Brax wrote:
One does not have to acknowledge the effects of gravity for them to be real.
I do understand your position on LucasFilm's move to relegate the EU to Legend status. However, as this is their world, it does not matter much how we feel about it. I imagine if there had been someone actively overseeing the EU content for consistency, it would have been easier to incorporate it into canon, rather than disregard it. But, since the authors were free to go pretty much any direction they chose to tell a story, it resulted in some inconsistencies that would have been hard to reconcile. I believe it to be a case of a few errant story lines (like the one that had Chewbacca dead), spoiling it for all of the great ones that could have served to enhance the saga. So, it was just easier for them to invalidate it as a whole, rather than pick and choose. I am sure there were legalities that would have made it difficult to do anything but go completely in one direction, or the other.
In the end, they cleared the decks of things that would have been much more difficult to write the post-ROTJ movies around, and they gave themselves the option to cherry-pick elements of the EU that do work, and incorporate them when possible. Perhaps not the best solution for all fans, but understandable from a business perspective. I don't really blame Disney for this, as LucasFilm has continued to operate as they did before the acquisition, just as Marvel Studios has. I think Disney gets the blame for a lot of things that were not directly their fault, but that is the way it goes when you are one of the big boys in the film game, or any other game for that matter.
There actually was a whole team at Lucasfilm that did exactly that, oversaw the continuity of the EU. That doesn't mean there weren't mistakes made and there were never any contradictions. Of course there were.
I freely admit that all EU post ROTJ had to go. You cant write an entirely new movie trilogy that completely contradicts post ROTJ stories and expect fans to swallow it along with the EU. In Star Wars movies always win so the post ROTJ EU had to go. No debate there. Im in full agreement.
Pre-TPM EU is a different matter I believe. To use your gravity analogy, lets assume the theory of gravity represents the preTPM EU. The phantom menace was written and released during a time when many of those EU stories were considered canon and to some degree some things established in that canon were used in TPM or influenced it.
So Disney may not acknowledge the EU as canon, nevertheless its effects are still felt since there are many things taken from the EU that made their way into, or influenced the prequel trilogy. So in your analogy, it would be Disney who is denying the effects of gravity, not me.
When it comes to explaining how Yoda and Mace Windu knew about the rule of two during the phantom menace when by both the Disney and EU accounts the sith lived in secret, the EU gives us a story that directly accounts for this, even if its a retcon, or something written later to account for this apparent bad script writing on Lucas's part(Something the EU often had to clean up btw) it still takes the time to clear up this non sequitor.
The official Disney canon doesnt really acknowledge this contradiction at all, except to say well they must have found out about it sometime before hand. In other words, they know because they know. That doesn't answer anything for me. The only thing Disneys ever said is the jedi learned of the rule of two sometime after Bane died. It doesn't say how or when. So where do I turn to explain this apparent discrepancy? The EU which has a story that directly accounts for it? Or Disneys position which tells me nothing and leaves me with the same question I had when I started the thread?
The truth is its just a result of bad writing on Lucas's part during the phantom menace. He attributed to the jedi knowledge about the sith that they should never have been in possession of. Even without any of the EU we can establish that the sith lived in secret, by Darth Mauls remark that "At last we shall reveal ourselves to the jedi, at last we shall have our revenge" It goes without saying that they wouldn't be revealing themselves if the jedi already knew of their existence.
But at least the EU took the time to explain this contradiction, while the official canon today says, well they knew because they knew.