Umm, What?!?
Since nearly 97% of fans out there regard Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire series as one, if not the best, of the novel trilogies (and has been referred to what Episode VII should be if ever done) written over the past two decades, it seems that your one of those 'If it isn't in the OT it's $#!^'
Do you think for one second that a vast military complex spanning hundreds of millions of ground forces, hundreds of thousands of warships with crew, and control of nearly the entire galaxy that the Emperor had achieved over twenty-seven years would suddenly shrug their shoulders and surrender at the mere mention that both Vader and the Emperor had perished??? Anakin achieved final victory over the Dark Side of the Force, finally bringing it into balance with the death of the Emperor, but it didn't militarily bring final victory over the military forces of the Empire.
Sounds like this train of thought belongs to a Trekkie for a great cliffhanger, two part one hour TV episodes.
Now with that rant over
I can get back to the topic at hand.
The Clone Wars, while a few story arcs were good, never seem to live up to my expectations. Namely the plots. To me, while listening to the behind the scene interviews, it seems that David Filoni and his team took every influential horror/sci-fi movie of the past six decades to write their episodes about. They can call it whatever they want but to me it doesn't show originality. Toss in a bunch of half bake comments that hearken to the OT for a grin or two and that's what you got. Not to mention that the series was all over the place instead of chronological timeline order. Now I know the Holocron Keeper is going to try and put everything into some sort of sense but in all actuality you can't; the series clashes too much with what was drawn in the comics, written in the novels, and shown on this series.
The whole CW should be null and void IMHO as well as a bunch of crappy novels that were written. 'Oh why should we do that?' you might ask. Well let's look at the upcoming Episode VII and what we know.
This was posted over on another board concerning everything that we know up until December of last year:
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A few days ago me and my friend (who is my equal when it comes to Star Wars lore) spent some guy time with the wives away at a baby shower and we got talking about Disney taking over the Star Wars series and how Hamill, Fisher, and Ford have expressed interest in reprising their roles as Luke, Leia, and Han and how on one hand it would be cool, but on the other that it won't. Then he brought up an extremely valid point that caused about an hour long debate:
What if Lucas/Disney screws up with the Expanded Universe timeline???
He brought up a very valid point. For the last twenty plus years, various authors, artist, and creators have created a lush and reach Expanded Universe following the exploits of Luke, Leia, and Han and what become of them after ROTJ. Some of the stories were hands down awful, others so-so, many were good, and some stood out as great. But Lucas, in the past, has always said 'he follows his vision for Star Wars and doesn't have to go by what others have written'. Case in point how Anakin became Darth Vader and the entire Clone Wars, not to mention the back story of fame and ever enduring Bounty Hunter, Boba Fett. The prequel movies (and cartoon series) messed up what was already known about the Clone Wars. Now here comes a new trilogy set 30 years after the events shown in ROTJ.
So according to the official Star Wars Expanded Universe Timeline, what has already been written and known during that time?
- The Yuzzhan Vong has been defeated after a bloody four year war.
- Chewbacca died at the beginning of the war
- Luke is married to Mara Jade and have a son, Ben Skywalker
- Leia and Han are married; the twins Jacen and Jaina are still alive, but the youngest, Anakin, dies in the Vong War.
- Jacen begins his slide towards the Dark Side to become Darth Cadeous
- Lando is married to Talendra and have children
- The New Republic is the Galactic Alliance
- The Imperial Remnant, now known as The Empire, is starting to become more powerful under the leadership of Grand Admiral Pallaeon.
- The Jedi Order only numbers in 50 or so Knights and Masters
So how can Disney/Lucas screw this up since it's suppose to be a story of Luke rebuilding the Jedi Order? Well, simply put....Luke never married and there is no Mara Jade. Or maybe that Han and Leia never got married. Or maybe the Empire wasn't defeated and the galaxy is still at war. Maybe the Yuzzhan Vong never invaded. Maybe Han and Leia never had children. That'll never happen, you say, since someone else will be writing the screenplay. All you have to do is look at what Lucas has said in the past that I quoted above that he is not bound by others' visions for Star Wars and only to his. And don't forget he is signed on as creative consulted for the movies. His vision, no one else's. I'm beginning to wonder if he has a magic veto say as well?
The best outcome that we can hope for is that Luke, Leia, and Han are regulated to supporting characters or maybe even just cameos with a whole new set of main and supporting characters in the new trilogy.
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Now we know that it's almost certain that Harrison, Hamil, and Fisher will be back and most likely Daniels (no word on Williams or Mayhew). We know its going to be an original story with new main characters and the returning trio either backing them up or being cameos. But other than that everything is up in the air. I hope beyond hope that Maul, Ventress, Tano and everything else Clone Wars stays out of it. Keep it new and refreshing, but bring back those adult elements and darkness while leaving it the bit of humor and leaving out the childish slap stick and comedy.
Is JJ Abramas and Disney going to piss off a lot of SW Fans; most likely (just have to look at JJ's take on Star Trek and all the pure Trekkies that were going ape &#!^ over his vision until they saw it and slowly started to like it), but I do believe this is what the franchise needs: New Young Blood onto the scene, someone to breath new life and ideas instead of continously tweaking tweaking tweaking. George, your time is now over, now move aside and let the young directors take the helm.
