Why I object to an SW reboot/decanonizing of DSW

[Captain Crimson]

Given the comments in recent threads, I wanted to post this one to better clarify and organize my thoughts, chiefly being the reason I am opposed to a total reboot of the DSW.

First up, the rumors say the plan is to just dump the ST into SWL. That makes no sense to me, from a marketing perspective. Slapping a big yellow "Legends" label onto two completely separate versions telling the events taking place after ROTJ, even given the wild discrepancies between TCW and the old CW MMP, is pushing it, IMO. Their whole management is about what is marketable, and while the truck loads of casuals out there would love the DSW rebooted, think about it. This would tank SWL sales. RN those buying up most are collectors and hobbyists, and older fans supporting that over the official DC. It's to try and get more SWL content made, and arguably the fruits of that labor was Marvel #108. For now. Imagine what else could be done in the future?

There are, granted, various movers and shakers at LF I suspect would have a hand in wanting to do this, though, that plays to their writing style or management approach, and their own feelings about the older lore and fans. But I also feel as if the upper echelons know this is marketing suicide. There is no way they'd be about to just dump the ST into SWL unless it was with the intention to cease production on Legends, forever. Why would a business do that? They talk down to us, but at the same time, they know we are not dumb. So I can't see them being ready to give up on SWL just yet. I mean, we've had a few rumors for a while now Del Rey was just going to stop production of SWL books. Hasn't happened.

Dumping the ST into SWL would confuse casuals and alienate the older fans with yet another blow to their beloved story they'd just walk out in droves. This hurts so many lanes of fandom, I just don't think it's something that's a smart move or practical. I would further support growing both the new DC timeline as well as going back to expand a bit more on the older EU timeline, with the old guard of authors who are still willing to write for it - such as Mr. Karpyshyn, for example, who's floated several ideas about a follow-up to the DBT or more TOR, and they've rejected him every time. And then, in 20 years, you do another reboot. Give the new canon now a new branding label, something other than "Legends," and do a reboot from... I'd like to say G Canon, but this is Disney. This is Hollywood and reboot mania. It's gonna be from Episode IV. And... I suspect Luke is going to be made a female, given the pokes and jabs and sneers at him they've had in DC, but who knows. Perhaps reboots will fade, and the PC hyper-driven agenda of the present will be just a distant memory.

Finally, the most compelling argument of all, is that with the Veil of the Force and World Between Worlds Mr. Filoni added to SWR that is a very bad idea, that's my view on it, you don't need to dump the ST into SWL to change the DC timeline except as anything other than spite, which I could buy he harbors ill will towards the older EU fans, but lore-wise, changing a timeline doesn't shift it into another universe. Even in the crazy and illogical world of Star Wars. By that reasoning, it should branch out into three timelines. SWL, the DC, and the new one. I could accept that non-SF fans would show this kind of short-sightedness about the IP, and since many non-SF fans are the top dogs steering the ship at LF, which I guess would kind of validate the rumor. Probably why the marketing argument will make the more convincing justification for them not to reboot, ATM, and dump ST into SWL.

Bottom line, dumping ST into SWL helps no one but casuals who won't even be around in the next five years. Who don't sustain the product off the shelves and theaters long-term. We do. And they will burn all bridges past anything done since 2014 or 2017. That's my take on it.

But as always, I wanna hear what you guys think? Do you agree with my decision? There'd be too much controversy in decanonizing the ST into SWL with their 2014 decision? Would you like to see it, that you hate the DC so much, you don't care where it goes, just away from canon? Smash out a reply in the comments below, and I'll be back soon.

[Nealithi]

Let me start by saying this was an interesting read and I can see the thought behind it.
I also wish to clarify that I am ambivalent about wiping the new trilogy or not. I did not care for the new movies as they felt weak to me. I expect better of both SW and Disney. But there are those that do like them. And that is their right. After all they make other flavors of ice cream. Some people like strawberry. And in that light I didn't mind Jar Jar in the prequels. So no judging a like.
Now for the bits I do see as questionable in your case however.
A large company seeing and accepting that the customer base is not dumb? Sorry but that feels naive. Large companies seem to go for spectacle to woo and lure the dumb base far more than the insightful ones.
And the business looking to long term effects versus short term also seems dubious. Maybe it is the cynic in me. But I would see the vast majority of large company corporate execs would ignore $20000 in five years for $5 today. Because they might not be around to profit personally in that five years.

Those are the only flaws in the reasoning I see.

[Darth Wedgius]

I think decanonizing the DST would annoy DST fans while not getting the disenchanted (not a Disney pun I swear) SW fans all back on board. And there'd be political backlash and Disney is having troubles aplenty right now anyway.

They could go the alternate time-lines route, but I don't know if they'd be optimistic given the performance of Star Trek's Kelvinverse. Not that the time-line split was necessarily what went wrong there, but the performance is what Disney execs would see.

Another reboot Xty years from now might not be a bad idea. But they don't have to do that; the SW continuity is vast, and they can go centuries past the DST or centuries before it and just ignore Legends and the DST and avoid explicitly tweaking noses that way.

[Captain Crimson]

And you know, I don't mind changing timelines, as I said. Great SF has done so in the past. It's just decanonizing it into SWL status strikes me as the place to dump all their unwanted, "non-canon" trash they are ashamed of.

And yes, a reboot is coming in the next few years. I just say, give this new canon production line, its own unique label. No idea what that could be. But it is smart marketing. And as a business, that's how they need to focus their management.

I think a more interesting question might be, what form do you think the next reboot should take? I won't be making a thread on it, gotten so busy lately, but another user here possibly could, like Winter, who seems very passionate about SWL. Maybe. Anyway, it's late. Heading to bed. Night, peeps!

[GreyICE]

My biggest question is why bother? Seriously, why bother? The galaxy is fucking enormous. I haven't properly dived into the size of the Legends Galaxy, but it's about 2/3rds mapped, filled with over a million (MILLION) inhabited bodies, many of which are so far out of touch that it's hard to even properly quantify in today's internet age. You have to go back to like the age of explorers or something where a King might die and no one finds out about it for months. Only this is more like that over a galactic scale, so it could be years. Decades. There could be a wing of Star Destroyers out there, flying around, recruiting and training new Stormtroopers and maintaining Imperial order because... why not? Space isn't corrosive, things don't decay. Many starship designs are centuries old.

You don't need alternate timelines. It's all true, more or less. Plenty of worlds work that way - 40K, World of Darkness, most D&D works, etc. Everything you see, read, hear, and play is true - it's someone's truth. It might not be the real, actual, factual truth, but it's someone's truth.

Just start telling some good stories. I still haven't seen the last two movies because I watched the remake of A New Hope, and it was not a new story, and every single review I've seen of the next two movies has been mixed to awful. Just a steady stream from everyone who has seen them of "it's not really worth your time."

I imagine what a smart Disney will do is just start telling good stories. Good stories sell. Bad stories don't. The original trilogy was some really loose storytelling, from a timeline and worldbuilding sense. Great stories though.

[CaptainCalvinCat]

Just start telling some good stories. I still haven't seen the last two movies because I watched the remake of A New Hope, and it was not a new story, and every single review I've seen of the next two movies has been mixed to awful. Just a steady stream from everyone who has seen them of "it's not really worth your time."

I imagine what a smart Disney will do is just start telling good stories. Good stories sell. Bad stories don't. The original trilogy was some really loose storytelling, from a timeline and worldbuilding sense. Great stories though.

German comedian Mike Krüger started his career with the song "Mein Gott, Walter" (My god, Walter) which dealt with a hapless guy named Walter, and every time, something went wrong, someone near to him said "Mein Gott, Walter". Originally, Krüger wanted to be an architect, but he was into comedy and music and so he was singing that song in a little Hamburgian pub called "Dennys Pan". A record company got curious, he sang the song for them, then they put the song on the radio and when Krüger returned from his vacation - that song "Mein Gott, Walter" was a hit.

But his second album didn't sell that well, and he and his girlfriend were invited to the record company and there, he was told "Write another hit like Mein Gott, Walter".

Why am I telling you this little story about a comedian, you probably never heard from?
As difficult, as it is to come up with another Mega hit like "Mein Gott, Walter" for Mr. Krüger, I'm sure the sentence "Just tell good stories" is something, he, me, and all other people, who are creatively inclined say "Hey, good idea, why didn't anyone tell me?!"

Sure, "tell good stories" - how? What are good stories? And if "telling good stories" should be the goal, why do so many people just not... tell good stories, but waste their time with telling mediocre or bad ones?

Might it have something to do, with the fact, that each story might resonate with people on their personal level? Take "The orville" for example: They can tell, deep, meaningful, intelligent stories as much as they want, when they are having jokes about bodily fluids, I'm out.

There are people out there, who like the new trilogy, there are people out there, who like Discovery, Picard, the Orville - hell, there are people out there, who like SpongeBob Squarepants, as hard as that is for me to imagine, or people, who watch "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here." Granted, the latter one is not that much story driven.

But "tell good stories" is something, which makes me tilt my head and ask "What are good stories?" - and "does telling good stories not contain the risk, that someone might've told it before?"

I mean, you can say about Episode 8 and 9 whatever you want, but at least, they tried something new, instead of the rehash, that is Episode 7.

[GreyICE]

German comedian Mike Krüger started his career with the song "Mein Gott, Walter" (My god, Walter) which dealt with a hapless guy named Walter, and every time, something went wrong, someone near to him said "Mein Gott, Walter". Originally, Krüger wanted to be an architect, but he was into comedy and music and so he was singing that song in a little Hamburgian pub called "Dennys Pan". A record company got curious, he sang the song for them, then they put the song on the radio and when Krüger returned from his vacation - that song "Mein Gott, Walter" was a hit.

But his second album didn't sell that well, and he and his girlfriend were invited to the record company and there, he was told "Write another hit like Mein Gott, Walter".

Why am I telling you this little story about a comedian, you probably never heard from?
As difficult, as it is to come up with another Mega hit like "Mein Gott, Walter" for Mr. Krüger, I'm sure the sentence "Just tell good stories" is something, he, me, and all other people, who are creatively inclined say "Hey, good idea, why didn't anyone tell me?!"

Sure, "tell good stories" - how? What are good stories? And if "telling good stories" should be the goal, why do so many people just not... tell good stories, but waste their time with telling mediocre or bad ones?

I grasp what you're saying here, and it's a good point. A good story is a subjective thing. And as I've said, I haven't seen episode 8 and 9, and am in no rush to. I have a rather burning hatred of Disney, decades old, and I am in no hurry to hand over more money to them. The unsavory things they've done are a long, ugly list.

However this allegory has two points, and you've only seen the first. The first point, the one you saw, is that it's not easy to "just tell a good story". There's a lot that goes in to telling a good story, creativity is a journey, and there's many stops along the way. And you see that it's not so easy to write a good song or tell a good story, and you want me to understand the difficulty.

The second point of the story, the one you overlooked, is that the music executive can't tell him how to write a good song, because there is no one way. The music executive could tell him all sorts of things that worked for other musicians, but if the executive did tell him a formula as to "writing a great song?" It would just make a formulaic song, and they have a hundred people who can make a formula, all day long. That's very different from good, or even great. It's following a formula.


The very bad effect of continuity shackles is that good creators go make good work in other continuities and don't play in yours. They aren't interested in playing by those rules, of turning around and running into police tape and rigid standards. Good stories do come from that freedom - do what you need to, tell a good story. Don't try to tell the artist how to write a great song, a great book, a great movie, because when you try to tell them the process the HAVE to follow, you won't get greatness.

Disney has a specific step-by-step process they use to "tell good stories" and I fucking hate it, and it is those shackles, and it does result in stunning mediocrity. Time and again. So if someone did tell him how to write a good song, all it would be is a formula song. There'd be no creativity. And once you start throwing up fences, you start getting formula music.

But "tell good stories" is something, which makes me tilt my head and ask "What are good stories?" - and "does telling good stories not contain the risk, that someone might've told it before?"

Good stories are subjective. Quality is subjective. And yet I'd be very surprised if anyone watched Shades of Grey and thought "wow this is an excellent episode of TNG and a truly thrilling story." Because as much as we want to say that good and bad are totally subjective, we're stymied because some things do just seem to be complete fucking crap.

There's been an awful lot written about literary criticism, and what makes something art, and it's a long complex subject that I'd actually love to get into. And one thing you have to recognize is that even though it's all subjective, there's two things you can ask that can be guiding lights:

- Is this artistic vision creative, interesting, and novel? Does it have something to grab you?

This is the key of "is the story worth telling." This is the one that Disney fails on the fucking most. Is there a hook here, and is the hook interesting? What is interesting, what deep questions does it raise, what is worth viewing/reading/playing?

- Did the techniques the artist use show their vision, or obscure it? How cleanly and well did they present their vision, and does the presentation enhance what they're doing, or muddy it?

A great example and one Chuck harps on is Discovery's camera wackiness. That's classic sophomoric shit - the technique and the way they're using it is obscuring their vision, and actually failing to emphasize the times they do use it to good effect because they do it so often there's no novelty and the audience is jaded to it. It's a bad use of technique, the technique the artist uses is obscuring their vision.

This is the one Disney tends to knock out of the park. They're very good at putting all the pieces together in a way that it's not unprofessional. It's very well polished, even if they're polishing a turd.

Under that understanding, I'd happily discuss one or both of them. I'd also say continuity is very good at doing number two, while very bad at doing number one. Orville, by the way, is a great example of a show that has number one in spades, and yet trips on number two time and again. Time. And. Again.

[CaptainCalvinCat]

German comedian Mike Krüger started his career with the song "Mein Gott, Walter" (My god, Walter) which dealt with a hapless guy named Walter, and every time, something went wrong, someone near to him said "Mein Gott, Walter". Originally, Krüger wanted to be an architect, but he was into comedy and music and so he was singing that song in a little Hamburgian pub called "Dennys Pan". A record company got curious, he sang the song for them, then they put the song on the radio and when Krüger returned from his vacation - that song "Mein Gott, Walter" was a hit.

But his second album didn't sell that well, and he and his girlfriend were invited to the record company and there, he was told "Write another hit like Mein Gott, Walter".

Why am I telling you this little story about a comedian, you probably never heard from?
As difficult, as it is to come up with another Mega hit like "Mein Gott, Walter" for Mr. Krüger, I'm sure the sentence "Just tell good stories" is something, he, me, and all other people, who are creatively inclined say "Hey, good idea, why didn't anyone tell me?!"

Sure, "tell good stories" - how? What are good stories? And if "telling good stories" should be the goal, why do so many people just not... tell good stories, but waste their time with telling mediocre or bad ones?

I grasp what you're saying here, and it's a good point. A good story is a subjective thing. And as I've said, I haven't seen episode 8 and 9, and am in no rush to. I have a rather burning hatred of Disney, decades old, and I am in no hurry to hand over more money to them. The unsavory things they've done are a long, ugly list.

However this allegory has two points, and you've only seen the first. The first point, the one you saw, is that it's not easy to "just tell a good story". There's a lot that goes in to telling a good story, creativity is a journey, and there's many stops along the way. And you see that it's not so easy to write a good song or tell a good story, and you want me to understand the difficulty.

The second point of the story, the one you overlooked, is that the music executive can't tell him how to write a good song, because there is no one way. The music executive could tell him all sorts of things that worked for other musicians, but if the executive did tell him a formula as to "writing a great song?" It would just make a formulaic song, and they have a hundred people who can make a formula, all day long. That's very different from good, or even great. It's following a formula.


The very bad effect of continuity shackles is that good creators go make good work in other continuities and don't play in yours. They aren't interested in playing by those rules, of turning around and running into police tape and rigid standards. Good stories do come from that freedom - do what you need to, tell a good story. Don't try to tell the artist how to write a great song, a great book, a great movie, because when you try to tell them the process the HAVE to follow, you won't get greatness.

Disney has a specific step-by-step process they use to "tell good stories" and I fucking hate it, and it is those shackles, and it does result in stunning mediocrity. Time and again. So if someone did tell him how to write a good song, all it would be is a formula song. There'd be no creativity. And once you start throwing up fences, you start getting formula music.

Well, if you found out the second part to the allegory - you notice that "they should just tell good stories" is basically the same?

What is a good story for you, what is a good story for me, what's a good story for SFDebris? And even if you have figured out a formula - it isn't good, it's formulaic and basically generic.

And concerning Star Wars: They did not stick to the Disney-guide-lines. I watched all three parts of the new trilogy and no one broke out into a song. Same for Marvel, which is under Disneys management, too. No song-and-dance-number.

By the way - if you ask me, Star Wars Episodes 7 till 9 tried to do something new. And the fans apparently hated it. So, if own stories are not wanted, and formulaic stories are - well - formulaic, the question remains: What is a good story?

[GreyICE]

Well, if you found out the second part to the allegory - you notice that "they should just tell good stories" is basically the same?

What is a good story for you, what is a good story for me, what's a good story for SFDebris? And even if you have figured out a formula - it isn't good, it's formulaic and basically generic.

Honestly this is such a good point that I even realized it reading what I wrote. What I wrote is kind of crap. Sorry for making you read it, I rewrote it. My first post was bad - objectively bad. Hopefully I've made something better.

What good stories and critical analysis comes down to is two fundamental points:

- Is this artistic vision creative, interesting, and novel? Does it have something to grab you?
and
- Did the techniques the artist use show their vision, or obscure it? How cleanly and well did they present their vision, and does the presentation enhance what they're doing, or muddy it?

You'll often hear Chuck go after one of these two things in his review - either praising or condemning. For instance Discovery's camerawork is a good example of violating point two, it obscure's the actual vision, and distracts the viewer, hiding what the artists want to communicate.

You'll also hear him criticize very well made, well acted, well produced episodes that had nothing original or interesting to say. They were 42 well made minutes, but they had no vision. You can view a work through this lens and even completely set aside moral judgments, and just critique it as a piece of art.

That's the objective critical discussion we can have - how original, interesting, novel, and worth expressing were the idea(s) of the work, and how well did the techniques the artist use express and enhance those ideas?

I can tell you that Episode 7 was fucking excellent on number two - it nailed every goddamn point in how you make a movie. And oh my fucking god it failed at one so hard it hurts. That's a classic Disney movie.

[CaptainCalvinCat]

Well, if you found out the second part to the allegory - you notice that "they should just tell good stories" is basically the same?

What is a good story for you, what is a good story for me, what's a good story for SFDebris? And even if you have figured out a formula - it isn't good, it's formulaic and basically generic.

Honestly this is such a good point that I even realized it reading what I wrote. What I wrote is kind of crap. Sorry for making you read it, I rewrote it. My first post was bad - objectively bad. Hopefully I've made something better.

Hey, don't hit yourself that hard. Personally, I understood, what you wanted from me, so I could answer that. Everything's okay.

What good stories and critical analysis comes down to is two fundamental points:

- Is this artistic vision creative, interesting, and novel? Does it have something to grab you?
and
- Did the techniques the artist use show their vision, or obscure it? How cleanly and well did they present their vision, and does the presentation enhance what they're doing, or muddy it?

Problematic about this is: Even these questions are not apodictically working.
- Is this artistic vision creative, interesting, and novel? Does it have something to grab you?

Where I'd say "Nope, definitely nothing novel or creative" - take for instance the episode of the Orville, where they entered the flat-universe. The story behind the flat-universe-story (Guy 1 needs to show, that he is officer-material and he has this heart to heart on a shuttlecraft) is something, that I've seen over on the "parallax"-Episode of Voyager and done relatively more competent.

Or - again - take Star Wars Episodes 8 and 9 - they do something creative or novel with the idea - no matter, how stupid we might find said ideas, but they're novel and creative, because it hasn't been done before on screen.

Even the camerawork in Disco would be something, I'd call "creative" or "novel" and don't think - entering point two - that it would obscure the artists vision very much.