darklordoftech

What would the prequels be like if written by someone trying to keep continuity with the pre-1999 EU above all else?

• Jedi would have all different lightsaber colors.

• The Clone Wars would involve “clone masters” and clone madness.

• No Darths besides Vader

• Boba Fett would be Jaster Mereel

• Vader would get coronated by the Korriban Sith Lords

Anything else come to mind?

I hate the EU’s tendency to make everything more complicated than it needs to be and stretch the meaning of the movies’ dialogue to an absurd degree. I know the prequels did this too, but the EU never gets called out on it.

Servii said:

I’d never seen George’s quote about there never being a war between Jedi and Sith before. That’s really interesting to see. The Sith having ruled the Galaxy makes sense with what Palpatine says in RotS, but this version of events doesn’t explain why the Sith want revenge against the Jedi, or rather what they want revenge for. People would naturally assume from that that the Jedi and Sith must have fought in the past. Also, having the Sith rule “about 2000 years ago” still contradicts Obi-Wan’s talk about “over a thousand generations.”

I think what Lucas means is that rather than armies of Jedi and Sith fighting each other, the Sith split into rival warlords and then the Jedi took down each Sith warlord separately. Keep in mind that I think Lucas meant for the Sith to have followed the Rule of Two for most of their history (hence Yoda knowing about it) and the EU misunderstood the TPM novelization as implying that Darth Bane lived 1000 years before the movies rather than being part of the group of rogue Jedi who founded the Sith.

I don’t think Obi-Wan meant that the Republic had never been conquered for “over a thousand generations”, but rather he meant that the Jedi had always saved the day. I’ve never heard anyone say that KOTOR contradicts Obi-Wan’s line by taking place less than 1000 generations before the movies.

Servii said:

George said he fleshed out this larger history of the Jedi and Sith, and that he didn’t get the chance to show it, but a prequel trilogy seems like a pretty opportune time to do exposition on that. The whole trilogy is about the Sith plotting revenge against the Jedi to regain control of the Galaxy, so a little bit of history and context would make sense there. We needed that more than we needed an explanation of midi-chlorians.

This 1000x. When Anakin asked Qui-Gon what midichlorians are, he should have also asked what a Sith is.

Servii said:

The old EU’s greatest strength came from the fact that was it was optional and not really canon. It meant that George had a more hands-off approach with the different authors and their stories, and that those authors had the creative freedom to shape the world and storylines in creative, experimental directions. And if an attempted story direction didn’t work out, well then, authors could course correct from that in future stories, and it’s not like the stories were hard Canon, anyway, so they wouldn’t negatively affect George’s mainline Star Wars.

As much as I enjoy much of the old EU, George made the right call to compartmentalize it as an “alternate universe” and let there be different “tiers” of Canon. It was a mistake of Lucasfilm to throw out the tier system and try to make every new material Canon. That was never going to work out.

Agreed. So many fans think that anything that’s published must be hard canon and that for anything that’s ever been published to not be hard canon would be “confusing”, but I think having to track down everything that’s ever been published is far more confusing than just having to watch some movies.

Hal 9000 said:

Who’s vice-chancellor, Mas Amedda?!

Yes. The Underworld tv show was going to elaborate on Amedda’s role as Vice Emperor.

A film showing what Palpatine was doing during ANH, with a screenplay written by James Luceno.

Brian Daley and his long-time co-writer James Luceno were going to write the first novels of the 1991-2014 Expanded Universe, but then the Star Wars novel license transferred from Del Rey to Bantam Spectra and Bantam decided to hire Zahn instead. When the Star Wars novel license returned to Del Rey in 1999, James Luceno was hired. Brian Daley died in 1996, hence his absence when Luceno re-entered the picture.

This way it would be Palpatine pushing Anakin toward the Dark Side rather than Padmé seeing nothing wrong with slaughtering children. Palpatine being the only one who knows what Anakin did to the Tuskens would explain why Padmé didn’t see his turn coming.

JadedSkywalker said:

history of the Jedi Bendu and the Bogan who became the Sith. and the first war between the Jedi and the Sith.

Yes please!

The following changes would improve the Sequel Trilogy:

• Remove Starkiller Base’s superweapon powers and its destruction. Make it just a military base. The movie should stick to the search for Luke plot.

• When Kylo asks Palpatine how he survived, have Palpatine say, “Did Luke really think I was foolish enough to send my true body to the second Death Star?”

• Have Palpatine say “bring the girl here” instead of “kill the girl” and have him drain Rey and Kylo as soon as they arrive rather than trying to essence transfer into Rey.

• More world-building. Do the people of the galaxy and/or the characters know that Count Dooku and the Trade Federation were working for Palpatine?

Lucas was often asked about the original versions and Kennedy has been asked about further changes to the movies, but Kennedy has never been asked about the original versions.

Have you read them? If so, what do you think of them?

CatBus said:

I also see that they made intentional parallels between Yoda and the Emperor, as far as being the masters of their respective apprentices. Some of it is more apparent in Jedi, but it certainly starts in Empire. Frail, wrinkled, very old figure who walks with the aid of a stick. Smaller than their pupil. The use of both the words “master” and “friend” to describe their relationship (friend might not seem like a giveaway, but Lucas frequently links the last line of one scene with the first line of the next scene – “I have a promise to keep… to an old friend” / “Rise, my friend”)

It seems like as they were developing a master/pupil dynamic for Yoda and Luke in Empire, they were doing the same for the Emperor and Vader. The Emperor just didn’t get much screentime until Jedi.

I noticed this too. Their reveals are in consecutive scenes and both reveal that there were greater forces at work than we realized.

The Emperor doesn’t seem to be a Force-user in the 1976 novelization. Do you think that reflected Lucas’s intent at the time, and if so, when do you think Lucas decided to make The Emperor a Force-user?

I find it interesting that The Emperor doesn’t abolish The Senate in the unrevised fourth draft. This would change the political situation after Return of the Jedi.

ZkinandBonez said:

darklordoftech said:

Typos getting canonized.

Such as?

This is the first time I’ve heard of it.

“Vaapad” being in Darth Bane: Path of Destruction.

Also, I hate that things aren’t labeled to tell us if they’re part of the New EU. We shouldn’t have to debate whether or not a reference book released in 2016 is “canon”.

It wouldn’t feel like “Tatooine but without the charm”, it would make TFA feel more connected to the OT, it would feel TFA is picking up where ROTJ left off, and it would forshadow Rey’s parantege.

Would you have liked the 1991-2014 EU to have picked up where Star Wars 107 left off instead of what they did with Thrawn and Dark Empire?

1. “Over a thousand generations” before the movies: The Jedi were founded on Ach-to.

2. “Thousands of years” before the movies: The Sith were founded, quickly killed each other off, and then started following the Rule of Two and using puppet entities to take over the galaxy.

3. 1000 years before the movies: The Sith ruled the galaxy through a puppet entity, but then the Jedi seemingly wiped them out and overthrew the puppet entity. The Republic was then formed.

Typos getting canonized.

Ignoring the Expanded Universe, what would you imagine about the history of the Yavin Temple?

paja said:

Hey, you know that one scene in Return of the Jedi Where Darth brings Luke to The Emperor and he says “Ah, yes. A Jedi’s weapon, much like your father’s” Would that mean only the Jedi (Pre Prequels/EU) used them officially labeled as their own weapon?

Meaning that Vader would be the only Sith in out of all to use one as his own.

Note: The term Sith was used in one of the original scripts for SW77

JEDIT:

That makes me theorize that the previous Sith before Vader only used their force abilities/powers and other.

I think The Emperor was just mocking Luke’s progress as a Jedi. I also think that at the time, the intention was that “the Sith” were Jedi who had pledged themselves to The Emperor when the Jedi Purge began. Vader was low-ranked amongst them, hence his “I was but the learner” line in ANH.

I wish they released the OT and TPM on DVD in 2000 so that we wouldn’t be dependent on VHS to watch the 97SE or TPM unaltered.

Which covers are your favorite?

(Such a universe would include TCW and any other tv shows Lucas or Filoni felt like making)

I think he should have for the following reasons:

1. So he could show what his ideas are for elements of the Star Wars universe hinted at but not shown in the movies (such as the history of the Jedi and Sith).

2. To save the Expanded Universe by establishing a separate “cinematic universe” for Disney to continue at the same as the EU and show Disney that they can have two universes going at once just like Marvel. This would also prevent the issues with the EU that occured when TCW episodes first aired.

3. To show Disney that a Sequel Trilogy isn’t neccessary for Star Wars to be financially successful, preventing the story from continuing beyond ROTJ unless that’s what Lucas wanted.

What would happen after ROTJ if Palpatine didn’t dissolve the Imperial Senate?