Company News Knights of the Old Republic declared non-canon by Lucasarts - probably won't see sequels

[Jedi Master Radek]

I really liked the Thrawn trilogy and am sad to see it being erased from SW history. I always thought they had someone overseeing the whole SW universe to make sure it all "fit together" but the blog makes it sound like it didn't. All the EU stuff (West End Games, video games, books, etc.) seemed to fit together pretty well and I did enjoy that "one inter-connected" universe. The story never ended and I've always been a sucker for SW ever since I saw it at a drive-in theater back in 1977.

Thrawn is popular enough they will surely reboot him in the new continuity. That Thrawn trilogy are the only SW novels I ever read. They were pretty decent.

Shatterpoint by Stover, novelization of RotS by Stover, Luceno books about an early Vader are also good.

Man, out of everyone who might be bummed about this EU stuff, this guy must feel be really depressed right now. All those years wasted...

But Leland Chee is still the head of EU. His in a story group which will do a new EU. It's why I think there is no Disney vision for it, just not caring about the old EU.

 

[GarfunkeL]

It also makes sense for Disney to categorically scrap everything before their time, to avoid accusations of plagiarism and the headache of making sense of stuff. Now they're free to start from a relatively clean table, while still letting them pick'n'mix any good stuff that old EU has.

 

[Smejki]

But lens flares are canon, rite?

 

[Essegi]

i suppose no one trusts that project: http://www.moddb.com/games/star-wars-knights-of-the-old-republic-3-tea

 

[Gozma]

Why didn't they just make movies however they want and let Wookiepedia people scramble afterwards to rectify it all for people that do that kinda shit? They already don't care that every Star Wars character with five seconds of screen time has 20 chosen one grandchildren and there are hundreds of unused superweapons and ancient evils floating around. Even among the subset of people that read a Star Wars novel when they were 11 the percentage that still give a shit about canon has got to be pretty low.

 

[taxalot]

I consider this decision of Disney non-canon. Fuck you.

 

[l3loodAngel]

British comic book character. Genetically enhanced supersoldier from the future. Doesn't wear shirts.

Was he a bounty hunter?

Yes, in his heart he never stopped being one. Here is new canon version of him.

 

[Servo]

Let's face it, the number of Star Wars related books/movies/games/whatever worth dealing with can be counted on one hand.

Fixed that for ya.

Also, I hope Han and Leia's children all die a slow, painful death in non-canon purgatory.

 

[Exar Kun]

I do believe that there will be no KOTOR 3, but not because of any Disney "fuck fanfic" policy, but because they're going to set aside the "Old Republic" setting altogether in favor of the new movies they're making. That's a separate issue entirely.

This policy is targeted primarily at the various Expanded Universe novels set after ROTJ. Nobody at Disney is saying "sorry, Exar Kun isn't canon anymore" or anything like that. There's no reason for them NOT to keep all that stuff, unless they decide to create their own thousands of years of history from scratch, and why would they?

I'l always be canon, bitches

 

[WetWorks]

Was gonna write a whole lot of shit about this, but i really don't give a flying fuck anymore. Disney can fucking have it and it's useless run-off.

Fuck Star Wars right in the death star.

 

[mondblut]

the only thing star wars is good for is some lulz and

Fixed

 

[hexer]

I think Expanded Universe was always considered non-canon. I remember reading in SW Encyclopedia (published in 1998) that only what you see in the movies is considered absolute canon and everything else not.

 

[Black]

Like, really, does anyone care? It's a "sci-fi" universe with magic, DESTINY and swordfights. It practically has plot armour as a legit thing. Why would anyone care if something is canon to this universe or not.

 

[Morality Games]

Like, really, does anyone care? It's a "sci-fi" universe with magic, DESTINY and swordfights. It practically has plot armour as a legit thing. Why would anyone care if something is canon to this universe or not.

Because canon makes things more real and important.

 

[Monty]

Like, really, does anyone care? It's a "sci-fi" universe with magic, DESTINY and swordfights. It practically has plot armour as a legit thing. Why would anyone care if something is canon to this universe or not.

Because canon makes things more real and important.

While we may not care what is canon or not, I think some of their most dedicated customers, who bought every book, care a lot. Star Wars books kept selling well despite the fact that most of them were poorly written and many would have sunk without a trace if they weren't set in the Star Wars universe. People wanted to follow 'what happened next' to the characters from the movies, or explore their prior history. As new characters were introduced in big story arcs they wanted to follow those too. Now they've been told that there will be no further development of these new characters (eg: Luke's son). And the books will start going over the same period in Star Wars history again.

I think Lucas also welcomed fan fiction (inb4 all the EU was fan fiction) and Disney is apparently starting to clamp down on the use of their trademarks. So the selling points of having one universe which is 'never rebooted' and welcoming fan involvement have been changed since Disney took over.

It was an inevitable decision to remove the post ROTJ EU if they wanted to make movies with the old actors and fresh plots. But, while I join in with the mockery of the neckbeards who obsess over the hierarchies of the canon, etc, I can't help thinking that they were a core part of the audience for the books. Will those who are now butthurt get over it, forget their beloved Mara Jade and buy all the new books as religiously as they did the old? Or will new young readers become the next generation of obsessive neckbeards? Most of the really dedicated fans seemed to be those who grew up with the original trilogy, I'm not sure today's kids are as bothered about Star Wars tbh.

tl;dr: If there's no reason to care about the previously established lore in the SW universe, is there any reason to buy the books when there is much better non-SW stuff out there?

I personally don't care about the EU but find the balancing act between retaining old and attracting new fans quite interesting.

 

[TheEntitledOne]

So... Kyle Katarn is gone?

He is the one cleaning the EU. One blaster shot at a time.

 

[ColCol]

The only good thing to come out of those crappy 3D clone wars shit cartoons was Cad Bane.

Fuck you, the show was good, stop talking shit about mah children cartoons (said cartoon being one I watched way past childhood).

So..Kyle Katarn is gone?

I don't think so, we would hear him if he was truly gone:

 

[circ]

Now wanting to play with lightsabers again!! Maybe KoTOR. Jesus christ Katarn voice actor.

 

[Servo]

the only thing star wars is good for is some lulz and

Fixed

Ahahahahahahaha no.

Like, really, does anyone care? It's a "sci-fi" universe with magic, DESTINY and swordfights. It practically has plot armour as a legit thing. Why would anyone care if something is canon to this universe or not.

Bro you are preaching to some of the nerdiest autists on the net. I bet Chee is a codexer... possibly RK47.

 

[Renegen]

Can some scrappy lawyer somehow argue that all previous SW games have no more copyright protections and should be released for free? That would be lulzy.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Fuck anyone who thinks EU is not canon. It was supervised before by Leland Chee and Pablo Hidalgo. And every work in it was respected by by other EU authors making it a coherent story. Any incoherences which were made were a result of an abundance of material and difficulties it checking everything. Many parts of EU were incorporated into movies, like Coruscant (Lucas changed his original planet's name in oder to not cause any discrepancy) or Quilnlan Vos about whom he heard in RotS. No SW fan considered EU uncanonical.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Can some scrappy lawyer somehow argue that all previous SW games have no more copyright protections and should be released for free?

not in any way whatsoever, no

 

[Copper]

I read a few books as a teen, but the best EU stuff is probably the West-End games RPG fluff, even if it had its share of dumb as well. I always junked the canon continuity when I ran games, no way I'd be beholden to honouring that.

 

[Jaesun]

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Can some scrappy lawyer somehow argue that all previous SW games have no more copyright protections and should be released for free? That would be lulzy.

No

Can some scrappy lawyer somehow argue that all previous SW games have no more copyright protections and should be released for free? That would be lulzy.

Yes.