imperialscum said:
I don't care too much about EU books and some of them should most definitely be ignored (like Dark Empire for example). But on the other hand, I couldn't care less if Chewie is not in the new films.
+1
They can (and should) "ignore" what's happened in the EU over the 40 or so in-universe years since RotJ. By this I mean they don't need to bring any of it up. If they came up with a good story with original characters and make it in the spirit of the original '77 film, it's doable. In that film we were seeing this universe through the eyes of the characters, discovering it as they did (something Abrams took to heart in Trek '09). Have Chewie's kid(s) take over his role. Boom, problem solved. I, for one, wouldn't mind a passing line ala Indy looking at a photo of his dad in Crystal Skull. I really don't see why Chewbacca himself simply must be in the movie.
But what I don't want them to do is suddenly "pretend it never happened" (i.e. a hard reboot of the EU), unless they pull a TCW and sandwich the entire ST somewhere into the years before Vector Prime. I wouldn't want them to do either of these things (reboot or sandwiching), but then again I honestly don't see them doing it anyway.
In response to SilverWook's question, it was TCW (the cgi series) that threw a big huge wrench into the continuity works of the entire existing clone wars canon at the time. This was, I believe, the first time LFL's "different levels of canonicity" excuse was used so blatantly, although I could be wrong.