The Gaming Den

Like I mentioned in the fanboy thread, I'm splitting the discussion of Star Wars EU canon, or more specifically the relationship of expansion material and movies from there.

So here are my two contentions.

1) A movie should be universally accessible. If you have to look at something outside of a movie to understand what's going on then the movie has failed you and so have the film-makers.

2) Star Wars fandom has two subtle but distinct factions to it. The people who only watch the movies (and which may or may not include the Clone Wars shorts) and those of the movies and the expansion material. When we're talking about anything canon to the series, it's completely legit for the former faction to declare anything in the latter non-canon. Why is that? Well, here's where I think I may be wrong.

While George Lucas has been doing some fence-straddling to try not to anger fans too much, all in all he doesn't really consider what happens in the EU canon either -- the EU is a separate but related continuity and what happens in there does not and should not have affect what's going on when you're talking about 'Star Wars'.

So, opinions?

Hey, guess what, Lucasfilm Licencing has an actual policy.

Behold!

Although it does say that if George Lucas feels like it he can arbitrarily override the EU for a new movie.

George Lucas is an artist (yes he is). As an artist he doesn't like others dictating what he can or can't make when he wants to make a movie (hence why he'll even contradict his previously made films).

So, the policy is, that George Lucas's stuff is Ultra-Canon, and the EU has to shift itself around to include his changes.

George Lucas is also a businessman, and he recognizes that he can make a lot of money off of letting people put the Star Wars label on their stuff.

At any rate, I don't consider a lot of George Lucas's decisions in his movies to be that good so I have no problem with the idea of EU stuff being canon. In my opinion, crap is crap and pleasing is pleasing whether or not it was made by Lucas or not. I'm concerned more about Quality rather than author.

--Bill

Lago PARANOIA wrote:1) A movie should be universally accessible. If you have to look at something outside of a movie to understand what's going on then the movie has failed you and so have the film-makers.

This is true. But that has nothing to do with anything, because the prequels are bad movies, and no one in the world would claim otherwise. You just are arguing about non-existent plot holes instead of real ones.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:2) Star Wars fandom has two subtle but distinct factions to it. The people who only watch the movies (and which may or may not include the Clone Wars shorts) and those of the movies and the expansion material. When we're talking about anything canon to the series, it's completely legit for the former faction to declare anything in the latter non-canon. Why is that? Well, here's where I think I may be wrong.

While George Lucas has been doing some fence-straddling to try not to anger fans too much, all in all he doesn't really consider what happens in the EU canon either -- the EU is a separate but related continuity and what happens in there does not and should not have affect what's going on when you're talking about 'Star Wars'.

So, opinions?

See, this is why you should seriously stop making pronouncements about George Lucas and EU and Star Wars Fandom with absolutely no knowledge of the subject. If it is possible at all, I think you have negative knowledge on this subject.

Actual breakdown of Star Wars "fandom."

For simplicity sake, I am going to assume everyone who matters even a little bit has watched all 6 movies.

1) People who have never read Expanded Universe stuff:

a) People who like only the IV-VI. These people are not Star Wars fans, they are just normal people who like good movies, and ignored parts of RotJ.

b) People who only like the prequels. These people are five years old. When they hit eight, they will change their mind.

c) People who like all the movies. These people are easily amused and just like everything they see.

Note that not a single one of those is a fan. Anyone who seriously cared about Star Wars enough to be a fan would enter into the EU somehow, because I seriously trip over EU shit that clutters bookstores and libraries.

2) People who have entered into EU:

a) They hate it, because they ran into crap. If they hate EU stuff that is bad, it means they actually have some qualifications, so I guarandamntee you they hated the prequels.

b) people who like some EU stuff-have taste, probably hate prequels.

c) People who like all EU stuff- these are the people who like everything they ever encounter, they can count as fanboys though.

Bottom Line, no one in the universe likes all six movies and doesn't like EU. That is a subset of people that doesn't exist.

George Lucas really does make the EU canon, and he really does interfere with it all the time, and he really does come up with actual plots and pay better authors to write them out.

EU is not a separate but related continuity. There is a continuity called Star Wars that includes the original trilogy, all the books with ABY as a date, and the general plot of the second set of movies that ignores the stupid shit.

What you are doing in D&D terms is claiming that there are people who play their game with the 3.5 PHB, the 4e PHB, and not the Complete Series, and that people who play with the 3.5 and Complete need to recognize that the Complete Series isn't as official as the 4e PHB.

You are talking gibberish.

If you seriously take the prequels as part of the movie continuity, they contradict the actual star wars movies, IV-VI. You can't put all six on the same time line at all.

Speaking of star wars canon, where exactly do Burger King commercials fit in?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiJ5D9X4FEc

Would you says that is cannon, or super cannon?

There is no cannon, only stories.

Okay, really, Kaelik, what is your deal?

I got my information from wikipedia which was either wrong or I misunderstood. So now the record is set straight.

So can you please kindly stop flipping out? I'm asking nicely. Trust me, this is not a big deal so just chill with the rabid insults.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Okay, really, Kaelik, what is your deal?

I got my information from wikipedia which was either wrong or I misunderstood. So now the record is set straight.

So can you please kindly stop flipping out? I'm asking nicely. Trust me, this is not a big deal so just chill with the rabid insults.

What rabid insults?

You know what? It was bad faith of me to bring issues from one thread to another, especially when I slammed Bigode for doing that awhile ago.

I apologize.

My opinion of the EU material as a whole is not fit to print.

I am EU fan style 2b. Timothy Zahn is good. Everyone else can seriously suck my unwashed balls, because they do. That badly.

Shame about Grand Admiral Thrawn, and don't even get me fucking started on New Jedi Order. They killed Chewbacca. "It took the Yuuzhan Vong dropping on moon onto the planet to kill the big Wook." Actual quote. FAIL! They killed Anakin Solo, who is Han & Leia's youngest kid for those of you who don't know. I think they may have killed Mara Jade. And the Jedi couldn't Pwn because "The Yuuzhan Vong don't show up in the Force." I seriously read like two, and was all "fuck this shit." They fucking took nineteen goddamn books and I don't even know how many different authors to tell one of the shittiest sagas of all time. Timothy Zahn, a well-respected sci-fi and fellow EU author, fucking hated it. There is not enough goddamn hatred in the universe to rain down upon the series that this thing fucking deserves.

I hate that shit more than I hate Jar Jar Binks, which is a lot. Jar Jar is annoying. But he's one dude. This is an entire series worth of fail and fuckups.

Some more examples of fail: The Sun Crusher. Maw Installation. Centerpoint Station. The Fallanessi. X-Wing pilots as Commandos. Erm... I know there's more but it's just not coming.

I think I stopped trying to read every book because what was being done to the universe and characters honestly made me kind of sad inside.

For the record, prequels are "meh" on the side of "they could have done so much better." My favorite part was seriously anything with Liam Neeson in it. Everything else save maybe Yoda with a lightsaber was... crap.

Fuck that's a lot of fucking fucks in there. I guess my opinion is stronger than I thought.

FUCK!!!

It gets worse. The Yuuzhan Vong aren't invisible to the "unifying force," or whatever they called that bullshit super powered force that uses both of the sides or some such shit. It seems that the dark side isn't inherently evil...it just happened that every single person who ever used it was. I found one of the 18 books decent, and liked a couple of scenes here and there but it was a waste of space otherwise. I think that those comics set like 4000 years before Yavin were pretty good, Zhan was consistently good, and Shadows of the Empire was good.

I've only read a few of the EU books, mostly because they kept getting worse the more of them came out. I liked Timothy Zahn's books, Kevin J. Anderson's were kind of meh (especially the part where he has to invent the Sun Crusher and just up the ante on the Death Star). Everything else just kind of went downhill, suffering from the twin problems of a) can't make a villain as interesting as Darth Vader and b) can't find plots more interesting than bigger WMDs or even more evil darksiders.

And that was before R.A. Salvatore went all Marvel Comics on the settings and killed main characters and turned miscellaneous people evil for the hell of it.

As for the prequels:

Episode I: Too juvenile.
Episode II: Put me to sleep so bad that I didn't even see the telegraphed setup for the Episode III "plot twist."
Episode III: The best of the three, boldly rising to the level of meh.

1) Vong series is pretty long and makes no sense, and is only decently written at best for most books.

Zahn is great, and we all know that, even people who hate Star Wars.

2) Don't say Salvatore went all whatever on the setting. That's exactly what I'm talking about. George Lucas told the coalition of writers they had to kill a main character in the first book, and sat in on meeting where they decided it was Chewie. Salvatore was just told to kill him.

3) Speaking of Lucas fucking with the Vong shit, if you actually read it, did you notice a BS switcheroo from Anakin to Jacen as main character at about Star by Star? That's because Lucas executive ordered that, even though they had been setting Jacen up for heroic sacrifice, and Anakin for main character, that they had to kill Anakin, because he didn't want anyone confusing Anakin Solo with Anakin Skywalker.

I mean, the story is mostly pretty crappy anyway, but switching half way is fucking hilarious.

(Also, the Unifying Force is even dumber then that. It's not being good and evil at once, it's just being good in a slightly different way, and accepting that morals are relative. That's right, Moral Relativism gives ultimate power to people operating an objective force of the universe.)

It's been a long time since I've really read any of the EU. I have two of the three Zahn books somewhere around here, I have a couple of books of short stories--Tales from the Empire and Tales from the New Republic.

I forgot one book that I thought was good, The Han Solo Adventures is a nice set of three books that I did enjoy.

I have not read them, but a friend of mine says that the Mageworlds novels are the most entertaining Star Wars fiction he's ever read. Despite being (sort of) not set in the Star Wars universe.

They were originally written as Star Wars fiction, then for one reason or another the authors didn't manage to get the go-ahead to publish under the franchise, so they went back and rubbed off all the serial numbers and published anyway.

Kaelik wrote:1) Vong series is pretty long and makes no sense, and is only decently written at best for most books.

Zahn is great, and we all know that, even people who hate Star Wars.

Agreed. Frankly, I think the Star Wars franchise would have been better off if Zahn had written the prequels.

2) Don't say Salvatore went all whatever on the setting. That's exactly what I'm talking about. George Lucas told the coalition of writers they had to kill a main character in the first book, and sat in on meeting where they decided it was Chewie. Salvatore was just told to kill him.

My apologies. I didn't hang around Star Wars message boards going over the inside baseball, so all I heard was that Salvatore's first novel killed off Chewbacca. Then I read a bunch of dust jackets about evil twins and stuff and decided that I didn't want to read the New Jedi Order.

3) Speaking of Lucas fucking with the Vong shit, if you actually read it, did you notice a BS switcheroo from Anakin to Jacen as main character at about Star by Star? That's because Lucas executive ordered that, even though they had been setting Jacen up for heroic sacrifice, and Anakin for main character, that they had to kill Anakin, because he didn't want anyone confusing Anakin Solo with Anakin Skywalker.

I mean, the story is mostly pretty crappy anyway, but switching half way is fucking hilarious.

That's the problem with working with franchises. I've heard that half of the really stupid stuff in FR novels happened because of clueless executives.

[(Also, the Unifying Force is even dumber then that. It's not being good and evil at once, it's just being good in a slightly different way, and accepting that morals are relative. That's right, Moral Relativism gives ultimate power to people operating an objective force of the universe.)

And hearing this kind of stuff makes me glad I didn't wade hip deep into the EU.