Rewrite the Star Wars Expanded Universe
- Thread starter anon_user
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Thande
Donor
KJA's books were flawed but I think he had some decent concepts; I think his pisspoor work on Dune has tainted people's views of his Star Wars stuff in retrospect. Team him up with another writer and he'd do better.
Remove Dark Empire and anything like it from the continuity, and issue authors with a rough ten-year plan from ROTJ onwards in the series bible, sort of like "4 years after Endor, the planet Fillinnameius, capital of Warlord Whohe, falls to a Rebel fleet led by Admiral Inthebackgroundofthecantinasceneinepisode4". Then they can write around it without having the tired cliché of the same 'big new evil dude comes out of nowhere and is defeated by the end of hte book' setup.
More work like Allston and Stackpole's focusing on secondary characters would be good too. In fact, barring Zahn and a couple of others, a good system would be to make authors do an apprenticeship by having them write a book about secondary characters, and only then are they allowed to play with Luke, Han and Leia.
Incidentally, if you were to create this series bible, what would it roughly look like? How does the Empire fall, how does the Alliance establish itself, and how does Luke rebuild the Jedi Order? Or do those events happen?
Incidentally, the EU isn't just the books. Since you're in charge of Lucasfilm Licensing, you also have some control over what video games get released. Obviously, X-Wing and Tie Fighter, but what else?
Incidentally, the EU isn't just the books. Since you're in charge of Lucasfilm Licensing, you also have some control over what video games get released. Obviously, X-Wing and Tie Fighter, but what else?
Eh, SW videogaming is one area that doesn't need that much change--look at KOTOR, Battlefront, Rogue Squadron, EAW, et al. Perhaps some games could be visibly selected as non-canon, if their gameplay screws too much with existing rules and plots.
Thande
Donor
Re the games, I would set aside areas of the series bible (this is with the benefit of hindsight of course) to set up parts of the galaxy and conflicts that are important enough that you care about the outcome - they involve a few named characters - but are not just a continuous rehash of the same events from the films until everything contradicts everything else.
X-wing vs. TIE Fighter fell into the first trap, X-wing Alliance into the second (to some extent).
Of course the KOTOR games get away with this by being set in the distant past, but one thing you have to do is put your foot down about what technologies and societies existed then. I know Star Wars is mostly about technological stasis but there are a few cases where 'if it exists now it must have existed then'. I think they would have done better to look at the Han Solo and Lando Calrissian trilogies, which depict an ancient past for the SW galaxy that's still recognisably 'space lasery' but not a carbon copy of the present day.
X-wing vs. TIE Fighter fell into the first trap, X-wing Alliance into the second (to some extent).
Of course the KOTOR games get away with this by being set in the distant past, but one thing you have to do is put your foot down about what technologies and societies existed then. I know Star Wars is mostly about technological stasis but there are a few cases where 'if it exists now it must have existed then'. I think they would have done better to look at the Han Solo and Lando Calrissian trilogies, which depict an ancient past for the SW galaxy that's still recognisably 'space lasery' but not a carbon copy of the present day.
Well, they do try a little (the Kolto thing, many, many Force-users on both sides, spiffy uniforms for *the Republic's* officers...), and most of the societies and things that weren't introduced by KOTOR were once we already knew existed then, one way or another.
I wouldn't change anything we have now. I would stop writing anything within 100 years of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. Maybe even further.
Ban the Yuuzhan Vong concept, stop that history repeating stuff where the New Republic just collapses and the Empire takes everything over again, use my influence make sure the Prequels don't stink.
Tallest Skil
Banned
One of the interesting things about KOTOR is Canderous' speech about his Mandalorian band chasing a ship to the edge of the galaxy. A lot of fans speculate that it was a Yuuzhan Vong scoutship, which makes sense; even with hyperdrive, it took 2,000 years to get home and then the invasion fleet another two millennia to return.
Oh, and didn't they say that Palpatine created the Empire to protect the galaxy from the Yuuzhan Vong? Because the Republic wouldn't have been able to have the organization required to fight them without a tight-fisted rule or somesuch?
Thande
Donor
To my mind that kind of revisionism goes way too far. Imagine what it'd be like if it turned out that Hitler had actually taken over Europe to protect the world from an alien invasion which he believed the Jews were the advance guard for, and while that bit was untrue the aliens really are coming? It just ruins the original story with a cop-out.
I think it was Zahn of all people who introduced that notion, but IIRC it was more a case of Palps using it to pull strings than anything else.
Yes, recently it seems to have been more on the line of Palpatine having gained some vague knowledge of the 'Far Outsiders', used that as an excuse to gain a few more supporters for something he was already planning to institute, and while he did plan to stop the Outsiders, that was a means (to continue to remain in autocratic control of a Galactic Empire) rather than an end.
The Chiss knew of some alien threat beyond the Unknown Regions, though I think it was originally written as the Ssi-Ruuk but retconned to be the Yuuzhan Vong.
Thande
Donor
Zahn wrote it was a 'hundred' threats. Mind you that was when he had the galaxy as only 25% mapped and the entire rest of it is the Unknown Regions, rather than the bizarre and idiotic map they've gone with now that for some ludicrous reason has the Unknown Regions be one massive blob on one side of the galaxy that almost comes right up to Coruscant.
For authors: Stover, Zahn, Luceno, definitely get more work. Allston & Denning get in as well, as long as Denning keeps his weird sex fetishes in check. Traviss as long as she has an editor go through her work and TONE DOWN all of her anti-Jedi propaganda/Mando love (and hire a linguist to make Mando'a into a useable conlang).
Storylines: The Bantam era gets plotted out in advance, to remove all of the "X supervillain shows up, gets Y doomsday weapon, heroes must stop to save galaxy" thing that was so prevalent then. The Crystal Star is canceled. The Yuuzhan Vong invasion arc gets a team to go over and advise authors on characterization. Dark Nest & Legacy of the Force are totally revamped: Traviss is replaced with a non-Mando-obsessed author among other things, and too many changes are made to get into here.
The Clone Wars movie/series gets killed and replaced with a series adaptation of the EU's previously-established Clone Wars canon so as not to totally fuck continuity.
The Old Republic's plot gets changed so that the Jedi aren't (for the thousandth fucking time) getting blamed for something OR having the galaxy turn on them when they should know better by now and Coruscant doesn't get sacked.
Dark Empire stays as long as: some changes made in anticipation of the prequel trilogy, some goddamn decent painting is made so that it doesn't look fucking horrible, and the whole Luke-went-to-the-Dark-Side thing plays a much larger role in post-DE material than it does OTL.
Other than that, Legacy stays as-is. Original trilogy-set literature/video games/comics/etc. are made so that it's not like it is now where all of the original heroes' lives during the 4 years between Yavin & Endor are fucking used as storylines (or so it seems).
Storylines: The Bantam era gets plotted out in advance, to remove all of the "X supervillain shows up, gets Y doomsday weapon, heroes must stop to save galaxy" thing that was so prevalent then. The Crystal Star is canceled. The Yuuzhan Vong invasion arc gets a team to go over and advise authors on characterization. Dark Nest & Legacy of the Force are totally revamped: Traviss is replaced with a non-Mando-obsessed author among other things, and too many changes are made to get into here.
The Clone Wars movie/series gets killed and replaced with a series adaptation of the EU's previously-established Clone Wars canon so as not to totally fuck continuity.
The Old Republic's plot gets changed so that the Jedi aren't (for the thousandth fucking time) getting blamed for something OR having the galaxy turn on them when they should know better by now and Coruscant doesn't get sacked.
Dark Empire stays as long as: some changes made in anticipation of the prequel trilogy, some goddamn decent painting is made so that it doesn't look fucking horrible, and the whole Luke-went-to-the-Dark-Side thing plays a much larger role in post-DE material than it does OTL.
Other than that, Legacy stays as-is. Original trilogy-set literature/video games/comics/etc. are made so that it's not like it is now where all of the original heroes' lives during the 4 years between Yavin & Endor are fucking used as storylines (or so it seems).
He could play a certain famous sci-fi themed 3/4 perspective shoot-em-up from the 1980's. Yes!