Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Pre-release)

It was just meaningless to him as he didn't consider it part of his Star Wars story.

Bryan:

Not sure I am getting your point here. I'm not one of those who feels betrayed the the EU was suddenly overwritten (didn't care much for the EU) - but GL made the conscious choice to slap the SW brand on all of the EU stuff and to take the money that came in from selling it. When you sell something as "legitimate goods", you don't just get a free pass when you turn around and say "well, thanks for buying it - actually I never considered it legitimate." If he didn't consider it legitimate, he could've (frankly, should've) vetoed it, rather than sells it as legitimate and then devalue it later by crapping all over it. You put your name on the goods and take the money for the goods - you should stand behind the goods to some extent, rather than just say "hey, even at the time you bought 'em. I knew they weren't legit."

Sure, he can over-write the EU if he wants - but it doesn't change the fact that he made the choice to profit from it (quite handsomely) by portraying it as a legitimate "part of his SW story" at the time he was selling it - which supports the original point that GL's loyalties seem to shift based on whether there is some money in it for him.

M
 
And that my friends is an opinion, not objective fact, of course.

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Bryan:

Not sure I am getting your point here. I'm not one of those who feels betrayed the the EU was suddenly overwritten (didn't care much for the EU) - but GL made the conscious choice to slap the SW brand on all of the EU stuff and to take the money that came in from selling it. When you sell something as "legitimate goods", you don't just get a free pass when you turn around and say "well, thanks for buying it - actually I never considered it legitimate." If he didn't consider it legitimate, he could've (frankly, should've) vetoed it, rather than sells it as legitimate and then devalue it later by crapping all over it. You put your name on the goods and take the money for the goods - you should stand behind the goods to some extent, rather than just say "hey, even at the time you bought 'em. I knew they weren't legit."

Sure, he can over-write the EU if he wants - but it doesn't change the fact that he made the choice to profit from it (quite handsomely) by portraying it as a legitimate "part of his SW story" at the time he was selling it - which supports the original point that GL's loyalties seem to shift based on whether there is some money in it for him.

M

What I mean is that he was perfectly happy accepting the licensing revenue, he just wasn't a fan of the direction those stories took. He simply felt no need to try and modify it as he didn't consider it part of "His" story. He was consistent in saying it wasn't a direct canonical continuation of the films he made or the story in his head.
 
What I mean is that he was perfectly happy accepting the licensing revenue, he just wasn't a fan of the direction those stories took. He simply felt no need to try and modify it as he didn't consider it part of "His" story. He was consistent in saying it wasn't a direct canonical continuation of the films he made or the story in his head.


Yeah funny... I knew this for years, even reading the Zahn Trilogy, that if Lucas wanted to make more movies he could ignore everything done in the EU...

And yet when Disney pulled the plug on the EU to introduce Rey, everyone LOST IT.

Were they not paying attention?

It felt like when I would say to my kid "you can start that movie, but at 9:00 you're going to bed..."

"I know I know..."

*9:00*

"Okay... shut 'er off... bedtime."

"NOOOOOO!!!! but I invested soooo muuuuuuuuuuch!!!!"
 
Remember Splinter in the Mind's eye?

It was written to be a cheap low budget sequel that could re-use some of the same props etc... if Star Wars failed to deliver

instead we got Empire

That's how I view the EU. It is expendable material that is not really canon.

If anything, I kind of like what Disney has done rather than be beholden, or try to retcon stuff to
 
He was consistent in saying it wasn't a direct canonical continuation of the films he made or the story in his head.

Thanks, Bryan. But regarding the comment above - am I just mis-remembering? I thought post-1983 (and especially when the EU started up in 1990 or so), he was pretty explicit that, since he wasn't making further films, he'd handed it over to the EU writers with the intent that they continue the story forward, with the idea that (at least as of that time), it was pretty canonical. After all, they established a group within LFL to coordinate the stories to avoid conflicts (and avoid a cluttered, junky universe like that which grew up in the wake of all the various Star Trek novels that fit 20 years worth of adventures into the last two years of a five-year mission). And I seem to specifically remember EU authors speaking about how GL was consulted and had vetoed certain stories, or told them things they could or could not cover (for example, Yoda's background was off-limits).

So, while I do agree with you that I don't recall George ever claiming that the EU was a literal telling of the future stories in his head, I also just don't seem to recall hearing him ever declaring the EU as apocryphal or even implying that they were inconsistent with his overall "head story" or not canon (at least not until he decided to get back into film-making with the prequels (see poor Boba Fett)), and instead he/LFL seemed to actually be making pretty-public gestures that they were taking care to keep the EU "in line with George's vision". And even when George did the prequels, he still maintained that there would be no films past Ep. VI, which could lead people to believe that at least the post-ROTJ stories would be immune from ret-conning.

In any event, I agree with everybody here stating that wiping out the EU was not only within LFL's rights, but was the right thing to do. At the same time, I do have a small amount of sympathy for people who invested a lot of money in it to get "the next chapter in the SW story" every few months without being told at the time that it was, for lack of a better term, ultimately not worth the paper it was printed on. That's why I was curious as to whether I'd missed any public statement (before the prequels) to that effect.

M
 
Bryan:

Not sure I am getting your point here. I'm not one of those who feels betrayed the the EU was suddenly overwritten (didn't care much for the EU) - but GL made the conscious choice to slap the SW brand on all of the EU stuff and to take the money that came in from selling it. When you sell something as "legitimate goods", you don't just get a free pass when you turn around and say "well, thanks for buying it - actually I never considered it legitimate." If he didn't consider it legitimate, he could've (frankly, should've) vetoed it, rather than sells it as legitimate and then devalue it later by crapping all over it. You put your name on the goods and take the money for the goods - you should stand behind the goods to some extent, rather than just say "hey, even at the time you bought 'em. I knew they weren't legit."

Sure, he can over-write the EU if he wants - but it doesn't change the fact that he made the choice to profit from it (quite handsomely) by portraying it as a legitimate "part of his SW story" at the time he was selling it - which supports the original point that GL's loyalties seem to shift based on whether there is some money in it for him.

M

You do a free pass when you categorically state you're taking one before the first book is published.

The press release for Heir the Empire said just as much. That should LFL decide to proceed with movies post ROTJ they weren't beholden to novels in any way. They stuck that caveat in there 'just in case' because at the time there were no plans for more movies at all.

That article is how i knew they were doing books in the first place and I read them knowing just that. Just when the jumped the shark when changing publishers and hyped the killing of Chewy before the book was out - i quit.
 
You do a free pass when you categorically state you're taking one before the first book is published.

The press release for Heir the Empire said just as much. That should LFL decide to proceed with movies post ROTJ they weren't beholden to novels in any way. They stuck that caveat in there 'just in case' because at the time there were no plans for more movies at all..

Well, then there's the answer I was looking for in my question to Bryan. I wasn't aware that that disclaimer had been made publicly from the get-go.

Thank you,
M
 
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