If I had seen “Revenge of the Sith” in real time, in a theatre upon its release, in 2005, I think that, at the moment when Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), sizzling in the blue lightning that Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) reflects back at him, cries out to Anakin (Hayden Christensen), “Power! Unlimited Power!,” I would have leaped out of my seat yelling with excitement. The entire movie is filled with an absolute splendor of the pulp sublime, and that moment is its very apogee. Lucas reaches historic heights in the filming of action: the martial artistry of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s double duel versus Dooku, the gaping maw of outer space and of the airshaft into which the heroic duo drops, Obi-Wan’s light-sabre fight with the four-armed Grievous, and, above all, the apocalyptic inferno of the confrontation of Obi-Wan and Anakin (which, regrettably, cuts back to Yoda and Emperor, a much duller battle). I watched these sequences over and over—happily, with the sound off to get rid of the musical score—and was repeatedly and unflaggingly amazed by Lucas’s precise, dynamic, wildly imaginative direction.
the extended universe doesn't really add anything in terms of interesting plots/characters or relevant backstory so it doesn't actually matter that most of it got invalidated because it's basically fanfiction anyway
The EU was always official canon, as confirmed on multiple occasions by George Lucas and Leland Chee. The setup for the canon was an "all items are equal, but some are more equal than others." George Lucas pored over every plot summary and read every comic book making sure his world was not tampered with (he even wrote for the EU for chrissakes; he did the prologue to Shatterpoint and came up with much of the plot for The Force Unleashed.) He had a death grip on what happened in his world, set guidelines, no-no areas, and told people to write and rewrite their plots multiple times over. The tiers of canon ultimately overrode each other if necessary (i.e. the original backstory for Mon Calamari), but the keepers of the holocron did a damned good job making sure that rarely happened (they made huge things flow, like Boba Fett's pre-Episode II backstory with his new one.)
The canon went like this:
- G-Canon: Stuff George Lucas came up with himself, i.e. the six movies, the prologue to Shatterpoint, the characters of Darth Ruin and Darth Bane, the Yuuzhan Vong, etc. - T-Canon (this one's a bit controversial): Anything in the 2008 Clone Wars TV show (though there were originally plans to help better retcon the TV show to fit C-canon up until the buyout.) - C-Canon: Most stuff in the novels, essential guides, comic books, and canonical ending for games. - S-Canon: Stuff from when the EU was not as solidified (the pre-Thrawn era) that had not been directly referenced by later works or guides yet. - N-Canon: Actually non-canon material. Infinities comics and Tales short stories.
It was cohesive, it was sensible, and it was sure as hell a lot more quality than the new committee-run grass-fed slime that they're putting out now.
deletedabout 8 years
what u talking about... they took out all of the "grey" area expanded universe stuff, the stuff that was never officially cannoned. Everything since Ep 7 + 1-6 is cannon, including books and encyclopaedias is now officially canon and they are reading lots of expanded universe stuff, just confirming its cannon this time.
I don't like Star Wars anymore, except for the Star Wars I do like, that Star Wars is wonderful. I have a very split and estranged relationship with Star Wars.
deletedabout 8 years
One of the most complex machines in the universe has one of the easiest exploitations for plot convenience
