Pop Goes The Expanded Universe
Del Rey dropped the bomb at Chicago's C2E2 today, first by announcing that everything that takes place after ROTJ in the magical world of books, comics, and games is not a true continuation of the films and will be rebranded as "Star Wars (Urban) Legends." Read the whole presser and watch the video here:
http://starwars.com/news/the-legendary-star-wars-expanded-universe-turns-a-new-page.html
Basic points to get from all of that:
*This was inevitable from the moment Lucasfilm announced new movies and in fact, backing up over the EU continuity has been happening for years. It happened with the prequels and Clone Wars. There was just no way they were going to let themselves get bogged down by often contradictory and not-always-faithful-to-the-films storylines that no one outside of that cadre of determined book readers cared about.
*While it's officially apocrypha now, it's possible future cartoons, t.v. shows, and movies will borrow from these books if desired. After all, Lucas used "Coruscant" for the prequels instead of his original Had Abbadon or whatever it was. But nobody has to regard the characters or situations at all.
*Everything from the first new novel, based on "Rebels," counts in the Star Wars continuity. The upcoming Darth Maul comic book counts as canon too. I think this will lead to greater cross-promotion across all platforms of upcoming projects, i.e. the movies dropping hints at stuff that happens in the books and vice versa.
*There's no word yet on how this change will affect material like KOTOR that don't touch the time period of the films or books like "Darth Plagueis" that give further background to existing films or the multimedia extravaganza "Shadows of the Empire."
The other bomb dropped at this panel was the announcement of new, honest-to-God 100% pure canon books coming out late '14 into '15:
"A New Dawn" by John Jackson Miller, based on "Rebels"
"Tarkin" by James Luceno
"Heir to the Jedi" by Kevin Hearne
"Lords of the Sith" by Paul S. Kemp
If "Tarkin" is anywhere near as good as "Darth Plagueis" or "Dark Lord of the Sith," it's going to be the one to read IMO. But I don't know, that Sithfest looks interesting. Here you can see the pretty book covers:
https://www.facebook.com/starwarsbooks
One more thing. Lucasfilm shouldn't have waited 20 odd years for this to happen. It should've been made clear a long time ago that this was speculative fiction based on the films and ultimately the films ARE what happened. I regarded the books as paid fan fiction and a game of exquisite cadaver right about the time the books started to annoy me. But I understand people who came to love those books are disappointed and now don't know what to think. Clearing that up before people got too invested would've saved a lot of grief.
http://starwars.com/news/the-legendary-star-wars-expanded-universe-turns-a-new-page.html
Basic points to get from all of that:
*This was inevitable from the moment Lucasfilm announced new movies and in fact, backing up over the EU continuity has been happening for years. It happened with the prequels and Clone Wars. There was just no way they were going to let themselves get bogged down by often contradictory and not-always-faithful-to-the-films storylines that no one outside of that cadre of determined book readers cared about.
*While it's officially apocrypha now, it's possible future cartoons, t.v. shows, and movies will borrow from these books if desired. After all, Lucas used "Coruscant" for the prequels instead of his original Had Abbadon or whatever it was. But nobody has to regard the characters or situations at all.
*Everything from the first new novel, based on "Rebels," counts in the Star Wars continuity. The upcoming Darth Maul comic book counts as canon too. I think this will lead to greater cross-promotion across all platforms of upcoming projects, i.e. the movies dropping hints at stuff that happens in the books and vice versa.
*There's no word yet on how this change will affect material like KOTOR that don't touch the time period of the films or books like "Darth Plagueis" that give further background to existing films or the multimedia extravaganza "Shadows of the Empire."
The other bomb dropped at this panel was the announcement of new, honest-to-God 100% pure canon books coming out late '14 into '15:
"A New Dawn" by John Jackson Miller, based on "Rebels"
"Tarkin" by James Luceno
"Heir to the Jedi" by Kevin Hearne
"Lords of the Sith" by Paul S. Kemp
If "Tarkin" is anywhere near as good as "Darth Plagueis" or "Dark Lord of the Sith," it's going to be the one to read IMO. But I don't know, that Sithfest looks interesting. Here you can see the pretty book covers:
https://www.facebook.com/starwarsbooks
One more thing. Lucasfilm shouldn't have waited 20 odd years for this to happen. It should've been made clear a long time ago that this was speculative fiction based on the films and ultimately the films ARE what happened. I regarded the books as paid fan fiction and a game of exquisite cadaver right about the time the books started to annoy me. But I understand people who came to love those books are disappointed and now don't know what to think. Clearing that up before people got too invested would've saved a lot of grief.