THREAD FOR THOSE WHO HATED THE MOVIE

Kiri Hart has vanished. In her absence, the sinister CHUCK WENDIG has risen from the ashes of Unemployment and will not rest until Aftermath, the worst novel, has received the proper respect.

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

 

I believe a few of them got promotions. I know Pablo Hidalgo did, but they're not high enough profile for it to be news. Someone noticed his title was different on an article online a few weeks ago an congratulated him.

 

There is hope yet. Hopefully this is just one of many changes taking place. Heck, they might as well get rid of the story group, since Chuck himself was allowed to do whatever he wanted and even said something to the extent that he didn't care about staying within the time line or what not. I remember seeing that quote and wondering "So what is the point of the story group again?"

 

Good lord, I remember cringing to my bone marrow when he said that. If that quote wasn't a blatant showcase of why someone like him wasn't right for Star Wars, I don't know what is.

 

I'm temporarily ending my posting break to ask - what is Pablo Hidalgo's job at Lucasfilm? I know he's not a high up executive or anything like that. I've seen his name mentioned a lot online and wondered what he did there. Anyone know?

 

Something like that is easly looked up => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Hidalgo

 

I could've done that, but I prefer to be lazy and have someone just fill me in. Thanks for the link. I guess I'll use it.

 

If it is true that she is gone, it is big news for 2 major reasons:

1) The so-called "Kevin Feige of Star Wars" leaving LFL is, in and of itself, a major event. But, perhaps more importantly....

2) The reasons why she left may be the bigger development here. She was Kennedy's top lieutenant. Seen by many as the heir apparent of LFL when Kennedy leaves. Her leaving could have tremendous significance depending on the reason….

 

Indeed. I hope she is gone. She has done a horrible job as the "Kevin Feige of Star Wars" to be honest. Heck, the only thing that would make me happier is if they got rid of the entire story group. It has been an abject failure, especially when one compares their work to the work of Kevin Feige with the MCU/

 

Agree 100%. The new EU is the same disjointed mess as the old EU. Don't get me wrong, some of the individual stories are very entertaining (same as the old EU) but there's just no cohesive story to the whole thing. It is just a bunch of unrelated tales using familiar characters jammed into timeframes which are way, way too short to contain everything that has happened. Of course, in order to maximize sales revenue, they throw the old "uh.... yeah... these stories are all canon!!" label on each of 'em….

Rian Johnson made comment after comment about how there was no plan for the sequel trilogy. For some reason, he said it as if that was a good thing.... it's just another example of the story group's failure....

 

This.

I could cite the number of revered and beloved stories that came out of the "disjointed mess" of the EU (wholly exaggerated, by the way, especially considering most of the continuity errors were happening in the early, untested stages of the pre-PT SW era, instead of the continuity flubs happening right now in the new canon despite not having the excuse of the former), but you only need to look at the current canon's complete lack of long-term impactful books to make a comparison. The Nu-Canon has been around for 5 years now, and how many of the books or comics published thus far are going to be still talked about and beloved years from now? By this time in the EU, we had the Thrawn Trilogy, the first of Stackpole's renowned X-Wing novels, Dark Empire, Crimson Empire, and the Old Republic-set Tales of the Jedi comics. People still talk about those stories today, and reference them as some of the highlights of the EU that have retained impact over 20 years after release. And it was their impact, ambition, risk-taking and originality that made them such a subject of adoration. These stories didn't feel like one-off tie-in material for the films like the Nu-Canon stories, they felt like they mattered.

Lost Stars, Ahsoka, Rebel Dawn and Soule's Vader comics range from halfway-decent to good. But do you really think people are going to be talking about them years from now, with the same passion and adoration that people regard the aforementioned EU titles with? Of course not. Because they're small-scale stories of limited scope and depth, that feel like droplets of water against the vast ocean of Star Wars continuity....completely lost in irrelevance.

I don't know who at LFL is responsible for the neutered, suffocatingly-safe approach that facilitates these disposable stories---be it Kiri Hart, Pablo Hidalgo, or whoever---but if firing and replacing needs to happen in order to get this fixed, I'd be more than happy to see them join Chuck "Wibble & Wobble" Wendig over at the unemployment office.

 

What are you basing this timeline on? The earliest of those came out in 1991 which is basically 8 years after ROTJ. I have read most of those and some stinkers as well that came about. I also have to add that Lost Stars is my favorite of all Star Wars books.

 

EXACTLY. People diss the old EU, but there was some damned fine stuff in it. Thrawn was amazing. So good that they brought him back. And just as you said, the books/stories felt like they mattered. There was risk-taking (the New Jedi Order anyone?)... This feels like they are just playing it safe. I enjoyed Thrawn, the two Rogue One books, but for the most part, nothing has really made me go wow! I did really enjoy Ahsoka as well. Bloodlines was okay, but so far nothing has really made me go, okay, getting rid of the EU was TOTALLY worth it.

 

The Expanded Universe proper did not start until the 1991, because that was when the concept of a continuity-bound universe of supplementary material was introduced and executed. There were Star Wars stories being published officially as early as 1978 with Splinters of the Mind's Eye, various Han and Lando novels, and the original Marvel material. But these weren't any kind of established continuity, were outsourced to multiple publishers and authors without any kind of communication or overarching lore-keeping....they were consumer products, with no guiding authority or attempt at consistency. It was when Bantam Spectra Publishing and Dark Horse Comics got the rights to their respective mediums for Star Wars material that the idea for an Expanded Universe of cross-author communication, continuity preservation, and planned story arcs that would characterize the approach to the EU for the next twenty years. It launched with Dark Horse's Dark Empire in 1991, with Bantam's Heir to the Empire in the following months. Minor attempts to incorporate elements from pre-EU stories like Splinter of the Mind's Eye and Lumiya from one of the Marvel comics was made, but the idea was that both Bantam and Dark Horse were starting a new page of strict continuity between books and comics, with Lucasarts eventually joining the fray some time later. This is supported even stronger by the fact that most of the Star Wars novels and comics prior to 1991 were almost completely retconned. With all of this in mind, it is both rational and fair to judge the EU from this starting point of 1991 and not 1978. And five years from that starting point (the same position we find ourselves now with the current canon), we had all of the stories I mentioned, the most ground-breaking and innovative, in my opinion, being Tales of the Jedi in 1993....which would create the history, lore, conflict and characters that would facilitate all things Old Republic from that point on. And this, mind you, was six years before the Prequel Films were anywhere in sight, proving that even in its early days, the EU was willing to branch out into unexplored eras and universe-shattering story arcs.

Disney/LFL didn't establish a scattershot, random, non-continuity of spin-off products with the decanonization of the EU. They were attempting a similar tight-knit continuity in the same vein as the EU, but with their own canon. Therefore, it's only fair to judge the EU and its intent by the period for which it actually started within official publishing and planning as a full continuity, which was in 1991, and not in 1978, the same way it's fair to judge all entries in the Nu-Canon from 2014 as the starting point. Otherwise, by saying that everything from 1978 to 1991 was "also part of the Expanded Universe" purely because it was published Star Wars material (despite the EU's conceptualization as a shared universe not starting till '91), then you could just as easily say that everything after Disney's purchase in 2012 but before the decanonization in 2014 (which includes things like the FOTJ novels, Kenobi, Darth Maul: Lockdown, Crucible, Dawn of the Jedi and others that are most certainly not part of the current canon) are simply Disney-made stories because they were published under their ownership. It's an attempt to lump in all material together not based on the intent of the authors or the publishers, but simply because of which corporate entity owned what at any point in time.

Now, as for most of the post-1991 era novels being "mostly stinkers"...I can only assume you're referring to books like Courtship of Princess Leia, Planet of Twilight, Children of the Jedi, Darksaber and Crystal Star. And I will happily concede that those books are awful...the Bantam era of SW novels was a rocky start for the EU (I personally prefer everything Del Rey upon their acquisition of publishing rights in 1999), but given the landscape at the time, with there being only 3 Star Wars movies in existence, not to mention Lucas' outright ban on telling stories pertaining to the Clone Wars, I'm not surprised that they exist. These factors, however, do not exist for the current canon. Disney/LFL aren't bound by any of the creative limitations or lack of experience with this kind of shared continuity that Bantam did back in 1991. And moreover, those were 5 terrible books you mentioned....but how many excellent books did we have to counterbalance their quality? I already mentioned the Thrawn Trilogy, Crimson Empire, Dark Empire, Stackpole's X-Wing series and Tales of the Jedi....but there was also the Shadows of the Empire game/novel/comics, Dark Forces, the Boba Fett comics, the X-Wing comics, the Mara Jade: Emperor's Hand comics, and the to-this-day universally acclaimed TIE Fighter. Again, you had an overwhelming majority of stellar, ambitious projects that far outweighed the handful of awful stories. That was what the creative freedom bestowed on contributors for the EU offered: you could easily off-set the awfulness of Crystal Star with the ten other long-running, impactful, and still-popular works that have withstood the test of time. And again....that was five years in, the same position that Disney/LFL is in right now. And what kind of awful books has the Nu-Canon yieled, without any of the constraints or inexperience that the EU started with? Oh, not much...just rancid embarrassments like Dark Disciple, Heir to the Jedi, Last Shot, Phasma, Inferno Squad, and quite possibly the worst books ever written for ANY SW canon, Chuck Wendig's glorified Wattpad fanfic by the name of the Aftermath Trilogy. And unlike Crystal Star or Darksaber, being cringe-worthy but inconsequential one-off stories that barely dictate anything of importance as far as world-building or continuity goes, things like the Aftermath Trilogy actually dictate the details and trappings of the ST Era and therefore scorch the Nu-Canon's narrative earth by introducing unchangeable things like the Empire being defeated in a single year, Mon Mothma and the rest of the dunderheads of the New Republic demilitarizing themselves, Rey's ability to download training and mastery of the Force via telepathy, Kylo Ren's origins for Dark Side tendency sprouting from Mommy and Daddy not paying enough attention to him alongside abuse from a droid (yes, that actually happened), things that will constantly have to be referenced and preserved, and can never be ignored in major non-film stories going forth (which you can easily say about stupid EU concepts like Callista, Waru, Beldoran the Splendid, the Starcrusher, etc.). And as I said, the early EU managed to counter the bad quality with still-heralded long-running story arcs like Tales of the Jedi, the Thrawn Trilogy, the X-Wing novels and Crimson Empire, things that people still talk about today.

To that end, I ask: What kind of "quality masterpieces" has Disney/LFL put out over the course of 5 years to offset the bad stories like Aftermath? Underwhelming one-shot after underwhelming one-shot like Tarkin, Lords of the Sith, Rogue One: Catalyst, and Rebels: A New Dawn, many of which barely tie into each other, introduce any new or exciting characters of consequence, or are ever referenced to any degree again. The definition of disposable. And the comics? Outside of Soule's Vader, you have the complete snoozefest of inconsequential B-grade drudgery and atrociously traced artwork in Star Wars Annual, bland mediocrity like Lando, Chewbacca, DJ, Darth Maul and Aphra comics...all of which generating about as much scope, creativity, or long-lasting impact of an underwater fart. In essence, you have the EU, which had the creative freedom to facilitate a few awful stories but a majority of excellent stories....versus the Nu-Canon, posing creative restraints that yield two or three absolutely dreadful stories, two or three good stories, surrounded by a tidal wave of forgettable mediocrity.

You mentioned Lost Stars. Guess what? I like it as well. But that was written all the way back in 2015. How much of that story ever came back? How many of the characters or events of that novel were referenced in future work, or left any kind of lasting impact that facilitated some kind of grand or ambitious story arc? Oh, that's right.....none. And the thing is, I don't blame Claudia Grey for this. She's a fantastic author, and so are some of the writers for some of the Nu-Canon snoozefests I mentioned earlier: James Luceno, John Jackson Miller, and Timothy Zahn are all proven talent that are contributing some truly forgettable, sometimes mediocre stories. And I chalk that up to poor direction and management on behalf of LFL Publishing and Marvel's Star Wars division. There's no direction, ambition, risks being taken, creativity being stoked, or need to rattle the new canon to any degree. The amount of cowardice, the sheer terror of going outside of the "safe zone" of mild, one-shot stories is what's killing the current canon supplementary material, not the authors. The Expanded Universe's most memorable of story arcs, from the Thrawn Trilogy to Tales of the Jedi to the eventual narrative juggernauts like New Jedi Order and the Clone Wars Multimedia Project have one thing in common: they were planned exhaustively and facilitated by the overseers at Bantam and Del Rey. The people in charge of the EU didn't want safe----they wanted creative, ambitious, and rewarding to fans who were dedicated enough to pursue Star Wars narrative endeavors outside of the films.

Disney/LFL's current division is not, and that's why it's a wellspring of mediocrity, one that's completely unacceptable given that they're working with more resources and creative freedom than their predecessors at Bantam, Del Rey, and Dark Horse had shackled onto them....and they've had the license for half a decade now, with barely anything of consequence or significance to show for it.

I hope I've made that clear.

The people who diss the EU the most are the ones who have the least amount of experience with it. The EU had over 100 comics, several games, and nearly 170 published books in the entirety of its run----of course you're going to have a handful of bad or mediocre stories in a continuity that big, and in its early stages, worked against a large amount of restrictions posed by both Lucas and the nature of Star Wars at that point. The difference is that the Expanded Universe was a monolith of mostly good, sometimes jaw-droppingly excellent stories with a minority of bad ones. The Nu-Canon is almost nothing but mediocre lackluster stories with no ambition or risk to them at all, with the truly good or bad ones existing in a such small pocket that they barely have a presence in the continuity. And you can thank Disney/LFL's aversion to creative freedom and ambitious story arcs for that.

The difference between Luceno, Thrawn, and Miller's output of work in the EU and their Canon contributions is that they were afforded the kind of creative freedom and ushered into creating large-scale story arcs by the EU ownership. That's why you have Timothy Zahn publishing ho-hum origin stories for Thrawn instead of penning the Next Great Star Wars Adventure Beyond The Films like he did in 1991. These authors are only as good as the writing space they're provided.

Imagine what someone like Claudia Grey or E.K. Johnston could do if they'd been given the freedom to pursue an original, massive story arc in the SW Universe instead of being shackled to some throwaway one-offs like Leia: Princess of Alderaan or Ahsoka.

 

Wow hit a nerve. I simply asked what you were basing your timeline on. You said 5 years when the titles you mentioned were 8 years post ROTJ. I know all about the titles that came before. I was reading them. I am not some kid. I am 52 years old and read Splinter of a Minds in 1978 when it came out. Read many of the others as well.

I will translate the last 2 paragraphs. "Imagine the stories they could write if they didnt need to worry about films and other shows coming out". Look I really enjoyed many an EU book, but the flaw that is also the greatest asset is they didnt really have to worry about films and TV shows. Everyone thought they were dead and buried. Not to mention plenty of throw away EU books.

 

I read the Thrawn book when they came out and loved them, but I must have been a wise young adult because I realized right away that if there were ever more movies there's no way they'd follow the books.

Those stories still exist and there's no reason why people can't enjoy them. Star Wars isn't a religion. Enjoy the stories want. Just because Lucas didn't accept them as his story doesn't mean they don't have value.

 

You didn't hit any kind of nerve, I was just explaining my perspective on the matter, and the basis for it. Any hyperbole directed at the quality of stories written in the current canon isn't a slight against you at all.

And I explained why I consider the books published 8 years after ROTJ to be the start of the EU continuity, because that's when it was conceptualized as a shared continuity, not in the 8 years prior.

I don't remember implying anywhere that you didn't.

You mean how they were doing between 1999 and 2005, when you had Star Wars movies coming out? Because let me tell you, the amount of creative freedom given to the authors during the release of the PT films was not shortened or compromised by their presence. In fact, if anything, the story arcs released during and after that period were even bigger and more ambitious than the ones released in the early 90's prior to the PT.

So, uh....yeah. That's a standard that's already been set by the previous continuity.

You do realize that the scope and ambition of EU stories didn't change because of the presence of the films and TV shows, right? The EU started in 1991, but were they neutered with restrictions and limitations once the mainstream Star Wars media came about? Not in the slightest.

"Didn't have to worry about the films and TV shows?" You mean how Luke's Jedi Order was reconstructed during the NJO series to counter the flaws of the PT Jedi, because it was published along the same time? You mean how KOTOR when out of its way to establish plausible explanations for things like "The Rule of Two", the extinction of the Sith, the downfall of Mandalorians, and other aspects of the PT movies being released at the time? You mean how the entirety of the Mortis Arc and the concepts and themes introduced along with it from TCW was worked into the Fate of the Jedi books about Luke and his Jedi Order, being published around the same time?

There were plenty of things that Del Rey and Dark Horse had to factor from the movies and TV shows being released for their stories. And none of that stopped them from achieving multiple, large-scale, long-running story arcs that spanned multiple era, which is precisely what the Nu-Canon is failing to do. What was once true for the EU back in 1991 wasn't true in 1999 and onward once the Prequels and Clone Wars TV show was introduced...they now had to worry about the currently released media like movies and TV shows. Disney/LFL are in the same position right now, and are creating less with the freedom and circumstance they've been afforded.

And if the assumption is that "The 90's EU stuff had an advantage because it was made when no movies or TV shows were out..." I've got news for you: that wasn't an advantage, because restrictions still applied. The Prequel era, Anakin Skywalker & the Jedi of his day, the Clone Wars and everything in that timespan was off limits thanks to Lucas declaring it so. That's a hindrance, not a boon, to creative freedom...and yet Dark Horse still managed to leap 3000 years prior to ANH with Tales of the Jedi. And as mentioned, once the PT was introduced, the creative freedom afforded to EU writers wasn't lessened....it was increased.

Disney/LFL have movies and shows out just like the 1999-2014 era of the EU. They have more creative freedom, more resources, and no limitations. They did not have the same constrained starting point that the EU was burdened with. What is their excuse for their weaksauce turnout of novels and comics? And given the recent report about poor sales for all published Star Wars products recently, I don't think I'm alone in my disinterest in the disposable Nu-Canon offerings.

I'm not saying this as any kind of judgment or attack. I'm assessing the situation as I see it.

Every word of that is true.

It's just as an avid Star Wars consumer, I only wish that the Nu-Canon offerings would step up their game and create something impactful and creative on the same level as the EU, so I can enjoy those as well. Disney/LFL can absolutely do it---Star Wars Rebels is a glowing example to show that they have the capability---it's just too far and few in between, especially given how long LFL Publishing, Marvel and EA have had the license for creating stories.

 

The scope of the new visual media (film and TV) is much greater in scope then any time from 1983 through 2015. Lucas only really blocked out the PT time period. He didnt really care about ancient times at all and Disney/LFL does. There isnt an era that Disney/LFL isnt interested in TV and film. He really didnt care much about post ROTJ and Disney/LFL does.

 

That approach was only valid so long as Disney's plan for annual SW movies was in effect---an inherently damaging approach to supplementary material (because not every story works for TV and Film, and could potentially work better as comics or games or books), and an approach that, given Bob Iger's comments about the brand "slowing down" from this point onward, doesn't seem like a likely excuse anymore.

Not to mention that given all of the projects released and announced thus far---two OT-era spin-offs in the form of Rogue One and Solo, an OT-era TV series like Rebels, an OT-era show in the form of the upcoming Cassian series, the now-canned Boba Fett film which would've been ANOTHER OT-era story, and the highly OT-influenced media like the ST films and the upcoming Mandalorian series (which is already confirmed to be in set in the short aftermath of ROTJ, & featuring all of the OT callbacks like Stormtroopers, Rebels, etc.), the idea that "the scope is bigger" and "there's no era that Disney isn't interested in for TV and Film" is almost laughable, considering they only seem focused on the OT, or replicating the OT.

Until Disney/LFL puts out something set in a brand new era, free of the OT's trappings, the thought of them pursuing new eras like the EU used to do is nothing more than wishful thinking. Rian Johnson's trilogy i& the W&B movies are the only projects with eras unconfirmed, and given Disney/LFL's approach with their released media up till this point, I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up rehashing OT-era trappings like Stormtroopers, the "used future" aesthetic, and the ships & tech people nostalgically associate with the OT. Even Rian's, which is "set in an era and part of the universe we haven't seen before", will probably feature these things.

Because that's how Disney/LFL plays the game. Safe, nostalgia-heavy and creatively risk-averse. And their track record since 2012 has done nothing to convince me otherwise, and precisely why I don't share your enthusiasm that they'll change course, no matter how much I wish they would.

 

I'm not surprised that TV is staying closer to home. TV is being aimed more to old school fans. The movies have to move on past this Skywalker era to have any chance of connecting to foreign audiences. There's a ton of money to be made in foreign markets, but who can blame film-goers in China for not being hyped about a series with 6 films of backstory they never watched? Meanwhile films like Aquaman and Venom are killing it at the box office and the reviews are mixed.

The Benioff and Weiss films will likely be next and they're "separate from episodic Skywalker saga." Seems like they're going to a different place.