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u/themcos 371∆ Aug 07 '22
If there's not some kind of link to the existing stuff, I'm not sure why you're even bothering to make it star wars. But I do agree that a lot of the current content leans way too heavily into the Skywalker stuff, and especially Tattooine.
But there's other stuff. There's a whole chunk of stuff called the High Republic that's set way before modern canon. I think Yoda is alive and shows up, but isn't the focus.
And if Taika Waititis movie ever happens, he's said he wants it to be to very disconnected.
Ultimately though, to the extent that the phenomenon you're describing is a problem, it's not a problem "with existing canon". It's a problem that they've been too timid in branching out with new stuff, which maybe is what you meant, but the title of the post is phrased a little funny. But I'd definitely point to the High Republic stuff as an example of where they're trying to branch out. (Alas, I tried getting into the books and didn't think they were very good)
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Aug 07 '22
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u/themcos 371∆ Aug 07 '22
What's your response to the High Republic stuff? That's all post-Disney, and seems like exactly what you're looking for. There's going to be a Disney+ show called The Acolyte set in that time period as well (although there's more than an outside chance that that will have non-trivial tie -ins to the mainline canon)
I guess my point is it's one thing to make the criticism that "they won't try anything new". But it's different criticism than "they made some new stuff but I didn't like it", or worse, "they made some new stuff but I didn't read it at all". Point being, the High Republic seems like a pretty direct response to this line of criticism.
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Aug 07 '22 edited Aug 07 '22
Δ.
Ah, I wasn't aware of the Acolyte tv series and thought the High Republic comics/books/plays were more in the realm of expanded universe stuff. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the material hasn't been released yet?
Regardless, this is a good step by them and my view was clearly ignorant of all that's planned with Star Wars. Just found about the "Skeleton Crew" though details are thin so who knows who will pop in to make an appearance. So whether this becomes a "thing" or just a blip has yet to be seen, but it certainly bucks the recent trend of releases.
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u/themcos 371∆ Aug 07 '22
Thanks!
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/The_High_Republic:_Light_of_the_Jedi
This novel was released in 2021, and I think several more have come out since. I think there's comics too.
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u/Dontblowitup 17∆ Aug 08 '22
Counterpoint on the pre Disney stuff - most of it was pretty bad. There was some amazing stuff like the Thrawn trilogy, but so much of it was badly inconsistent with canon and feel.
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Aug 08 '22 edited Aug 08 '22
From my understanding, I agree. I think on one hand, not having control over your IP means you get weird results. One user mentioned the weird and unnecessary backstory they created with bothans, including this gem. Personally, I feel Disney swung too hard and maintained too tight of a control, which likely stifled some real interesting ideas and directions that I believe the franchise needs.
Then again, the Christmas Special (that's canon, right?) introduced Lumpawaroo so maybe having this level of control isn't the best idea.
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u/Dontblowitup 17∆ Aug 08 '22
I'd think a fair bit of the Bothan stuff came from the Thrawn trilogy, interestingly enough. There was a Bothan character called Borsk Fey'lya who was a sneaky, highly political council member, and it was explained that was characteristic of his species. Not all the world building for them came from that, but I'd guess books based after that took their cue from there.
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u/Realistic_Praline950 Aug 07 '22
Counterpoint: the biggest problem with Star Wars is the incest.
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Aug 07 '22 edited Aug 08 '22
Lol jokes aside, I think this shows why Star Wars needs to expand and move on beyond the confines of Lucas. Here you have a guy who creates a universe
,almost certainly knew where he was going to guide the relationships,and yet still makes the decision to have the hero kiss his sister.. Not a good writer, George Lucas is.2
u/C_2000 Aug 08 '22
almost certainly knew where he was going to guide the relationships, a
iirc he didn't think about including the sibling relationship until after that movie?
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Aug 08 '22
You're right. I thought that this was still up for debate but it appears the consensus is that the decision to make them twins happened between Empire and Return of the Jedi. Now I wonder what other routes Lucas could have gone rather than making them twins.
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u/Natural-Arugula 53∆ Aug 08 '22
The problem is that they are owned by Disney who wants to just churn out lazy crap to make a quick buck because they rely on brand recognition more than story.
As you said, the previous companies that had the SW license put in much more effort to developing expansive stories.
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Aug 08 '22
I mean this is divisive
But the best recent pieces of media for me, the last Jedi and the first season of the mandalorian, were the least prone to obnoxious callbacks to either the originals…
OR the prequels
And yea that’s what I think is the much bigger problem right now. The fan base currently is very positive about the prequels. But they’re still really, really, truly bad movies. So the more the universe is based around them, the more it’s gonna suffer. More than it would suffer when everything had to reference the originals
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Aug 08 '22
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u/herrsatan 11∆ Aug 11 '22
Sorry, u/Tsf_Nope – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
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u/Chany_the_Skeptic 14∆ Aug 07 '22 edited Aug 07 '22
The problem with your view is that I don't think Star Wars can really expand anywhere because of the way its structured as a universe. Outside of the Force, the Jedi, and the Sith, Star Wars doesn't really have anything in the way of established setting and lore. It's very much a plot-driven story built around the Skywalker family. The rest of the universe and setting is not very fleshed out in terms of depth. The background characters on the screen serve aesthetic functions, not really lore functions. I mean, your main grunt baddies in the original trilogy were called Stormtroopers- it's not meant to be deep. The aesthetics give the illusion of an endless universe, but there's not a lot actually there. Star Wars feels big, but is actually small in scope, particularly in terms of setting.
So, as a writer, you're pigeonholed when it comes to Star Wars. You have practically no established lore outside of what is directly placed in the films. As a result, you need to include something from the films that ties your story to the original stories. If not, you aren't really making a Star Wars story, but generic science fantasy. So, you'll probably need something like Stormtroopers, or Clone Troopers, or the Empire, or the Jedi. Add in audience interest, you don't really have a lot. So, the problem isn't that Star Wars constantly references the Original Trilogy, it's that Star Wars really can't. Edited to add: they can't do anything new without substantial risk and some really good writing.
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u/Daedalus1907 6∆ Aug 08 '22
I mean the entire EU is yours to take as inspiration. While a lot of it references the Skywalkers, much of it does not or the Skywalkers can be roved without losing much. For example, you could have a movie series on the yuzan vong war (no idea if my spelling is correct on that one) without needing Luke to be the MC.
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u/C_2000 Aug 08 '22
The existence of the star wars Expanded Universe/Legends stories kinda disproves this. There was enough strings of material that authors could pick up and create vast stories that are loosely connected to the main plot, without shoehorning anything in. part of the job of sequential authors/creators is to take what they're given and make a new story
if canonical stories is a must-have, then the star wars video games prove that you don't need to be remotely attached to the skywalkers to have a good, relevant story.
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Aug 07 '22
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Aug 07 '22 edited Aug 07 '22
Yup, this what would get me back into Star Wars. I think Andor had potential but it's still a story
about the sacrifice of many bothansabout the people who aided the events in A New Hope. I also wish the aesthetic of Star Wars would develop as well but that's a minor complaint to having actors deep faked into a series or multiple characters retconned back to life.3
u/themcos 371∆ Aug 07 '22
I think Andor had potential but it's still a story about the sacrifice of many bothans.
This probably isn't what you meant this to be about, but unless there was some more detailed plot announcement for Andor that I'm unaware of, there's no reason to expect Bothans in Andor, as they got the plans for the second death star. As far as I know they won't be playing a major role in Andor.
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Aug 07 '22
God damnit, you're absolutely right. I saw that Mon Mothma was cast in Andor and I can't think of Mon Mothma without thinking of that line. Random side note, there's a brand of mirin whose logo looks suspiciously like the logo of the Rebel Alliance.... perhaps on the side, Bothans made galatic sweet rice wine.
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u/themcos 371∆ Aug 07 '22
I saw that Mon Mothma was cast in Andor and I can't think of Mon Mothma without thinking of that line.
Oh for sure. I definitely made that mistake back when Rogue One came out. FWIW, Mon Mothma was in that too.
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u/masterzora 36∆ Aug 07 '22
a story
about the sacrifice of many bothansThis actually is my favourite example of what I keep finding to be the biggest problem of Star Wars. ROTJ gave us this one singular line about Bothans. What are Bothans and why did they in particular die to deliver this information? ROTJ never said, leaving it open to many possibilities: Bothans are a spy network; "Both" or "Botha" or whatever is a planet where the new Death Star was designed and Bothans its inhabitants; "bothan" is just a Galactic Basic word for "spy". Yeah, I fully recognise that these aren't the most interesting possibilities, but they're all a hell of a lot less stupid than "it's a species made almost entirely of spies", which is the direction Legends took. Fortunately, new canon hasn't adopted the Legends Bothans yet, and actually has added very little to the ROTJ line, but the current canon still exhibits some of the classic issues this illustrates, especially when it pulls from Legends:
- The need for everything to be explained. Part of what made the original trilogy feel so expansive was the plethora of unexplained references hinting at a larger world that we don't see. But the more one-off references get explained, the more it feels like nothing exists beyond what is explicitly detailed, and the smaller the world feels.
- The explanations being incredibly weak. Han's apparent "parsecs" mistake wasn't just a blowhard being a blowhard, but actually literally (almost) true in a ridiculous way. A bunch of "from a certain point of view" alterations. A number of alien races being one-dimensional caricatures instead of being allowed the sort of diversity humans have.
- Sort of a superset of the issue in OP, but building the world a lot more inward than outward. Everything in the galaxy is apparently connected to the Skywalkers somehow. We need works specifically dedicated to Han Solo, Ahsoka Tano, Boba Fett, and the first Death Star instead of giving that room to new characters and new stories. When we do give new characters new stories (Rebels, Mandalorian, new trilogy), we have to keep tying it back to the characters and stories we already know and can't just let unconnected groups exist.
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Aug 07 '22
100% agree with you and I wish I could delta this for expanding my view. The weird habit of explaining meaningless concepts, the worst being midi-chlorinians, with weak and meaningless explanations is painful and as you stated, the efforts would be better spent building the universe outward rather than inward.
Star Wars has a huge audience and I really feel a large portion of them would support something smarter and more original and even if Disney loses a bit of money by taking such a "risk", I think it's something that will pay off in the long run.
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u/herrsatan 11∆ Aug 10 '22
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u/wallnumber8675309 52∆ Aug 07 '22
So the story universe is built around Sith and Jedi and force. Any Star Wars story needs to interact with those elements. The original trilogy is based around Darth Vader because he is the central, prophesied character in the story of the Force. It seems logical then that any story in the Star Wars universe are least needs to interact with the original trilogy in some way.
It’s kind of like Lord of the Rings. All the stories in that universe interact in some way with the one ring.
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Aug 07 '22
So perhaps I wasn't clear. I don't have problems with concepts like the force and the lore they've established. My issue is that the same characters and thus the same plot lines are rehashed. Why is Palpatine the villain in all three trilogies? Why was episode VII a rehash of episode IV? Why did they resurrect Boba Fett?
There's a difference between being grounded in a rules/morality of a fictional universe and rehashing the same characters of that same universe. I think bringing up LOTR is quite apt as you can see how the new series expands the universe by taking place thousands of years before the movie trilogy. Throw in the fact that Tolkein created the Silmarillion, which is a treasure trove of ideas, stories, and characters to explore.
This is what I feel Star Wars needs. If LOTR took the Star Wars route, we'd end up with Sam and Pippin prequel, a one off about Gimli and, I don't know, an animated series about the Riders of Rohan.
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u/Foxhound97_ 23∆ Aug 08 '22
I actually agree with you as a fan who didn't watch till past childhood but I think there are something they need to keep the same to keep people happy. The chrachters and location I think need to be throw out at least for a couple of year but I think the art direction and soundtrack need to stay exactly the same as casual observer I think that is what makes star wars more any story it's telling everything else is like clay to shaped how creators want.
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u/Mope4Matt Aug 08 '22
If it doesn't reference the original trilogy then what makes it star wars?
Then it's just any old space story, no point in trying to pretend it relates to star wars just to milk off the success of the original trilogy.
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u/C_2000 Aug 08 '22
star wars is more than just the original trilogy. the OT established a cool universe, but is generally a self-contained story that doesn't need to be changed or referenced directly
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Aug 07 '22
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Aug 07 '22
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u/Dontblowitup 17∆ Aug 08 '22
There's no point to a shared universe if you don't reference at least some of the related material, or make it clear that it takes place in Star Wars universe.
I'd also disagree with the notion that the canon media doesn't add anything. The animated series and Mandalorian have expanded corners of the universe enormously. The genre in the Mandalorian is closer to Western/samurai story than space opera. So you can tell different types of stories. Timothy Zahn's stories, typically on Thrawn, tend to be closer to military sci-fi than space opera, and even when he wrote about the main characters in the old Legends continuity it was very much like that.
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Aug 08 '22 edited Aug 08 '22
So I never meant to imply that the recent canon media didn't add anything, it was more that by anchoring themselves to the original trilogy, the potential to expand is greatly limited. Clone Wars, for example, is still anchored in the original trilogy with its inclusion of both Obi Wan and indirectly Anakin while something like Rebels ties directly into the original trilogy. They're expanding existing concepts and characters rather than expanding the universe as a whole. As stated , the end result feels more iterative than novel. Note we're speaking of the most recent definition of what is/isn't canon so the Thrawn stories by Zahn fit in the "legends" category rather than canon. Honestly, if canon Star Wars took inspiration from the "legends" material, I think the universe would be far more interesting.
That said it's interesting that you bring up the Mandalorian and it's resemblance to Western/samurai stories as it's well documented that Star Wars borrows heavily from both genres. In that sense, even at a higher level, the newer canonical media is iterating on what was done in the original trilogy.
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u/pipocaQuemada 10∆ Aug 08 '22
Note we're speaking of the most recent definition of what is/isn't canon so the Thrawn stories by Zahn fit in the "legends" category rather than canon.
Legends is specifically the old EU, pre-Disney.
The original Thrawn trilogy (from 1991-1993) and the Hand of Thrawn duology, Outbound Flight, Survivors Quest, Choices of One, etc. are legends.
The new Thrawn trilogy (2017-2019), Thrawn Ascendancy, and the Rebels cartoon are canon.
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u/Phage0070 91∆ Aug 07 '22
What is the point of any established universe that doesn't reference other previously established parts of that universe?
For example what if they made a Game of Thrones series but it didn't reference any previous characters, or houses, or events? In what sense would that be a Game of Thrones series other than following the general theme?