-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Star Wars |OT3| Somehow, this thread returned
- Thread starter WadiumArcadium
- Start date
- OT
Yes, I really liked both Labyrinth of Evil and Stover's novelization of ROTS. It really elevated the story told in the film back in 2005. I haven't read Rise of Vader yet though, but I might actually do it depending on how long my Star Wars kick will last.
It is a bit upsetting that the great work by both James Luceno and Matt Stover trying to deepen the characterization of Anakin Skywalker and his transformation to Darth Vader has been excluded as non-canon.
Those novels did a better job of developing Anakin (and Obi-Wan) than the entirety of The Clone Wars.
They're the only novels I've rebought for my iPhone/iPad and reread.
I guess I can understand why Disney chose to cut off the post-episode 6 EU because of the ST, but what was their reasoning for the PT era EU? It doesn't make sense to erase super important novels that fix a lot of the flaws of the prequel films.
Because they want to do things in that time period too.
They can't just pick and choose which novels and comics are canon because everyone has a favorite and it becomes extremely confusing to the general audience. "We got rid of everything" is more easy to explain.
I thought that was decided before Disney bought the company and early on during The Clone Wars.
And the ROTS novel was always a lower canon than the movie anyway.
Is it weird that I've always found this whole idea of Jedi hubris to just kind of be nonsense?
I don't know, a lot of examples of it are pretty much just justification for bad writing/plotting from George. But "how did nobody realize it was Palpatine" has always been a criticism I never understood. Palpatine was stronger than all of them. He was able to hide himself from the force. Even then, they sensed a plot to destroy the Jedi that surrounded him, they basically knew he was in cahoots with a Sith Lord in some fashion, they just didn't know to what extent, and they sent Anakin as their last option which was actually a good move. It's only due to bad writing that Anakin betrays the Jedi in that instance.
The proper thing to do for the Jedi is something I don't even think Rey's new Jedi Order, or any new Jedi Order would commit to doing, is to have just kicked Anakin out of the order. That's something you realize in the first 10 minutes of AotC. But we've had two straight trilogies of "well nobodies ever really gone" messaging that kind of flies in the way of that.
Specifically related to the High Republic--I'm a little concerned about this idea that Jedi were having outer rim adventures and literally dumping information exclusively regarding that in random library waystations instead of in the actual Jedi archives. Sounds....bad. Awkward. Dumb.
Yeah, people keep forgetting this but Lucasfilm was already going to erase the EU when Lucas made his own sequel trilogy.
Plus there was no hard dividing line. Characters know mainly as post-OT characters like Mara Jade had stories with them pre-OT as well.
TCW was already riding roughshod over that period too. There were a lot of books written set during the TCW that became increasingly hard to justify as in-canon the longer TCW went on. I'm okay with that, though, given how great TCW is.
I remember back in the old EU there was a whole canon-hierarchy. The movie adaptations were supposedly almost Lucas level canon (G-Canon) because Lucas personally selected the authors and worked with them on the books.
It would've been easier to just have the usual approach that was previously established: that whatever happens in the EU, let's say Labyrinth of Evil, remains valid until negated or disproven by a subsequent entry. Then they could've just easily disregard what takes place in Labyrinth of Evil if they ever wanted to tell a story set right before ROTS begins.
But Drewton could you link something from back in the Lucas days that stated that Clone Wars negated the EU in between AOTC and ROTS? Just curious to see what went down back then.
I pretty much still assume some things are loosely canon until contradicted by canon media. No one can stop me and my head canon. My number one rule is: Skippy is always canon.
Nothing really went down- Lucas was personally involved in the writing of TCW so that automatically elevated it's canon status and also ensure that they wouldn't adhere to prior stories.
The Mandalorians are a big one. Karen Traviss was developing various things about Mandalorians and their culture that were totally changed over-written when TCW started setting stories on Mandalore.
Same thing with anything on Clone Troopers. TCW did so much to develop them in personalization it's weird to go to any pre-TCW story that makes them dry and and monotone.
Also, any TCW-period novel that has Anakin but doesn't reference Ahsoka feels super weird now. Then there are books that featured Ventress before she developed in TCW, etc.
Filoni basically said the microseries was non-canon back in 2008:
"The way George explained it to me going in was that THE CLONE WARS micro-series was really an experiment to see what kind of audience there was for Star Wars in an animated form. There have been droids and Ewoks, but that was a long time ago. So he brought out THE CLONE WARS micro-series, and it was super action-packed and exciting and really short installments. And it proved that people wanted to see STAR WARS in a lot of different mediums. So when we into doing this, I think that, now that George is done with the prequels, he wanted to reestablish the rules a little bit more, like "Mace Windu can't take out hundreds of battle droids by himself, otherwise the arena on Geonosis would've been a wipeout; [The jedi] would've won, and there be no Clone Wars. Those are exciting installments, but we don't tie directly into them; we tie more directly into the film that preceded us, ATTACK OF THE CLONES, and the one that comes after us, REVENGE OF THE SITH. We take cues from [Tartakovsky's series]. I definitely pay a big homage to them in some of the design look of it. Anakin wears an outfit that was definitely inspired by what we saw in the other CLONE WARS. But there's no direct link-up."
For the other Clone Wars works I'm not too sure when exactly they were confirmed to be non-canon but TCW was supposed to begin in 22 BBY which IIRC meant squeezing all the previous Clone Wars comics, novels, etc. into just a few months at the start of the war, which was always ridiculous.
I think one of the problems I've had with TCW from the get go was how it basically overwrote the, IMO, superior Clone Wars stories without Ahsoka, and I'm not just talking about the micro series.
Apparently Lucas edited the ROTS novel line-by-line so it's so weird how it came out so much better than the movie.
It would have been totally ridiculous to not give themselves that space and to be restricted by post-ROTJ stories by a bunch of different authors over decades.
Lucas works very well with collaboration if you've got a strong writer taking the lead. I think he only writes personally when he has no other choice. Stover is a helluva writer and I think Lucas recognized that.
It's still said thinking how much he was asking others to help him write/direct the prequels to only be constantly told "George this is your story, you should just do it youself".
The Tartakovsky micro-series wasn't non-canon. It was retconned to being Holonews dramatizations of the Clone Wars, which was actually pretty smart.
That said, I think it was far superior to TCW. Just about the only thing I didn't like in it was how they wasted Durge. But it includes Asajj's introduction and the lead-in to ROTS, so it's got everything I need.
That said, I think it was far superior to TCW. Just about the only thing I didn't like in it was how they wasted Durge. But it includes Asajj's introduction and the lead-in to ROTS, so it's got everything I need.
Thanks Drewton and CrichtonKicks for the elaboration. And I see that Ashoka, for instance, is a really big testament to how the TCW EU makes little sense.
However, I'd say that the same goes for the ROTS film itself, since she's entirely gone. So the logic of trying to retcon TCW EU because of the television show because of new characters that they fail to mention seems a bit off.
I wish they'd just be more liberal about the lore instead of selectively erasing the stories that some of us have engaged in at the time of their release.
However, I'd say that the same goes for the ROTS film itself, since she's entirely gone. So the logic of trying to retcon TCW EU because of the television show because of new characters that they fail to mention seems a bit off.
I wish they'd just be more liberal about the lore instead of selectively erasing the stories that some of us have engaged in at the time of their release.
To me Ahsoka has never fit in naturally at all and Anakin having an apprentice never made sense.
Stuff like Grievous's original backstory was better before TCW too.
Last edited:
The Tartakovsky animations are sublime and possibly the best visual media to come out of all the prequel trilogy. I wish they'd do a bluray release.
Also, VileZero do you have a link to the retcon that it's Holonews dramatization?
Last edited:
True, but wIth such a complicated universe like Star Wars with millions of cooks in the kitchen (and millions of consumers), I find it better to just be tolerant of contradictions and inconsistencies between different works. It makes for a healthier engagement with an interesting universe, where story A can exist at the same time as story B, despite both contradicting one another.
I mean, there's a lot of stuff we had to swallow in the prequel films, so it's more than fine for me to realize that Ahsoka exists solely because they needed a new character (and new toys and target demographics?) for the TCW television show. It was the same reason why Jango Fett and Dooku suddenly appear in AOTC, and then ROTS has Grievous.
I guess my initial point with the erasure of the well-written prequel EU was this: I just wish that its owners/creators would be just as open-minded and tolerant of inconsistencies instead of trying to establish one single coherent narrative across 40 years of corporate transmedia productions. Erasing media that fans have loved to engage with (and used their money on!) diminishes the importance of continuing engage with Star Wars media.
Ahsoka works fine IMO because they gave her an arc to have her out of the picture before ROTS.
In my perfect world we would have gotten a series of TCW episodes that run concurrently with ROTS showing the events of Order 66 with a focus on the characters from the show while also showing select re-enactments of critical scenes from the movie. I'd love to see some of the scenes with Matt Lanter's performance instead of Christensen (but not the balcony scene- nobody could salvage that).
It's a nice thought but it's really not possible. The old EU was a huge mess. There was a lot of good but a lot of dreck. And you couldn't really separate the two because of how intertwined everything was. Also the timeline was already full. Outside of maybe a bit of the post ROTS, pre-ANH period EU authors had filled up every moment and then some.
I think the new approach is the right one and they can bring select characters like Thrawn in when needed.
Now that the ST is over I think a lot of the gloves are going to come off in the EU allowing for more interesting stories. The problem with Disney-EU IMO wasn't the removal of old canon, it was how safe everything was played safe because they didn't know what the new filmmakers were going to do.
The new TCW season will have several episodes that take place during Order 66 and the Siege of Mandalore, which they reference in The Mandalorian. We should get a reaction from Ahsoka when she feels the Jedi across the galaxy die. I doubt we'll get scenes from Revenge of the Sith but you never know. A reimagining of Palpatine fighting the Jedi Masters is actually quite possible, especially since they can splice it with Ahsoka's moments right before Order 66 goes off.
That would be really cool.
I would also love to see the lead up scenes to the Battle of Coruscant and even the Dooku/Anakin scene redone with the TCW presentation and cast.
The Jedi have to fight somebody cool since we won't get any Sith.
Maybe they could do the origin of the Darksaber?Retrofit Mandalore's story.
I will be shocked if we don't get Sith but not Sith in the High Republic. Like totally evil beings using force powers and red lightsabers but aren't technically Sith for some super picky reason. But are actually really Sith behind the scenes but the Jedi never find out so they can adhere to the line from TPM.
I got ya -- I wasn't really disagreeing with you, but I kinda like the fact that we as the audience missing the old Anakin get to share some of the same feelings that the characters themselves feel about his turn. I also like the dramatic irony of a guy known for doing his own thing, and chafing under anyone telling him what to do, ends up saying stuff like, "I must obey my master."
They could just ignore it, too. Or say, like, the Sith did come back but Yoda was forbidden to tell anyone because it would quite literally shatter any faith the Republic had in the Jedi Order and by the time Qui-Gon fought Darth Maul everyone else that had seen the Sith four hundred years ago was long dead.
Yep. If Lucasfilm thinks this period is truly the best era to explore in our next cycle of SW content they aren't going to be held back by a couple of lines in TPM.
Pretty much. You can't establish this High Republic era where the Jedi are said to have an expanded presence in the galaxy and not have Sith. It just wouldn't make sense and you'd spend way more effort explaining why these dudes with red lightsabers and a penchant for electrocuting people with their fingers aren't Sith than if you just said they were Sith.
Although, if I'm honest, I don't know why they didn't just set this High Republic era a thousand years in the past - then Yoda wouldn't be born for a hundred years and we'd know the Sith have an active presence but at some point will be forced into hiding for a millennia. They'd have a totally blank slate to work with and could work towards a big event they know fans will love to see - the fall of the Sith. You could even have way more than a handful of Sith and whoever is left standing among them could enact the Rule of Two that allows the Sith to survive in hiding until Palpatine conquers the galaxy.
I'd have to search. I know Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor coyly addresses it - the ending of the book suggests it's a Holonews dramatization. Almost positive they reference the Clone Wars cartoon events in the same vein.
I wish they'd do a Blu Ray release of them too :(
I myself would be fine if we didn't see any red sabers in the High Republic. At least, not for a long time. There are lots of potential enemies that are enough of a threat to a Jedi. To just go right back into the Sith well is a little too familiar too me right now.
I just watched the first episode!
yoda turning off and force pulling away Ventresses dual lightsbaers was such a boss move lol
I would hope, though, that there's a bit more color diversity in this era beyond blue & green sabers.
I'm torn on that one. The blue and green seem kinda, well... classic, to me. That being said, I was playing some Fallen Order tonight and other colours could look great on screen.
I think the current SW brain trust is trapped with OT aesthetics. Even with the ST there is no sense 30 years have passed. That's something that Lucas explored in the prequels but received push back on. People want X-Wings, Tie Fighters, Star Destroyers, Storm Troopers (or at least Lucasfilm thinks they do). 400 years is pushing it even more but I think they are latching onto that number as a way of retaining the vast majority of the OT look. I fully expect any ships to share visual similarities with the classics, the "evil army" to have stormtrooper-ish armor, etc.
I daresay that any High Republic material will share more in common visually with the OT than the prequels.
In RotJ when Luke is hiding from Vader where is he hiding? It's not dark enough that Vader couldn't see the other end of the room. We get a profile shot of Luke and it seems like he has his back to a wall. Them when Luke attacks Vader, he does so from the center of the room all of a sudden. Was Luke supposed to be using some Force power that wasn't conveyed well on screen?
I think the prequels have a cool aesthetic personally
I like all the super futuristic technology and shit we see throughout them and would love to have something like that
I like all the super futuristic technology and shit we see throughout them and would love to have something like that
I've been rewatching selected Clone Wars arcs in preparation for the new season. The first Nightsisters episode is so amazing, with the space battle at the beginning, all of the amazing looking locations and the incredible lighting. I really miss that production quality.
I've been reading some more from that "leaked" script on /r/starwarsleaks. I put a little more stock in its authenticity with AV Club backing it up but wow, that's... quite a story. I would have loved to see Mortis stuff brought in but mostly on principal since TV barely ever influences up to the movies. That being said, it really sounds way too out there for most people.