Raven, Please Do Your EU Research

[t3rr0r]

Originally posted by Dragonlancer

Dude, do you own research. Lando got cloud city back, one of the Young Jedi Knights books takes place on cloud city.

keep in mind, though, that the young jedi knights series takes place 23+ years after the battle of yavin.

[Iblis Reborn]

back to the original topic comment,

just seeying how long these arguments can go on proves that you cant get everything perfect and that raven did the best they could (and thats good enough for me )

[Prime]

Originally posted by Boba Rhett

"Canon of the EU" ... rofl.

Indeed

 

Originally posted by Silent_Thunder

Hmm, I thought I recalled hearing something about a cloned Emporer... But the way you guys make it sound the EU totally nullified everything that happened in RotJ by having Luke go to the darkside... Even having the "cloned Emporer" seduce him... It sounds like someone just wanted to rewrite RotJ to me!

And bring back the Emperor negating Vader's sacrifice...and having many other characters go to the Dark Side and come back, negating what is explained in the movies...and saying that there is no Light or Dark Side, negating what is explained in the movies...and...well, I digress

 

Originally posted by Silent_Thunder

Just out of curiousity, but does Kyle every get any dialouge in any NJO books?

I haven't read them, but from what I understand, no he does not. But rest assured, he would be b**ch slapping Jacen, Jaina, Anakin, and all the other NJO Jedi crybabies for all their whining

 

Originally posted by Iblis Reborn

back to the original topic comment,

just seeying how long these arguments can go on proves that you cant get everything perfect and that raven did the best they could (and thats good enough for me )

Frankly, I think that the JO and the Dark Forces series in general has some of the better EU storylines. It seem much more like Star Wars to me. I agree that Raven has done a great job.

[nova_wolf]

Oh dear....

 

Okay - who said the...... c word then?

 

And Kyle doesnt say anything, but he was mentioned in the latest NJO book. First time ever outside of the DF series!

[Kurgan]

Keep in mind the Dark Forces series of BOOKS are considered an official part of the Star Wars EU continuity, so that in addition to the games...

 

 

I want to hammer on this one very carefully, because I believe that some of the games themselves have the ability to trump the EU novels. LucasArts is a company founded for Star Wars games, and guess who has to examine the story line down to the tee? George Lucas.

 

Key word being STORY here, not gameplay fudgings to make it more fun/balanced/interesting. As games the DF series works well, but most of the stuff in it would make a horribly monotonous movie/book. That is why the DF books are different in places and leave out most of the hack-hacking and all that. I agree that I'd rather play JK/2 than read some of the EU novels, but that's another story...

 

The level of Lucas's intervention with each of the EU stories is unknown, but suffice to say it probably has more to do with money than anything else. Considering the level of contradiction between EU sources and canon sources, etc, it's probably a very minimalistic approach and probably changes over time.

 

The point being that the prequels have run roughshod over much of the EU. That leaves the EU authors to either keep on as if nothing ever happened and utter some excuse to explain it away, or else to drop what they were doing and rewrite their own history.

 

 

As Bob Brown's star wars website points out, a lot of the "brain bugs" (contradictions and assumptions that pop up following narrow interpretations of Star Wars canon) that occur in SW come from the RPG (a game, after all is said and done).

 

The various teams doing the DF games seem to have a handle on providing a healthy mix of Canon and EU content into a decent gameplay framework (with only a few minor lapses, like the "lightsaber fizzle out in water" thing in JK2).

[toms]

this may be totally wrong, but i remember hearing somewhere that they basically got a load of authors together and mapped out the very rough outline of the EU right at the start... then george approved it.

 

From then on all the authors have pretty much just had to fit within this agreed loose framework.

 

This is why most of it fits together, but there are a few specific instances where it all falls apart.

 

I have to agree that the plots to DF, JK and MotS are pretty much as good as any in the EU. THey may not be as deep (due to gameplay and technological restraints) but they "feel" a lot more starwars than most of the EU novels that I have read. Same goes for Tie-fighter.

 

90% of the EU novels were terrible... always inventing new superweapons and new force baddies/powers. And don't get me started on that whole Vong "super alien species invades" plotline that was ripped from Independance day and every othe scifi film ever.

 

THe 5 Zahn books were about the only ones that felt "star wars", and thrawn is possibly the best EU character ever. I thought the Ysalimari and the cortosis seemed to work quite well, (how can you create feedback in a blaster when the blast has left the barrel???)(i always assumed it was some form of cortosis alloy they used in Mandalorian armour... but i think they have changed that as well). The only problem i had was that I felt sorry for thrawn, he had all these amazing plans, and then by absolute cooincidence every time one was about to happen it would be thwarted by a 2,000,000 to one fluke appearance of Luke or Han or Lando in exactly the right place at the right time.

 

PS/ don't get too hung up on EU continuity... i always liked the way they put mara jade in MotS, but loads of picky fanboys kept complaining it didn't quite fit the timeline... which is probably why they ignored it in JK2.

[Prime]

Originally posted by toms

I have to agree that the plots to DF, JK and MotS are pretty much as good as any in the EU. THey may not be as deep (due to gameplay and technological restraints) but they "feel" a lot more starwars than most of the EU novels that I have read. Same goes for Tie-fighter.

Ah, Tie Fighter! An excellent game to be sure, and a great story. Loved the Inner Circle. Now that was a game that felt like Star Wars.

 

Originally posted by toms

90% of the EU novels were terrible... always inventing new superweapons and new force baddies/powers. And don't get me started on that whole Vong "super alien species invades" plotline that was ripped from Independance day and every othe scifi film ever.

Vong indeed. That is what has kept me from reading the NJO. The good thing about the games like the JK series and Tie Fighter is that they don't try to alter or add things to the Star Wars myth. They work within it. Dark Forces didn't try to change the story of how the Rebels got the Death Star plans, but simple give more detail. In Tie Fighter, the Inner Circle isn't mentioned in the movies, but it certain is possible that is was there. Most of the EU novels seem to try and alter things that we know from the movies.

 

Originally posted by toms

PS/ don't get too hung up on EU continuity... i always liked the way they put mara jade in MotS, but loads of picky fanboys kept complaining it didn't quite fit the timeline... which is probably why they ignored it in JK2.

I don't get too hung up on continuity, mainly because I don't have an indepth knowledge of it. And since neither the games nor the books come from the brain of Lucas, whoes to say which storyline false?

[Kurgan]

PS/ don't get too hung up on EU continuity... i always liked the way they put mara jade in MotS, but loads of picky fanboys kept complaining it didn't quite fit the timeline... which is probably why they ignored it in JK2.

 

They didn't "ignore" it in JK2. I remember this sort of thing happened when MotS came out, people started speculating that Jan died because she wasn't in it, etc.

 

The whole thing with Kyle giving up the Force and hanging up his saber, for fear of the Dark Side doesn't mean a whole lot if you just go straight from JK to JK2. MotS tells WHY he's so afraid of falling.

 

Also notice how it says he "goes back" to be with Jan, as if they were apart for awhile (and in MotS, they are). So MotS actually fits perfectly, unless for some reason you think the other EU stuff contradicts it.

 

I don't think any conscious decision was made on the part of the JK2 developers to "ignore" MotS at all.

 

About the only conflicting point within the games is the fact that he gave a blue lightsaber to Luke. But apparently they did that under pressure from LucasFilm (main characters in single player having to follow the "Good guys have blue/green sabers/bad guys have red" rule from the movies), not because it had any significance in the storyline (and an excuse to give you another saber color you hadn't had before). Notice how they also made your saber "short out" in water (a deleted screenplay scene from TPM, but contradicted by AOTC, and other stuff in the EU like Splinter of the Mind's Eye and JK/MotS themselves) in JK2. That would make absolutely no sense in the context of the other games, so I'm assuming they did it because of Lucasfilm or an implied need to adhere more strictly to the films, as a company using a liscensed property.

[Anakin1607]

"Uh, Mr. Lucas has nothing to do with the storylines of games, books, comics, and so on."

 

Ah of course! That would explain his role in Dark Empire, Knights of the Old Republic, the Clone War cartoon, Bounty Hunter, and approving the New Jedi Order for release!

 

Yup, you sure are right.

 

[JaledDur]

Originally posted by Wavey Davey

Besides they've followed most of the other EU stuff, Yavin, Mara Jade, Ysaslmari sp? so why not use other stuff and make it true to the EU.

 

 

It was convenient for them. Just because they happen to use those characters/objects in the game doesn't mean they automatically take on the baggage of the convoluted EU (which often contradicts itself). I enjoy the EU books and such as much as the next guy, but we don't have to be totally fanatical about it. The movies are cannon, thats it. No one has to follow what has been done in the EU -- if they do its out of courtesy. So if Raven decides to do something that doesnt conform to the EU, then they're just not being polite -- it has nothing to do with right or wrong.

[Prime]

Originally posted by Anakin1607

"Uh, Mr. Lucas has nothing to do with the storylines of games, books, comics, and so on."

 

Ah of course! That would explain his role in Dark Empire, Knights of the Old Republic, the Clone War cartoon, Bounty Hunter, and approving the New Jedi Order for release!

 

Yup, you sure are right.

 

Okay, I'm talking storylines here. And here is what I was responding too:

 

Originally posted by Rad Blackrose

LucasArts is a company founded for Star Wars games, and guess who has to examine the story line down to the tee? George Lucas.

 

Lucas is not involved in coming up with or editing the stories. He only puts limits on what you can touch. He is only concerned with the movies. Lucas Licensing is what is involved with the editing, etc. Not Lucas.

 

From an interview with Shelly Shapiro on starwars.com about coming up with NJO:

 

Shapiro, together with the editorial team at Lucas Licensing, helps steer the direction of adult Star Wars fiction told in the hardcover and paperback books set in various eras of Star Wars history...

 

...Those of us in on the initial planning sessions--representatives of Lucas Licensing, Del Rey, and some authors--had our individual ideas of who should be the sacrificial lamb...

 

How involved was George Lucas in the details of planning and plotting the various books, and in the choice of writers? How much independence do the writers have . . . and how much do you have as editor?

 

...For example, as I mentioned earlier, we were told we could not kill off certain characters. We originally intended the enemy to be dark Force-users; we were told they had to be non-Force users. We had a certain plan in mind for one of the characters; we were told to use a different character for this particular plan. That was about the extent of George's involvement -- unless there was more going on behind the scenes than I was aware of. The writers have all been chosen by mutual consent: some of them were suggested by me and approved by the folks at Lucas Licensing. Others were suggested by Lucas Licensing and subsequently approved by me.

 

We really work as a team. That said, the final say always lies with Lucas Licensing. The writers have a lot of independence in coming up with a story, provided they work in the plot points necessary to keep the overall story arc moving along. I have a lot of independence as editor: Lucas Licensing doesn't even see an outline or a manuscript until the author and I feel pretty confident that it's ready to be looked at for approval. If we disagree, we discuss the issue -- even argue it occasionally -- until we come to some resolution. But in the end, we make whatever changes Lucas Licensing requires. It's their intellectual property (well, it's George's, but it's their job to protect that for him), and they have every right to control its destiny.

 

Lucas Licensing is responsible for the books, games, etc. and how they fit into SW. Lucas does not get very involved with the non-movie parts of SW.

 

From an interview with Zachary Sotolongo:

 

"There are two worlds here," explained Lucas. "There's my world, which is the movies, and there's this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe - the licensing world of the books, games and comic books. They don't intrude on my world, which is a select period of time, [but] they do intrude in between the movies. I don't get too involved in the parallel universe."

 

Cheers.

[The_One]

Who cares about the EU? Well, obviously a lot of people - but still, half of the EU seems to contradict the other half - from my understanding anyway.

 

I only take the Star Wars movies seriously - anything else is merely an after thought. As long as it makes a good game, I'm perfectly happy...

[Prime]

I don't mind the EU, but I only care about faithfulness to the movies.

[Kurgan]

I guess I'm mostly concerned with "storyline continuity" when it comes to the games, and the games only need be faithful to the movies in terms of story-characters.

 

The games make liberal use of the EU, so if they are loosely faithful to the EU literature, that's fine too.

 

The only real drawback to if it "breaks" with anything in the EU (and not just because of the movies) then EU fanboys denigrate the game and dismiss it, which as a DF series fan kind of irks me, but oh well.... ; )

 

As long as they tell a good story, and its fun and reasonably balanaced in gameplay, and has some cool tricks, whatever they do is fine by me.

[Blademaster_109]

what is an eu search

[Prime]

Originally posted by Kurgan

I guess I'm mostly concerned with "storyline continuity" when it comes to the games, and the games only need be faithful to the movies in terms of story-characters.

 

The games make liberal use of the EU, so if they are loosely faithful to the EU literature, that's fine too.

This is my view as well. Faithfulness to the movies is paramount, and to the EU secondary.

[HitMan]

While I agree that faithfulness to the movies is most important, imagine how empty the Star Wars universe would be without the EU.

 

With just a handful of main characters to work from and around, the DF/JK series would require an awful lot more conceptual work, and with all due respect to Raven, computer games' track records show that completely independent-- or almost so, in this hypothesis--storylines are not the industry's forte.

 

On top of that, some of the EU stuff is actually really good material, especially the work of Zahn and Stackpole.

 

Basically, my point is: They're using the Jedi Academy, which is completely EU. But Katarn is never, as far as I know, mentioned as being a teacher there, so they're not being completely faithful to what's been writtena bout the Academy.

 

So far.

 

Look at it this way, and my post will have done its job.

They're adding to the EU, rather than trying to work around it.

[Wavey Davey]

If games were considered canon above EU then the following would be true.

 

Ace Azzameen flew the Millenium Falcon, thus destroying the death star. (XWA)

 

Anakin took part in pod racing tournaments accross the galaxy as a kid. (SW Racer)

 

The jedi let Anakin have some time off of his Jedi studies to enter the pod racing again. (SW Racer Revenge)

 

Everything that happened after Yavin didn't exist as u can make the war turn the way u make it. (Rebellion)

 

I could go on but i won't.

[Emon]

Originally posted by Wavey Davey

One of the things that really annoyed me about JO was that it did not follow the canon of the EU, yes they had the Jedi Academy, but some things were wrong, i.e

 

Jedi Knight was set straight after RotJ

JO +9 Years

 

Therefore JO is set 9-10 years after RotJ

 

1) Mon lost her position as Chief of State during the events of Jedi Academy Trilogy, which was SEVEN years after RotJ.

 

Mon Mothma was still the leader of the New Republic in JO.

 

2) Lando lost control of cloud city during ESB, he had a number of business ventures after but he did not own cloud city at the time.

 

They make it quite clear in JO that Lando owns cloud city.

 

Can't think of any other right now, excpet for the fact that who the hell is kyle katarn he isn't in any of the novels yet he's made out to be more powerful than Luke.

 

EDIT: Typos

 

1. No one said she was Chief of State in JO. She just appeared and told them their mission. She could have any position.

 

2. They do not make it clear that Lando owns Cloud City.

 

3. Raven did not write the story. You get your facts straight on who does what development in the game before you post this nonsense.

[Prime]

Originally posted by HitMan

While I agree that faithfulness to the movies is most important, imagine how empty the Star Wars universe would be without the EU.

True enough, but we would, no doubt, have a Star Wars universe with a lot fewer continuity errors and inconsistencies. The Prequals have made much of the older EU obselete.

 

Originally posted by HitMan

On top of that, some of the EU stuff is actually really good material, especially the work of Zahn and Stackpole.

The key word there is some. I liked the Zahn trilogy, but a lot of the other stuff I've read I thought was poor. Just opinions though. But because I thought a lot of the EU is sub-par, I don't have much problem with a few tweeks in the JK series. Like I've said before, I feel that the JK series has had a Star Wars feel that is better than much of the EU.

 

Originally posted by HitMan

Basically, my point is: They're using the Jedi Academy, which is completely EU. But Katarn is never, as far as I know, mentioned as being a teacher there, so they're not being completely faithful to what's been written a bout the Academy.

I don't believe that it has been stated that Kyle wasn't a teacher at the Academy at some point. So why is it not feasible that he was? It doesn't contradict anything, does it? This is another thing I like storywise about the JK series. They don't try and alter any from the movies. They use the movies and build from there. Some of the EU outright contradicts what is in the movies. Like the NJO and the no lightside/darkside stuff.

[Kurgan]

If games were considered canon above EU then the following would be true.

 

Technically no, because they would still contradict the movies, which are the highest canon.

 

The EU is not canon, only "official" or "quasi-canon."

 

I think I know what you were trying to say, and it's funny and I agree, but you were wrong on that one point.

[Prime]

Originally posted by Kurgan

Technically no, because they would still contradict the movies, which are the highest canon.

Followed by the novelizations and radio dramas. The EU isn't really "canon" at all, since it is not from the mind of George Lucas.

 

As Kurgan said official != canon

[Matariel]

i agree with prime, Tie Fighter was the best Star Wars game ever, it had a parallel storyline to the movies so there was no story conflict, and it was just really fun to play!

 

But ive said it before and i'll say it again, EU is not 'Star Wars' in my opinion. Star Wars is anything written by George Lucas and nothing else.

So, while you never see Lando go back to cloud city in 'Jedi', you assume he does, and he still runs it. And some people are including thing in Pod Racer as story elements?!? gimme a break! Those are kiddy games at best, with no story to them whatsoever, you just race around a big track really really fast.

 

So anyways, the books are not canon, i especially hate the ones that make up crap about the original star wars characters that is completely and obviously wrong (ive not read a whole EU book, but some of the posts here give some good examples) This being said, i never got into the books that introduce other characters, they just dont have the same feel as the movie characters. The movies feature characters that are persistant throughout both trilogys, and you get a feel for them, know what they're like. The EU characters feel like they're a character 'tacked-on' to an already long running sitcom thats loosing ratings or something, you never really like them.

Also the games are not 'canon' per-se, some events conflict (like X-wing and X-wing Alliance, your character destroys both death stars) some do not (Like Rebel Assault 1 + 2, you assist in the correct order of events in RA1, but in RA2 its a parallel storyline)

Im really waiting for Knights of the Old Republic or Galaxies, because they'll conform to the things we know from the movies, not the EU which the JK series will always be stuck to becuase of the new characters it created.

[Kurgan]

Just a little nitpick on the side from what I said. The terms "quasi-canon" and "official" are just ways of explaining all this, they are not actually official terms themselves (used by LucasFilm or Lucas himself... but by some of his authors and cohorts).

 

Essentially what you have are GL's stories:

 

Films

novelisations, screenplays, radio dramas

 

And the rest of the officially liscensed stuff:

"The EU"

 

With the games somewhere at the bottom.

 

Something along those lines anyway, as far as continuity goes. Then of course there are exceptions like the "Infinities" stories that aren't supposed to fit anywhere, but are just "what if" scenarios.

[Prime]

As I have posted before, Lucas explains the difference between the two:

 

GL - 2002: "There are two worlds here," explains Lucas. "There's my world, which is the movies, and there's this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe-the licensing world of books, games and comic books. They don't intrude on my world, which is a select period of time, [but] they do intrude in between the movies. I don't get too involved in the parallel universe."

 

The movie stories (in all its forms: i.e. novelisations, screenplays, radio dramas), are the only things that are really "canon".

 

posted by Matariel

Tie Fighter was the best Star Wars game ever, it had a parallel storyline to the movies so there was no story conflict, and it was just really fun to play!

You do not tell a lie! Tie Fighter was awesome, and a perfect example of what I mean. The Inner Circle was a cool original idea, and it did not conflict with the movies.