Star Wars EU No More!

Disney and Lucasfilm announced this week a clarification of the future of Star Wars storytelling.  There were a lot of words in the press release, but basically, what it all boils down to is that from here on out, the old Star Wars Expanded Universe (the print stuff and video games) are no longer considered to be part of Star Wars continuity.  All that currently is in continuity are the films and the Clone Wars TV show.  In addition, they also announced that a new expanded universe will begin soon with four new novels coming out.  

Here is a link to an article explaining all of this:

http://www.blastr.com/2014-4-25/disney-announces-first-four-novels-new-star-wars-canon

So, here's the thing: people are pretty pissed about this and frankly, I don't get the frustration.  People are saying, "I've invested 30 years of my life into this and they are just going to abandon it?"  I'm saying, "of course they are!" 

The Expanded Universe created a very tight box for the filmmakers to work with. Were there some good stories in the EU?  Yes.  Some.  But none that could viably be adapted to the screen which means the Disney would need to write a new story that fit into 30 years of continuity.  That's a tough job.  On top of that, if they did write a film within the EU parameters, they would have been forced to either try to explain all of that to non-EU experts or leave those millions of people in the dark.  That wasn't about to happen.

People are saying Lucas have his stamp of approval to everything in the EU and considered it canon.  Yeah, ok.  He ignored all of the cloning tech and back story created in the Thrawn Trilogy when he made the prequels.  Lucas went out and created his own ideas without any regard for what was happening in the EU.

Frankly, Disney is doing the right thing.  They are going to keep all of the original EU in print under a separate brand as its own story.  Now they are going to tell their own story with a committee whose job it is to keep the continuity consistent.  

End rant.