Hunter_13
Rear Admiral
LOAF has built a spreadsheet that fleshes out all of the new canon. I believe it is a few pages back in this thread...
That said, I feel your pain.
[SPOILERS] Star Wars movie thread... [Don't read this thread if you haven't seen the movie yet]
- Thread starter AD
- Start date
That said, I feel your pain.
LeHah
212 Squadron - "The Old Man's Eyes And Ears"
Abrams likened First Order to "...what would have happened if the Nazis all went to Argentina but then started working together again’” So I was likely projecting that quote a bit. (Though I should also say that the whole "splinter group of the Republic waiting around for the Empire to rearm" reminded me a bit too much of the opening prologue to the Battlestar Galactica reboot? Theres a lot of that though: just like how
Kylo Ren is actually Han Solo's Evil Son... just like in the EU novels!
I dislike about 95% of the Expanded Universe - so much of it is badly written malarkey about super weapons and super Jedi, so I'm certainly the wrong person to ask! - but I rather like the Thrawn material a lot. That said, I do think it needs to be discarded. Its bloated and ugly and full of obviously awkward writing (KOTOR was practically written to avoid the prequels by making an even OLDER prequel!) and if we start cannibalizing EU for what we like and don't like, then all the new material is for naught. This is about wiping the slate clean of good and bad stuff. (That said, if Episode VII is indicative of what the future holds for Star Wars, then its going to be no better than EU was.)
I do think we'll see some things from the prequels (we had Ewan McGregor already!)... but it's going to be stuff that fans recognize and never something so obscure as basing your three movie plot around something no one remembers Palpatine talking about (or, if they do, something no one remembers WHY) Always good to look at this sort of thing broadly: the people who know all these details, who read all the comics and novels (you know, us) are .1% of the people who are going to go see the movie... scripts will be written for them, but never to them.
"For them, not to them" is really the way writing SHOULD be. But all major franchises today are written "for the fans". Look no further than the new Deadpool movie or cameos of Tribbles in the Trek reboots.
capi3101
Admiral
In Star Wars, canon is the thing you use to shoot the other guy... <rim_shot /> <gunshot />
NinjaLA
Alex Von T.
there isn't much to be confused about. episodes 1-3 are still canon, the clone wars tv series is still canon, episodes 4-6 are obviously still canon and all the books they wrote in the lead up to episode VII are new canon. older books and supplemental stuff is labeled as 'starwars legends' now. I almost forgot. Rebels is also canon.
That said.. I'd be pretty surprised if snoke turned out to be darth plaguis or a clone palaptine or something dumb. I think they are setting him up to be just an ancient alien who's seen a lot of things come and go in his lifetime. I actually saw someone argue that nobody lives that long in star wars not too long ago. have they totally forgotten yoda?
and I'm pretty sure if someone drops you off on a desert planet as a kid and you somehow survive to your 20s there is a lot you can do to survive that a normal 20-something can not, force sensitive or no.
That said.. I'd be pretty surprised if snoke turned out to be darth plaguis or a clone palaptine or something dumb. I think they are setting him up to be just an ancient alien who's seen a lot of things come and go in his lifetime. I actually saw someone argue that nobody lives that long in star wars not too long ago. have they totally forgotten yoda?
and I'm pretty sure if someone drops you off on a desert planet as a kid and you somehow survive to your 20s there is a lot you can do to survive that a normal 20-something can not, force sensitive or no.
Mindcrime
Commodore
You got it right other than the EU stuff. Thats all gone now. They can take bits and pieces of it and make it their own when they see fit but ALL the EU stuff is no longer cannon. Just the Aftermath book, animated series, and the movies are cannon now.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Everything but the last rule is accurate. What we once called the EU is entirely separate now, though... even when it doesn't contradict (which was never how a canon actually worked, but Lucasfilm tiptoed around that to sell books
)Other things that are canon:
- Any comics published by Marvel starting in 2015 (but not classic reprints)
- The unreleased Clone Wars episodes that have appeared in several formats (including online, as a comic book miniseries and as a recent novel)
- The short comic strips in Star Wars Rebels magazine.
- Short stories in Star Wars: Insider magazine, starting with Blade Squadron, Part 1 in 2014
- Novels, YA and Jr. books published since a specific point in 2014
Old Republic (and even the ongoing MMO) are non-canon as well.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
And I'll share this again for fans of incredible minutiae, a spreadsheet I keep (just updated!) of new canon stories: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MmpxlGkotnqlWWRkJxpMWaImH-9JXxH5Ixt642oVq-w/edit?usp=sharing
LeHah
212 Squadron - "The Old Man's Eyes And Ears"
The one and only thing I need to know about is the Radio Dramas. They were actually confirmed canon by Lucasfilm prior to the Disney buyout (as they were based on the original scripts and produced by Lucas directly, and provided with all the sound FX from the films to NPR for $1) but haven't been mentioned since.
The reason I brought this up is that the ROTJ radio drama has a really obscure "in-joke" where C3PO meets a dancer at Jabba's palace named Arica - which was Mara Jade's cover in one of the Zahn novels - throwing the whole thing into a mess of "Is this still legit"?
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
I think that's an example of the exact opposite... my mom knows Tribbles (or Khan)... those are cloying 'everybody knows this is a Star Trek thing!' touches.
No opinion of Deadpool, save to note that I kind of wonder if Star Wars is going to slowly strangle the Marvel movies to death now. It'll be interesting to see how people respond to Rogue One compared to these increasingly strained comic adaptations.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
No longer canon; the radio dramas are 'Legends' now.
(But you know, everybody should sort of see what a scam it was under the previous system. Everything is canon, until someone contradicts it! means it wasn't ever canon to begin with.
)
LeHah
212 Squadron - "The Old Man's Eyes And Ears"
At the same time, the tribble or Khan thing in Into Darkness left non-Trekkies scratching their head. (Perhaps not the best example given how the writers were fans themselves and tasked themselves to microwave leftovers from Nic Meyer's material?) Its not good-storytelling when you reference the previous "world" in the current one and the audience lacks context.
I have zero opinion on Deadpool myself but there is a lot of people who seem to be inching away from the comic book properties. I get the feeling people are nearing burnout or a level of saturation that will hurt the series as it goes on. (Which is a shame, Dr Strange is the first Marvel property I've looked forward to in some time).
Rogue One will be an interesting thing to see since its the first spin-off. My worries aside, I'm sure it'll make plenty of coin to justify further (and increasingly less worthy) titles in the universe.
No longer canon; the radio dramas are 'Legends' now.
(But you know, everybody should sort of see what a scam it was under the previous system. Everything is canon, until someone contradicts it! means it wasn't ever canon to begin with.
Oh the old Star Wars canon nonsense was headache inducing. Of all the major franchises out there, it was easily the worst one I can think of with all those damn tiers.
I am sorry to hear that the Radio Dramas were sorta kicked out of the cool kids table. Its long been my favorite incarnation of the saga.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
I don’t share the general population’s opinion about the ‘split’ being anything negative at all. There’s a great, great Dune quote: “Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife – chopping off what’s incomplete and saying: ‘Now, it’s complete because it ended here.’” I love the idea that that’s exactly what happened to Star Wars: you have one body of work, Legends, that’s whole now for no other reason than because it’s done… and then you have a new one to grow from. Nothing about two things sharing the same elements (the original movies, some TV shows, a couple comics) strikes me as a bad thing, or even different from anything else in the world. It’s mythology at its most pure… here’s how the Greeks viewed it, here’s how the Romans viewed it, etc.
Star Wars in 2012 was daunting. I’d given up trying to keep up with comics, novels, games, etc… but now I’m not just following the new stuff, I’m going back to the Legends material (started with Splinter of the Mind’s Eye!) knowing it has an ending, a point where I’ve made it through the whole thing. I think that’s great! (I also love that it's honest and ordered in a way most other properties aren't. How many Star Trek universes are there REALLY? The TV canon, the FASA game, the new movies, the books, Starfleet Battles and so on and so on forever... why not embrace that instead of pretending there's a corporate mandate telling us to throw out some bit or bob we enjoyed?)
Star Wars in 2012 was daunting. I’d given up trying to keep up with comics, novels, games, etc… but now I’m not just following the new stuff, I’m going back to the Legends material (started with Splinter of the Mind’s Eye!) knowing it has an ending, a point where I’ve made it through the whole thing. I think that’s great! (I also love that it's honest and ordered in a way most other properties aren't. How many Star Trek universes are there REALLY? The TV canon, the FASA game, the new movies, the books, Starfleet Battles and so on and so on forever... why not embrace that instead of pretending there's a corporate mandate telling us to throw out some bit or bob we enjoyed?)
NinjaLA
Alex Von T.
I agree fully there.. the canon split was the single greatest thing that Disney did when they got the license. I also think it would have been a train wreck if they had followed george lucas' policy of 'everything new, nothing retro' I think there's about a billion reasons he's absolutely wrong about that.
I'm more excited for star wars now than I have been in almost 20 years.
I'm more excited for star wars now than I have been in almost 20 years.
Quarto
Unknown Enemy
The purist in me takes great delight in the way that all the post-RoTJ stuff just got swept off the table. I've never actually read even a single Star Wars novel, nor a comic, and I've also played remarkably few games, the exception being most of the stuff that came out in the 1990s. One reason why I've never had the inclination to do these things is because time and again, I'd hear from people about some of the stuff that happens after the final film, and it was utterly horrid. I'm sure a lot of it was great in terms of writing quality, but I'm willing to go so far out on a limb as to claim that every single work that had carried on the "big" stories (involving the main characters, or big events) post-RoTJ was actually contrary to the spirit of the Star Wars universe. It undermined the mythic quality of the series, and the way it ended. Don't get me wrong, though - the emphasis here is on big stories. I utterly love "little" stories that don't really explain much, but provide tiny little details throughout. One of my favourite Star Wars games, predictably, is the X-Wing series, and wasn't it fantastic how so much of that game took place before ANH, and ultimately led to nothing significant? All we got to see is the "routine" of the Rebellion, of small victories followed by bigger defeats. Routine missions that try to make a difference, and usually don't. Even the mission where you escorted Princess Leia's ship was of this kind, precisely because you know what happened next from the film - yeah, great, do your job, brave Rebel pilot. Save the corvette, let it escape. Good job - oh, and by the way, it was overtaken and captured a day later. But you keep on fighting. Similar to this, all those Boba Fett stories, though I never read any of them, sound great in concept - here's this sinister character who got about five minutes of screen time in the films, and yet played such a pivotal role. Let's see what else he did, entirely unrelated to the epic primary story. It's great, as long as it has no bearing on the main story, as long as it can be ignored entirely.
In this sense, I'm actually really glad that the new film provides so little explanation to anything. Star Wars shouldn't get into the minutiae of what happened after RoTJ. I don't want to hear the story explaining how actually, the epic, feel-good victory in RoTJ was nothing more than a little interlude, and the heroes immediately proceeded to muck things up. Far better that these things remain murky and unexplained, so that RoTJ still feels how it should. Yes, the new film makes it clear that eventually, things went bad again, but at least it's vague enough to allow some openness on how long it took things to go bad again, and how things went bad again. That said, I don't expect this state of affairs to remain for too long - already there's stuff filling in the knowledge gaps and trying to explain as much as possible, leaving less and less to the imagination. For this reason, I will probably continue with my strategy of ignoring all the additional stuff outside of the films. I appreciate the mythical, murky feel of the movies too much to want to spoil them by enjoying the universe behind them.
It's an interesting topic, really. What I wrote above could easily be construed as an accusation of mismanagement of the Star Wars universe by its owners... but how can it be mismanagement, if most people love what they're doing? It seems to me that it's more like a conflict of interests between narrative and world. From a world-building perspective, all that stuff is great. But when you take a great, strongly-structured narrative, and surround it with so many events that its distinctive structure melds into the surroundings, you lose something.
By the way, some of you might enjoy reading this (very lengthy) analysis of the structure of the Star Wars films, and the complex web of relations between the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy:
http://www.starwarsringtheory.com/ring-composition-chiasmus-hidden-artistry-star-wars-prequels/
Edit:
). I didn't know it was online. I'll proceed to download it immediately, and then probably never watch it, because as fun as it might be to experience such utter badness, it's still a terrible waste of an hour and a half of my time .
In this sense, I'm actually really glad that the new film provides so little explanation to anything. Star Wars shouldn't get into the minutiae of what happened after RoTJ. I don't want to hear the story explaining how actually, the epic, feel-good victory in RoTJ was nothing more than a little interlude, and the heroes immediately proceeded to muck things up. Far better that these things remain murky and unexplained, so that RoTJ still feels how it should. Yes, the new film makes it clear that eventually, things went bad again, but at least it's vague enough to allow some openness on how long it took things to go bad again, and how things went bad again. That said, I don't expect this state of affairs to remain for too long - already there's stuff filling in the knowledge gaps and trying to explain as much as possible, leaving less and less to the imagination. For this reason, I will probably continue with my strategy of ignoring all the additional stuff outside of the films. I appreciate the mythical, murky feel of the movies too much to want to spoil them by enjoying the universe behind them.
It's an interesting topic, really. What I wrote above could easily be construed as an accusation of mismanagement of the Star Wars universe by its owners... but how can it be mismanagement, if most people love what they're doing? It seems to me that it's more like a conflict of interests between narrative and world. From a world-building perspective, all that stuff is great. But when you take a great, strongly-structured narrative, and surround it with so many events that its distinctive structure melds into the surroundings, you lose something.
By the way, some of you might enjoy reading this (very lengthy) analysis of the structure of the Star Wars films, and the complex web of relations between the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy:
http://www.starwarsringtheory.com/ring-composition-chiasmus-hidden-artistry-star-wars-prequels/
Edit:
Oh, wow! Thanks! The Star Wars Holiday Special is one of those things you always hear about, but you never actually see it (because everyone wants to forget it
). I didn't know it was online. I'll proceed to download it immediately, and then probably never watch it, because as fun as it might be to experience such utter badness, it's still a terrible waste of an hour and a half of my time .
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Hunter_13
Rear Admiral
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
At the very least, some of the new novels (at least in paperback) have an actual timeline printed in the front that shows where each book fits between the films.
Edit: Found a pics online... these also seem to be evolving as more books get released
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Mindcrime
Commodore
Sadly..... I watched the whole holiday special about a year ago. It was torture lol.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Ali and I watch the Holiday Special every Thanksgiving... and we're still married!
It is NOT good (and downright boring, the worst sin), but it is fascinating as an artifact.
It is NOT good (and downright boring, the worst sin), but it is fascinating as an artifact.
Mindcrime
Commodore
You guys are very brave for doing that once a year Loaf lol. It is.....an artifact lol.
Ali and I watch the Holiday Special every Thanksgiving... and we're still married!
It is NOT good (and downright boring, the worst sin), but it is fascinating as an artifact.