xhonzi said:

It seems silly to name the kid Ben, and then otherwise completely contradict the EU.

"Ben" says to that they're tyring to go in EU-agnostic. If you know his name is Ben from the EU, good for you, it's just like the EU. If you don't, then you probably don't know or care. Good for you too. Everyvbody wins.

I feel as though they wont be able to go EU-agnostic, as you put it (I like that term, I'm going to steal it and use it from now on). There are just so many details that at least some of them will impede the story they want to tell. And honestly, I think the transition to Disney may have caused a lack of initiative to flesh out all the EU related issues for the new films. But that's just my own speculation.

If that is the case, it makes me wonder why they would try to align some things and not others. Why not create everything from scratch if half of the EU gets retconned anyways? It would make more sense to me to just keep the existing EU in it's own timeline or "classic canon-verse." And then from now on promote a new timeline or "sequel canon-verse". Just like Marvel has the 616 Universe and the Ultimate Universe. The materials that get printed/created from here on out can be advertised as classic or sequel canon. And the EU writers can choose which canon they want to create new stories for. This would give the sequels to start from scratch, and not have to half-ass some elements of EU into and/or out of the sequels.

For me, I really have no preference at all. I've followed a bit of EU, but not much, and I won't be heartbroken if they contradict/retcon it. It doesn't effect my enjoyment of those stories and it won't effect my enjoyment of the new films.