Your response here is absurd and steeped in a false equivalency fallacy. It's one thing to scrap the Zahn novels, the Anderson novels and everything else that can be summed up, with 3 words - "licenced third party".Originally Posted by SharkyMcShark
These projects never came from the Lucasfilm Group itself and therefore all bets should rightly have been off with them.
Do you know what was a part of the Lucasfilm Group? Lucasarts.
Do you know what came out of the Lucasfilm Group? Every single Star Wars game, including the entire Dark Forces series. In fact, just like Prince Xizor and Dash Rendar, Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors should have been every bit as off limits for removing from canon as Admiral Ackbar or Mon Montha.
When were those characters created by Lucasfilm? Oh yes - Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors were created in 1995, while Prince Xizor and Dash Rendar were created in 1996.
All four were created before the Special Edition Trilogy, let alone the Prequels, so your entire argument here is utter fallacy. In fact Shadows of the Empire was a Lucasfilm Group major release at the time which was designed to be everything but a movie- with even its own dedicated toyline.
It is utterly fallacious to compare that to the likes of the Thrawn Trilogy or the Jedi Academy Trilogy.
And no, it is absolutely not the same thing to eliminate one of those characters from star wars lore, as it is to eliminate the likes of Kyp Duron (who happens to be one of my favourite eu characters btw).
Likewise, the Han/Chewie backstory I'm referring to came straight from Lucasfilm back in 1994 by way of the Star Wars Screen Entertainment PC program
The fact is that if Disney can't respect their own characters (as opposed to third party characters) and their own in house developed stories, enough to work around them, then I struggle to see why I should invest in any of their movies enough to watch them. In fact, I have little doubt that they'd slice up the OT and PT on the cutting room floor if they could get away with it.
Even then I'm simply saying I'm on the fence until I know that they've respected that original story between Han and Chewie (Han throwing away a highly promising career in the Imperial navy to protect Chewie- a wookie he'd never met before). Lose that and you lose a huge chunk of what makes the life debt and their bond so amazing to begin with. Lose that and I lose all interest in seeing it.
The difference is that we're not talking about here isn't in the same category as the Zahn Trilogy, or any other piece of what should actually be EU - things which simply licensed Star Wars Trademarks and created stories and characters with minimal, at best, involvement by the Lucasfilm Group.
What we are talking about is what the Lucasfilm group established themselves - in house. Anything which fell under that category should have been as sacrosanct as the movies.
And yet, for someone so quick to talk about art, I find it telling that you ignore the fact that if the artist doesn't respect the medium, the art piece they're creating ultimately suffers. A good story can be a myopic bit of fun froth on top, or it can be deep, profound and memorable. Your argument fails to draw that distinction or recognise which will have the longer lasting legacy.
Meanwhile, letting go of expectations has done wonders to increasingly worsen the quality of Bayformers. Also it speaks volumes about the discernment of modern cinema-goers when a film like Age of Ex-stink-tion can be rated as both the worst movie of the year and one of the highest grossing films of the year.
The fact is that it would be entirely possible to create a great film that is well crafted and respects the pre-existing world it is created in. But then why bother with that as a film making company, when audiences will still hand over their money by the truckload for something far less polished.
No matter how much you tell yourself otherwise, this isn't art for the sake of art; this is a business. If companies see that people will pay by the truckload for crap, they'll serve up crap by the truckload. Why? Because when people will pay for crap, giving them quality actually costs you money.
When you say "switch off and enjoy it" what you're actually saying is "send these companies an even louder message that they'll pay for whatever is dished up.
See here's the thing. This is all about the money. Some bean counter in Disney ran some sums and decided that there was little to no money in the older fans, or that alienating them came with absolutely no risk. Likewise, they tokenistically decided that jumping on the diversity bandwagon is going to make them a heap of money so they went there. It's not about actually empowering people; it's about looking enough like you are so that people will hand over their money to you.
Maybe the "fanboy gnashing of teeth over TLJ" wouldn't be as strong if Disney weren't constantly agitating the older fanbase - the reason the property was so attractive to buy to begin with - by saying things like the new films aren't made for them at all - which the "fanboys" reasonably take to mean "we don't care about you, we don't want you - now shut up and piss off". People can't poke the bear and then be surprised when they get mauled by it.
You do realise I was using a figure of speech?
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