, is that will automatically validate a lot of the Old Republic era stuff, as Clone Wars ties into it on occasion.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospect ... wars-cast/

http://starwars.com/news/star-wars-epis ... unced.html


Cast info.

_________________
"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

John Williams is composing. That's all that really matters, anymore, right?

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

If it gets bad, you can at least close your eyes and "feel" Star Wars I guess.

_________________
"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

I don't know what you're talking about. There were, like, 3 things wrong with the prequels. That's not nearly as terrible as people claim.

(Jar Jar is annoying. Jake Lloyd is the worst actor ever to exhale on camera. Somebody should have paid more attention to whether Hayden and Natalie had any chemistry before writing gag-inducingly mushy scenes they couldn't carry with their lack of chemistry.)

However, it does definitely feel like the stark differences in tone, complexity, writing, pacing, and characterization between the two trilogies made it so there's very little commonality between the two left... of which Williams' scores are the biggest cinematic unifier.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the prequels(my hangups with them mirror yours). These new ones will be a real test. The first three were when I was young, they could have been terrible but I wouldn't have cared. The second three were cool and brought back that feeling of being a kid so I forgave things like Jar-Jar and Hayden while they were happening. The next three...I'm excited yet worried at the same time. Williams score anchoring things will help.

_________________
"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

That's true.

1. The Phantom Menace
2. Attack of the Clones
3. Revenge of the Sith (well, about half of it was watchable)

This comes up a lot. However, I still maintain that "my hands are dirty too" is just as retarded as anything in the prequels.

Anyways, if they're casting the entire old cast, discarding basically all the EU canon is pretty mandatory. They'd have to set it 30 years after RotJ or something and that wouldn't make any sense if they kept the EU canon.

Full trailer for Star Wars: Rebels.

I'll give them this: Stormtroopers (and Clone Troopers before that) look good in CG.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

It does look interesting.

_________________
Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Here you go, Star Wars fans. Your new canon:

(Spoilered for size.)

The prequels didn't just ignore the EU, they ignored the original trilogy. Obi-Wan implies that Anakin was at least in his mid to late teens when they met. Just about every problem with the prequels could have been easily solved by casting an older Anakin.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Very true. And that was originally the plan. But Lucas then changed his mind and felt seeing a younger boy being taken away from his mother was more emotional. And yet, nobody cared.

_________________
Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

He implies it, but he also implied (actually almost outright stated) that Vader and Anakin were two different people and we know how THAT went. Anakin was already a great pilot - of pod racers. So it was true... "from a certain point of view."

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Yeah. I went through the same train of thought as both of you, many years ago. I can overlook this one. I can't overlook Padme dying in childbirth, when Leia clearly remembered her from when she was a toddler. I do not accept bullshit pseudo answers like "Leia knew her through the Force!"

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Yes, I understand all of the arguments for why a nine year-old Anakin made sense. They're all bullshit.

I can't overlook the nine year-old Anakin, and precisely because it was Anakin that killed the prequels. When we first met Darth Vader, he commanded the scene from the outset. He was big and bad as he strolled onto the captured starship and choked the life out of the commander while holding him in the air with one hand. Vader was big and bad.

Anakin Skywalker was not. Anakin Skywalker was a whiny petulant child. Now okay, Anakin is a Jedi, and we're probably not going to see him Force choking people left and right. However, we're supposed to believe this man grows up to speak with the voice of James Earl Jones. We're supposed to believe he becomes ten feet tall and bulletproof.

Giving us an older Anakin would likely have led to Hayden Christensen not being cast in the second and third movies. Lucas decided to have us watch Anakin grow up and show us how not having a mommy or a daddy **** up Anakin. Nevermind that Obi-Wan and all the rest of the Jedi were separated from their parents as well. Casting an older, teenaged Anakin in Phantom Menace would have led to casting an adult in the later movies. It would have made the romance between Padme and Anakin plausible, because in the back of their minds, the audience isn't sitting there thinking, "Wasn't he nine years old the last time she saw him?" You don't successfully woo a galactic senator that views you as her kid brother by acting like a hormonal teenager. Anakin never shows us that he's a grown man, so how are we to believe he demonstrated that to Padme?

In Revenge of the Sith, we see the newly crowned Darth Vader killing children in the temple while Order 66 is being enacted. I'm sorry, but that doesn't tell us why Darth Vader is so pants-shittingly terrifying. If they had spent less time developing Anakin as a child, they would have had more time for Darth Vader in Revenge of the Sith.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

There's plenty of reasons why Anakin didn't work in the prequels.

Most of them, however, boil down to:
(1) Bad writing.
(2) Bad acting.

Matt Lanter does a spectacular job as Anakin in the Clone Wars cartoons, and I'd have believed him a hell of a lot easier than I believed Lloyd/Christensen. But Lanter also had the advantage of Lucas not writing.

Part of writing includes what you're mentioning, Corolinth. A tragic hero goes from magnificent and awe-inspiring, to despicable and terrifying. Vader managed to be the latter, but Anakin never managed to be anything but irritating. I don't know if it could have been managed with him starting as a child, but it certainly made it harder.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Are we discussing the quality of the newer trilogy, or the continuity of it? Those are two different issues and while the "child Anakin" thing may have made for much poorer movies than the original trilogy, the continuity problems are not all that bad. Hell, Obi-Wan's explanation to Luke in RotJ is much weaker as continuity to ANH than between ANH and the new trilogy.

Fans have a bad habit of deciding in their minds what continuity should look like and then claiming continuity is broken when the author does something other than what the fan thinks should have been done. Often, there isn't actually a continuity issue if you understand that the earlier material could be interpreted in the way the author did. Unfortunately, quite a few fans tend to forget that it's the author's vision not theirs that matters.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."