Easterhay said:

I wonder what it was that led you to believe the EU was canon? I don't remember Lucas confirming it to be so at that, or indeed, any other time. Personally, I never took the EU that seriously, even the stories I enjoyed.

I am not an EU person (I have friends who read alot of EU books, so I have some knowledge of what stories have been put out.

The thing about the EU is that Lucas has never been married to the EU, (as he has said it is not canon), but he has always respected it with his timeline. I honestly thought he would never do the ST simply because there was so much material put out post-ROTJ for the EU.

If you look at all of the other EU stuff (Before Episode 6), it coincides nicely with Episodes I-VI, so the movies still respect that timeline. Now if Lucas has Chewbacca in Episode 7, or there is no Mara Jade, then he is not respecting the EU material from post-ROTJ.

In saying all of that, I could care less cause I am not an EU person, as I actually want to see Chewbacca in the new movies, and I really don't know much about Mara Jade other then what my friends told me about her. But I do understand EU people being pissed off that the post-ROTJ stuff has been thrown out the window.

Another analogy would be is if I loved the OT Special Editions, but I could totally understand OOT fans being pissed that they have never been released properly on BluRay/DVD.