SPECULATION Is legends root of the divide?

I technically fall into that category, though I am a decade younger than your example. I wouldn't describe my feelings as either anger or hatred, it was more like being hit with a freight train of disappointment. The door slammed in my face so hard it broke my nose. There are other things that I am bitter about, but when it comes to the EU, it's just sadness. Lost potential. No more stories about my favorite Jedi, Corran Horn (my avatar). We never get to know what happens to any of them.

Those stories were everything to my fandom and I reacted to my love for that part of Star Wars by being creative. I wrote myself into the Expanded Universe in dozens of pages of fanfiction. Going on adventures with friends, fighting the Imperial Remnant, being a space pirate and a smuggler. I took great joy in researching every little detail in order for my stories to fit in seamlessly with the EU. I lost my inspiration for that when Lucasfilm cut the cord. My Star Wars fan identity was inextricably tied to the Expanded Universe; so when it ended, I got left behind.

Having been left behind, I went into the Sequel Trilogy feeling wary and unsure of what direction Lucasfilm would take it. I did not trust the company that ended the EU. Even now, there is only one person at Lucasfilm I can say that I do trust. Dave Filoni. His work has been the bright point of the New Canon for me.

With the ST, though, I wanted to like it; and until the end of TFA, I was generally enjoying it. But then Han Solo had a lightsaber shoved through his chest and got dumped into a bottomless pit like a sack of garbage. That's where the big divide happened for me. Words cannot describe my fury as I left the theater, and as time went by, I became emotionally worn out on the subject of Star Wars. Everybody got emotional about TLJ, my reaction to Luke becoming one with the Force was "Oh, okay...".

That's not a normal reaction for a Star Wars fan! Apathy? Who is this stranger wearing my face? Oh yeah. It's the guy who got left behind April 25, 2014. The guy who had to watch his favorite fictional character of all time get murdered right in front of his face. The guy who still loves Star Wars, even though almost everything he's seen of it for five years has been a disappointment to him.

BUT! Enough self pity! Why do we even have threads like this anyway?!

Deep breaths. Now, excuse me while I go listen to some Petula Clark. "So you can colour my world with sunshine yellow each day..."

 

I've never been into legends.

 

I have found this discussion really interesting, I hadn't read much EU I think I read Heir to the Empire trilogy before TFA, it wasn't big for me, I intend to explore it more now. While I enjoyed the Thrawn trilogy but wasn't bowled over by it, but what I like about it now as against the ST is that it continued the story from where RotJ left off. It was a continuation an extension of the story whereas the ST backtracks back to ANH.
I would have been open to Disney SW drawing on the EU, or Lucas' outline, but I think they were just not nerdy enough with the story, their focus with TFA was on having something the looked and felt like the OT (not too sure what the focus was for TLJ).
I like the idea of sifting through the EU to draw out the best ideas, geeky fans would love it, the trick is to make it appealing to general audiences as well but ultimately it should have been an extension from where RotJ left off, likewise the mythology of the Jedi and the force needs to be handled in some serious way, they just seem like super powers of Reys that she just gets, it seems stripped of mythological significance, the imaginative lost worlds, amazing planets, fabulous adventures, fairytale aspect seems to have gone. The reason I love SW is the romantic element.

 

all righty then, i'm going to wade in here with an "almost 50-something lifelong Star Wars fan perspective".

something we agree about! : D

we also agree on this.

because the rest? nope. not true at all for me.
i've noticed that if you are in my generation and liked the prequels, you may not like the sequel trilogy.
if you liked or were invested in the now-Legends EU, you may not like the sequel trilogy.
but as usual, all generalizations are useless. XD

i can't say what makes a 40+ year fan like me love the ST as much a i do.
probably the fact that:

1. it is what i wanted from the possibility of more Star Wars since 1983.
   • hint: what i wanted was adventure, pathos, and optimism, not for x character to do x thing, x event to happen, x storyline to play out.
2. it's been over thirty years and i didn't expect to see the OT heroes play a significant role in this trilogy.
   • my surprise and delight on seeing them all again will always be a huge reason i love this trilogy, even if we're hip-deep in tragedy at the moment.
3. i'm at an age where i'm ready to have a childhood restored to me and long to see the world with a fresh sense of hope and wonder.

the last of which tells me that maybe it's not what Star Wars brings to us that makes us love it so much, it's what we bring to it. : D

 

I got hooked during the dark times of SW post Sith. I had no idea of the eu other then a few other story bits: Battlefront 2 (2005), Force Unleashed games and Clone Wars. Fun fact: Battlefront 2 was my first entry into SW NOT a movie. I saw the movies shortly after 'cause I got hooked. However, this whole notion that there was this greater universe so to speak was over my head; I had no clue. So when we heard about new movies where coming out, my first reaction was what is "legends"? So no, the majority of the people that make films millions sometimes billions of dollars don't read/watch other canon.

 

Mention it in this thread because it sort of speaks to the divide. This weekend a awesome social media experience has occurred. Someone who never watched Star Wars before for some reason decided to watch for the first time and has been live tweeting each movie. @vibeswithcisco has been going on since Saturday night and it has been awesome. She has had all sorts of people chime in and enjoy her experiences watching all the movies. Really taken many of us back to the joy of seeing them for the 1st time. Of course some fans, if they are fans at all, that are bitter for not getting their way have tried to spoil it telling her she shouldnt like the movies, but she has been loved and it has been great experiencing this with her.

 

I think Legends plays a part but I think it the stark difference in directions of TFA and TLJ. IMHO, one of the mistakes of the ST is that one person didn't pen the outline of the whole story arc.

 

I have to disagree. If they just remade a EU story, people would say it was just a copy of EU stuff and unoriginal. There really is no winning this one. I believe there is people out there if you gave them exactly what they asked for they would still complain and say it's horrible.

 

No. Nobody has wood-pulped, etc, their EU stuff to my knowledge. And they still have their worth as things that can be enjoyed but which, as as always been the case, the film canon had no obligation to uphold as anything other than ancillary merchandise.

 

In fact, this is mind boggling.

 

Maybe it is, I don't know.

I became a big fan of the now-Legends material in 2005 after RotS was released. At that time there was never going to be a ST, I was always curious about the post-RotJ Star Wars universe (did Luke rebuild the Jedi Order, etc.), and the PT provided me an outstanding visual of the Star Wars universe. So I leapt into the EU as it was then, falling in love with the Del Rey era books post-1999. Was never a major fan of the previous Bantam-era, even if so many great characters and planets came out of it the books themselves never resonated with me. My first book was Dark Nest III: The Swarm War (my avatar is the cover of that book).

That said, I embraced the Disney ST as I knew my beloved EU was now "Legends" material and it's future was dead. There would be no more continuing adventures for the NJO characters. I knew the "reality" of the ST would be different than what I had envisioned for 32 years. Now that we have the ST and I have digested what it is I still mourn the loss of the old-EU, but I accept the new "reality" of Star Wars canon.

Having said all that, even though I like them for what they are I find a hollowness about the ST (perhaps in its mythology) that didn't exist with the Legends material. I like these films (more so the Star Wars anthology films), but I would rather TPTB have involved George Lucas and his ideas more than they did (knowing that his vision never included the Legends material either). In my perfect world they would have told a story featuring the next generation of Skywalkers from the NJO, but whatever. I am not going to shake my first at Disney, I wanted a ST, and they gave me one.

There has probably always been a divide of some sort among Star Wars fans (even prior to the PT, which I love), just that divide has divided further with each passing year and each new change. Our love of the saga, even if unique from eachother's, still binds us together.

 

I totally get it. I know I've said it on alot of threads.
I LOVED Ben Yoda Skywalker as a character. And knowing he literally doesn't exist except in an " alternative universe " like how ultimate spiderman is different from original spiderman, is kind of depressing to me I loved his story especially with luke when they were travelling. But at the same time I get why they did it. The EU really put a pretty set in stone path they would have to do. However I wish they would've atleast kept the CHARACTERS if nothing else. Luke as grandmaster, the Solo kids , and Ben. Mara. Literally they dont exist now.Luke does but not how he did in the EU. And < spoiler>



Luke is a force ghost. After just the second movie. Kylo gets alot of hate but he IS a proxy Caedus. Not exact story but still. But not even a Proxy Ben Skywalker? Luke has no son? I get that it makes sense since jedi arnt supposed too, until the reforms. Which now only happened in an alternate reality. However I DO appreciate the ST. TLJ I actually really enjoyed. TFA I thought " yeah its ANH with different people, still really liked the film and nostalgia. However I just wish they maybe RETCONNED the stuff instead of erasing it and saying " No it happened but in a separate universe now and this is what the REAL galaxy is up too after ROTJ " feel the frustration but I also enjoy the current disney canon as well. Mandalorian is FANTASTIC I like rogue one and solo better than TFA for sure. Cant wait for Kenobi. And honestly I thought TLJ was a really good film.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 14, 2019, Original Post Date: Dec 14, 2019 ---

Agree. My first books I dont remember their titles but they were in the era after Luke was grandmaster. I thoroughly enjoyed them. It sucks their gone. But they also aren't it's like marvel's multiverse.

 

Nope and I don't even have to imagine because I was an original 1977 fan, was desperate for more Star Wars, got into the EU and found it largely soulless and often offensively stupid.

As I've stated before. If you extract the excellent character Thrawn out of the post Jedi stuff it is a complete bust for me and even he wasn't enough to make his own trilogy good Star Wars much less all that came after it.

The EU didn't ruin Star Wars for me only because it failed to rise to the level of being Star Wars or even above the level of bad fan fiction.

I'll EASILY take the Sequel Trilogy over all of the post Jedi anti character growth, often goofy, sometimes lackluster CW teen dram EU.

 

I think a lot of people got attached to the legends characters and story.

I will admit when i first heard they were starting fresh with the story's bar the movies and cartoons i was devastated as i grew up reading all the books from the early 90's till early 2000's. I loved the X-Wing series , Thrawn books, NJO ect , but there were some HORRIBLE stories also: The crystal Star,Callista triology , Corrlien triolgy, Black fleet crisis ect.