Fang Zei said:
To address several points brought up in this thread,
I think George should've taken a more supervisory role in the EU, rather than simply handing it off and watching the dollars flow in. It's clear that the idea of continuing the story through books was thought up in order to help Lucasfilm build itself up again financially in the early 90's. Make no mistake, they said it was the "official" continuation, which kinda makes George's statements to the contrary all the more annoying.
George needed a way of making money for the company, and the books provided that. He was too obsessed with getting the PT made to bother with the post-RotJ timeline, especially when it was already making that much money without his involvement. Besides, maybe he really did consider RotJ "the end" and thought there would never be an Ep7. He did condense the original plan for episodes 6 through 9 into just one movie, so this is kinda true anyway.
What would've been ideal is George stepping back and being the over-arching supervisor of everything, writing the story outline for the PT and the post-Jedi EU but letting other screenwriters, directors and authors fill in the details. Instead he was hyper-focused on the PT and paid little attention to anything else.
As for the PT somehow ruining the EU, I don't get the argument here. There was barely any EU there to ruin, unless you're referring to the stuff brought up in the Thrawn books. GL specifically mandated early on that no EU stories be set within that timeframe. It's a far cry from the mountains of post-RotJ material that now no longer happened.
Oh, and the ST didn't "need" to be set 30 years later. They could've set Ep7 at the 40 years later point that the books were up to. Ben Skywalker was almost 20 years old IIRC. That actually would've made a good starting point for a new series of movies. Also, they wouldn't have needed to bring up whatever's transpired in the 40 years since Jedi. They could've figured out a way to tell an original story that also happens to take place at that point in the timeline. They would've had three whole years to "build up" to it in the EU anyway.
Thank you, this is what I was pretty much trying to say, esp because Luke and the rest are old now "have you seen Mark & Carrie lately ?" it would have worked fine and makes sense and still have the extra profit from the books & comics. George would never step back he's to egotistical to let go, its that self importance thing all the big names in Hollywood seem have. Although there are a few that don't belong in that category "Robin Williams was one of the nicest guys I ever met" but they are far and few between.
As for the comment in another post that "George washed his hands of the EU in 1999" really ? I've purchased many many books since then "1999" and I'm sure George cashed all the checks he got from them , the only washing of his hands came after touching and counting all that dirty money he got !!!
Like I said this horse is dead and the buzzards have picked it clean to the bone no sense arguing about it , we don't have the say to do anything about what they do "they own it".
I will end with "piss on the both of them Lucas and Disney" they let me down after all these yrs.
"With my last dying breath I spit at thee" Over dramatic ? LOL