What doomed, in your opinion, the Star Wars Old Extended Universe ?

[sarahtasher]

(An EU that covered movie, games, books, etc, thus maybe unfit for the OT)

When Disney took over LucasFilms, the EU was (famously) reseted. To the dismay of many fans (including me, who have bought pretty much every Star Wars books of the Old Eu, except Karen Traviss ones). When you think about it, it was a sort of necessity-the EU was simply not adaptable into movies. (Think about how a very simple plot point like ''The Republic funds covertly the Resistance'' was poorly explained in SW VII-how you could have crammed the Vong War, the second galactic civil war, the Emperor clones, the peace treaty with the Empire...in one movie ?) But when the EU went off rails ?

IMO, as someone who have read pretty much all the books...

A)A rather improbable succession of events for a strictly canon perspective. The Old EU followed a strict canon (IE, everything happened, not ''what you read is something that could have happened'', like for instance one of the dozens of iterations of Batman) Kylo Ren EU counterpart, Jacen Solo, had the following life before becoming Darth Caedus

1)When he is two or three years old, the Emperor burst into his nursery and try to steal the body of his younger brother Anakin (that sounds stupid, but that was in Dark Empire, so it goes with the setting)
2)A few months later, he is attacked by a Sith Lord, Exar Kun, and end up defending the comatose body of Luke Skywalker (it sounds stupider, but that was in Jedi Academy , so it goes with the setting)
3)He is kidnapped for the first time a few years later, and is brainwashed as an Imperial agent
4)While on vacation, he is then kidnapped by his dad racist cousin (and incompetent Slobodan Milosevic expy. I mean he is incompetent a being the tinpot racist tyrant of an hellhole.)
5)Presumably, he is kidnapped or victim of a couple of murder plot in comics (I know for sure of one in Crimson Empire, but did not read all comics)
6)Now a teenager, he goes to Jedi school and have a couple of facepalm inducing adventures (including at least two kidnappings and brainwashing plots, being rejected by Jedi girls (after slicing off their arms...) as well as fighting drugs. I'm not kidding. It sound extremely stupid, but it was in Young Jedi Knights, which make the Phantom Menace looks like Citizen Kane)
7)The superinvaders from beyond the galaxy invade, and Jacen is immediately captured on the very first planet they invade. He finds love with a designated hot scientist shackled to the same gnarly tentacled gimmick. Jacen is captured and shackled to the said tentacle device a couple of times (The scientist will eventually dump him to go study the torture tentacles and the owners of the said tentacles)
8)Jacen tactical advice leads to the vaporisation of half the Republic fleet at Fondor
9)Jacen realize that he mights not be the best Jedi around and give up on the Force (finally). But then because of this his mother his tortured (with tentacles) in front of him
10)In one of the most facepalm moments ever in StarWars, the Yuutzan Vong design a bioweapon to hunt Jedi (who are around 100 at this time) Luke, showing stellar tactical accumen decide to send a fifth of his entire order against the factory of the said bioweapon, the one specifically made to hunt Jedi. All the teenagers and one veteran. After seeing his brother die and half of the strike team, Jacen is captured
11)Jacen is captured and brainwashed. He is let, Theron Grevjoy style, escape to be recaptured and retortured. (Three times). He make friends with a Yuutzan Vong terraforming device, that torture him (There was really a problem with torture in the Vong arc...) ...



After all those experiences, Uncle Luke let Jacen walk the galaxy all alone, to meet various Sith psychos. Result ? (While highly sarcastic, this is a very summarized list of what happen to Jacen before he turns dark. In addition to the mockery about being easily captured and tortured, the accumulation of kidnapping and brainwashing plots ends up making the whole thing more or less credible)

(the other possible expy of Kylo Ren, Ben Skywalker, have it considerably easier. While he is often captured and tortured, he attracts rather the attention of pretty Sith ladies who certainly want to convert him to the Dark side, but by bedding him)

B) In the Del Rey era of books publishing, there was an attempt to integrate everything, which lead to rather farcical plotlines, as it was usually not the good elements that got from books to books.

For instance, in the god awful ''Jedi Academy'' trilogy, we are introduced to a cluster of black holes, the Maw, that house a super top secret weapon ressearch facility (one that keep churning godawful superweapons). It's really a whole new kind of stupid, as this facility can't communicate with the outside and have a military leader unwilling to contact the outside after 10 years of silence (the Empire can apparently lose a top secret weapon facility that worked on the Death Star and the four capital ships guarding it). It was at best a servicable concept. But the Maw keep getting used

1)For housing Jedi kids during the Vong war (it would not be such a stupid concept if, judging by the map, the Maw was deep inside not only occupied Vong terrirtory, but inside territory that never was really controlled by the Republic)

2)And, just happen to be the place where superadvanced aliens built a superadvanced prison of blackholes to keep one gnarly superevil force entity captive (thanks Luke for providing her force morsels to eat during her captivity)

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Part of it was probably the fanbase. Nerds being nerds, they'd try hard to stick to established canon, forget one small detail, and there would be outrage. Add to that adaptation changes that are necessary when making any film from a book, and you're going to get a lot of angry fans. If you start fresh, you're in a better position.

[Jotaux]

I liked the EU and really wanted to see where they went with Vestara Khai and Ben Skywalker. I think what doomed it is that Disney did not want to be shackled to a set story.

[Venant]

It's difficult trying to create a comprehensive universe that is also consistent when you have lots of different writers working on it. I would say one of the big problems is that they relied way too much on creating more stories about pre-existing characters.

[Nobleshield]

The sheer depth of it IMHO. Plus it got pretty silly with the constant "the galaxy is at peace, oh wait no here's some other threat, and people hate the Jedi again". Although I did really like the "Legacy of the Force" comics (never finished them though) and thought they were pretty well done. Really though, to do another movie there was two realistic outcomes:

1) Throw everything away except the other movies, people get upset
2) Use a plot from the novels (e.g. NJO, Yuuzhan Vong) and if/when it's not 100% the same, people get upset

I would have honestly preferred something like a movie that took place in the past, since there's thousands of years between let's say KOTOR and Episode I. Basically how SWTOR managed to fit in to the canon; it could have taken place like 500 years before Episode I and had some things to relate the general plot to make it Star Wars (plus Yoda, because he's Yoda) and have it feel like Star Wars without retconning what, 30 years (?) of novels.

[Thoughtcrime]

In a nutshell? It was awful.

[Yvaelle]

Maintaining continuity was virtually impossible because of all the material to date. Not to make this about religion, but identifying what is and isn't canonical in such a massive body of (essentially) fan fiction is impossible.

That's why Disney pulled the equivalent of the Council of Nicaea - ruled that everyone writing 50 Shades of Jesus slash was non-canonical, and only the new testament was legit. Same deal with the Star Wars EU, at some point you need to take a good hard look at all the mountains of material that have been produced by hundreds of authors of widely varied competency, skill, and SW expertise - and start cutting away the fat.

[Skroe]

(1) It was mostly garbage.

(2) The sequel trilogies (yes there will be more) and the spin-offs will likely cover much of the same ground as the EU, and there was no way the two could co-exist. The Force Awakens can't co-exist with the Solo Twins, the Yuzanvong War, or any of that stuff. Writers need to have a free hand.

(3) The old EU had remarkably little discipline on the part of writers, who thought up ever more outlandish and powerful superweapons, and ever more Halo-level "hidden ancient history" nonsense. The Fate of the Jedi series really capped it off, where the Jedi fought basically a C'thulian Old God Force creature thing that the last of the Forerun... er I mean the Ones, locked away.

Fiction goes to shit when writers indluge their whims and excuse it by saying anything can happen. Warcraft is a textbook example of that. The game's been great to play. The story though? WoW's story have been gutter trash for years.

[sarahtasher]

(1) It was mostly garbage.

(2) The sequel trilogies (yes there will be more) and the spin-offs will likely cover much of the same ground as the EU, and there was no way the two could co-exist. The Force Awakens can't co-exist with the Solo Twins, the Yuzanvong War, or any of that stuff. Writers need to have a free hand.

(3) The old EU had remarkably little discipline on the part of writers, who thought up ever more outlandish and powerful superweapons, and ever more Halo-level "hidden ancient history" nonsense. The Fate of the Jedi series really capped it off, where the Jedi fought basically a C'thulian Old God Force creature thing that the last of the Forerun... er I mean the Ones, locked away.

Fiction goes to shit when writers indluge their whims and excuse it by saying anything can happen. Warcraft is a textbook example of that. The game's been great to play. The story though? WoW's story have been gutter trash for years.

Well, Abeloth surely beats ''Imperial Warlord''.

[zealo]

The absurd power creep EU characters has with characters like the Emperor. Some of the things star wars force users do in the EU is insane.

[sarahtasher]

The absurd power creep EU characters has with characters like the Emperor. Some of the things star wars force users do in the EU is insane.

What does not help there is the rather low difference except in power levels between Force users. I mean, in Marvel and DCU, superheroes at least have different abilities (altough it still boil down to punching vilains) : all Jedis have the same skillsets : some have battle meditation, some are good starfighter pilots, and that's it.

[primalmatter]

Wasn't most of it retconed back in?

They brought back Grand Admiral Thrawn and the idea of "gray" jedi.

[The Penguin]

No complaints. I was mad at first, but now I'm very pleased. The Yuuzhan Vong never should of been. Now they are that. They never were.

[Deleted]

Disney did.

[Rooflesstoofless]

Were the prequels part of that universe? Because I hated those. Everything else I've seen I've enjoyed so far even the one where the Diabeetus guy, Drew Berrymore and the Ewoks get in a fight with Endus.

[zealo]

Wasn't most of it retconed back in?

They brought back Grand Admiral Thrawn and the idea of "gray" jedi.

Some, but most of it would be a stretch. All of the clone wars tv series is canon, but anything not found in there was tossed out.

[sarahtasher]

For all the scorn heaped on Georges, the franchise was always pretty clear on one key point : Luke is the last Jedi. (I'm pretty sure Kanan, Ashoka and Ezra won't reach Rogue One).

That was a huge flaw of the old EU, since there is a staggering amount of Jedis that went into hiding and an even more staggering amount of Jedis turning up to be relative of main characters (example : the niece of Ackbar and the nephew of Chewbacca. No, I'm not kidding) not to mention the amount of people that are in fact Jedis, but are conveniently discovered along the way (Kyle Katarn, Corran Horn, Kyp Durron...) That's a general problem of Star Wars, but very prevalent there : Jedis are supposed to be rare, not make over 50% of the cast !

[dwightyo39]

Heir to the empire is the only series not to get too silly.

[Mister Cheese]

The EU was a fucking mess that had tons of stories tacked on to already existing ones.

[Goldielocks]

I don't understand the problem here. To me, it looks like Disney is recannonizing all of the best parts of the EU, starting with Thrawn. A lot of it was shit, and they're throwing it all out.

For all the scorn heaped on Georges, the franchise was always pretty clear on one key point : Luke is the last Jedi. (I'm pretty sure Kanan, Ashoka and Ezra won't reach Rogue One).

Ashoka doesn't consider herself a Jedi during Rebels, so she might survive honestly. Kanan will definitely die. As for Ezra, he might become a dark side user. It's unclear at this point.