Poll of the Day > The Star Wars Expanded Universe

(+) Yeah! (+)

thoughts on it? this includes video games comic books novels and tv shows that operate within continuity of the movies but do their own thing to fill in little gaps here and there


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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVzc20Bm8Xo
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Its constantly expanding.

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DarkKirby2500 posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVzc20Bm8Xo

Beautiful stuff.
The old eu felt overinflated and I was never too interested in really diving in. I've had these thoughts since 2005 but I did play some games and read a few books. One of the stranger ones was death troopers. I started one that was about Vader's glove or something but I honestly didn't want to finish it

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do we call the new expanded universe the disney lore or what?

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Sarcasthma posted...

constantly expanding

You mean like the universe we live in.
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No, I meant like my dongle

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You mean because the metal in it increases in volume during the summer due to the principles of thermal expansion, except in this case, it will stop expanding once the temperature stops increasing.
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Nothin gets past you huh

I read a ton of it as a kid. Enjoyed it, but most was trash. The "tales of...." Anthology stuff is probably my favorite, just because I like that format so much.
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The old EU was like 98% crap, 2% gold. The comics tended to be better than the books, though. Or, at least, all the books not written by Timothy Zahn.

It was mostly hurt by a lack of focus and a fundamental misunderstanding of what the actual genre of Star Wars really is.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

The old EU was like 98% crap, 2% gold. The comics tended to be better than the books, though. Or, at least, all the books not written by Timothy Zahn.

It was mostly hurt by a lack of focus and a fundamental misunderstanding of what the actual genre of Star Wars really is.

and where's that leave the new EU?

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NightMareBunny posted...

and where's that leave the new EU?

Mostly for children. And angry neckbeards.
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The new EU is the new canon, right? Didn't Disney basically say the old stuff is now not canon, but their stuff is?
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I read/played/watched a lot of it growing up. Despite the wildly inconsistent and often subpar quality I really like the idea of multiple creators getting a chance to tell stories using an established setting and characters. Ultimately the bad stuff is easily dismissed and we got some great material like the thrawn trilogy and kotor in the bargain, I call that a win.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC2Q6ANLXQ0

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why does nobody give a crap about star trek comic books in comparison?

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NightMareBunny posted...

why does nobody give a crap about star trek comic books in comparison?

Because Star Trek is itself a series about exploring the universe they've created. By comparison, Star Wars creates a universe and tells a handful of stories within it, leaving the exploration of that universe to third parties in the form of the expanded universe. People enjoy the SW EU because that's the only way they get to further explore the universe, while they're less keen on the ST EU because the ST series and movies do a pretty thorough job of exploring the universe themselves without needing to outsource that exploration.

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that makes sense

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Mostly for children. And angry neckbeards.

eh i dunno about that

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LinkPizza posted...

The new EU is the new canon, right? Didn't Disney basically say the old stuff is now not canon, but their stuff is?

Yes but it doesn't matter since Lucas himself supported the expanded universe. The original creator has far more say than somebody he sold the rights to.
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Revelation34 posted...

Yes but it doesn't matter since Lucas himself supported the expanded universe.

"Supported".

Saying the equivalent of "Yeah, I don't give a fuck what they do, because none of it counts and I'm going to ignore it all anyway, but they can pretend it's canon if it sells more books to fanboys" really isn't a sweeping endorsement.

The whole reason they invented the whole bullshit multi-tier canon system was basically so they could lie and pretend everything was canon when almost nothing was really canon in any meaningful sense.

Disney, for all that people shit on them (and not for no reason), at least tends to make at least minor attempts to integrate the things they say are canon (like the cartoons) into the overarching narrative (ie, having the films or TV shows reference stuff from comics and books). They've done more to legitimately endorse their own EU than Lucas ever did.
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Blorfenburger posted...

Beautiful stuff.
The old eu felt overinflated and I was never too interested in really diving in. I've had these thoughts since 2005 but I did play some games and read a few books. One of the stranger ones was death troopers. I started one that was about Vader's glove or something but I honestly didn't want to finish it

I think I know which book you are talking about. If so that was basically a Star Wars horror book for kids and is considered about as canon as Droidworks.

Anyways, the Legends EU is pretty rich and full of stuff. The canon universe has worked to make some of it canon; but it seems to lack a lot of the understanding of what actually made this stuff interesting in the first place. It's like how there are a ton of knock-off movies that copy the basic tropes or elements of other, much more popular, movies but fall apart in story and other places to result in a terrible and cheap experience.

The new canon hasn't impressed me at all. Fallen Order was the only good thing and even there I have some issues.

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and who would have thought a comic book exclusive character would have had an ongoing monthly of their own in the Disney canon?

Doctor Aphra is quite the character I'll say

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It's fine.

Some of it's okay some of it's bad. New EU is the same. It's too broad to paint it all with one brush.

Anyone who thinks EU is going to have a notable impact on the main films is fucking delusional though. It's on the same toer as agents of shield.

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at least The EU Actually involves star wars characters

agents of shield was basically no name original characters most of the time with the actual marvel characters rarely doing much in the long run


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so do we call the current canon disney canon or what?

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Disney doesnt have a unique term to distinguish their EU. It's technically all as canon as the films (lol).

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https://www.starwars.com/news/marvel-bounty-hunters (news on the bounty hunters comic series)

https://www.starwars.com/news/alyssa-wong-doctor-aphra (news on the doctor aphra relaunch)


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NightMareBunny posted...

Doctor Aphra is quite the character I'll say

The one thing I dislike about her is that they can't seem to decide whether or not she's an unrepentant villain character or a misunderstood fuck-up who sincerely regrets the things she winds up having to do, so overall she winds up having a shitty bipolar sort of personality.

That's a thing I dislike about Star Wars in general - they seem absolutely unwilling to allow for moral complexity 99% of the time. If you're bad you're a mustache-twirling villain, and if you have ANY ambiguity at all, you're going to redeem yourself and become a hero before the story is over.

Just once I'd like to see Imperials who are good people but who don't wind up betraying the Empire before the story ends, and who actually have moral reasons for supporting the Empire. Or even just Imperial main characters who ARE unrepentant bastards and who stay unrepentant bastards. That was one of the (many) things that discouraged me from caring about the single-player campaign in Battlefront 2.



NightMareBunny posted...

agents of shield was basically no name original characters most of the time with the actual marvel characters rarely doing much in the long run

Nearly every character that appeared WAS an actual character from the comics, though, and often characters who were never going to get movies of their own or show up in anyone else's , so it was nice for them to get a bit of time in the spotlight somewhere.

The real problem with Agents of SHIELD was that Disney wanted to push integration between the movies and the TV show, but corporate politics between Marvel Studios (the film division) and Marvel Television (the TV division) meant that the films categorically refused to acknowledge anything that happened on TV (and essentially treated it all as non-canon), while the TV show wound up being forced to acknowledge everything that happened in the films (which played havoc with their own plotting and planning).

The storylines where the show responded to what was happening in the movies tended to be some of the better episodes, though. Which implies it would have been pretty awesome if there had actually been anything resembling reciprocity.

It feels like Disney put their foot down and called bullshit on that sort of thing, though, which is why the Disney+ shows are apparently under the Marvel Studios umbrella rather than the Marvel Television one. Disney basically folded the TV division directly into the movie division, so there can be greater interaction and coordination between the two (which is why it looks like the Scarlet Witch, Falcon/Winter Soldier, and Loki shows will all technically be canon to the films, and may include a greater degree of cross-pollination between the two).
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maybe Aphra's relaunch will put her in a better position as a character


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i think Doctor Aphra was a character that may have originally been intended as nothing more than a temporary character and was upgraded to a leading role when fans reacted positively to her much to the shock of her creator


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has anyone here read the marvel star wars stuff?

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