Re: Star Wars Episode VII
Oh I know that I was just mentioning the way characters would be changing. I think at most we may get a cameo or minor character the way Aayla was put in the Prequels. For example, if there's a scene with a bunch of Jedi, it would easy to slip in some recognizable characters in the gathering.
Honestly, I think existing EU-only characters will
probably not be used at all. It creates too many complications because people end up trying to figure out how close to the old character versions the new ones are, whether they'll play a role in the canonical universe, and then when they don't, they'll end up pissed. So much of the post-'91 material is connected that I just don't think there's a way to salvage characters without dramatically changing them, which begs the question....what's the point? Fan service? Would taht really work? If you saw, for example, some redhead female Jedi training at the new temple wherever, she got referred to as "Mara" in passing....and then that was it, never appeared again in any materials, what would you as a fan of the EU think of the decision to use her? Or if they did use her and then totally changed her character so that she's no longer the Emperor's Hand, and was instead just some random woman who helped the Alliance during the war and otherwise has no connection to the Mara Jade we already know, aside from her looks, her name, and her force sensitivity?
I don't see that really benefiting Disney, nor satisfying the EU fans it's designed to satisfy. Better to just create new characters and let fans connect to them. If you want to revisit Mara Jade, there's
over 20 years of material out there to do it with. At least, that's what I figure Disney will say.
I think it's a good decision, ultimately. Better to have a single, coordinated marketing strategy so that you don't always have the "Sword of Lucas" hanging over your head, deciding that "No, clones were NOT created by the Spaarti, and were instead created by Kaminoans. I don't care what Tim Zahn said." All that does is create conflict within the story, and devalue the EU material. Better to have it all
just be Star Wars. But the only way to do that, is to say "Ok, all that stuff before? Didn't happen. We're moving forward. You can still buy and read it, though. Please, continue to enjoy it if you like those stories. But we won't be continuing them." It would be an impossible task to salvage portions of the EU. So, just consider it an alternate universe or some Force vision Luke had of what might have been as he meditated one night after eating some Corellian cooking from Han.
I still think EU concepts will be lifted fairly liberally (e.g. Corellia as Han's home planet), but I doubt any characters or plot points (other than very general ones) will survive.
