Terrell

Well, since it's what he said, I don't see how you can claim it's not accurate. Lucas said they weren't canon. Simple as that.

Who is "they"?

The Bus

That's the uhm... Bucky guy. You know.

nodeerforamonth

Just because Starlog "claims" he said it, doesn't mean he did. Ever hear of the New York Times? A couple years ago they had a guy who made up quotes for his articles all the time.

"They" is the author of the book, "Making Of Revenge Of The Sith" who worked with Lucas every single day of the preparation & filming.

chanster

Except for the fact that the cartoon was overseen by Lucas, the novels and what not are not.

Cygnet74

now that's shakespeare.

nodeerforamonth

Not word for word, but the major plot points are. (i.e. Han & Leia getting married, democracy coming back, etc...)

Filmmaker

Does that mean Lucas is the Chewie-killer?!

Josh H

Lucas did approve chewie's death. Salvatore wrote it, and Lucas okayed it. I remember reading something about it when the book came out.

Filmmaker

Let me guess--that decision was made the day his wife asked for a divorce...

Josh-da-man

Yeah, the comics and novels are pretty much bullshit -- fan fiction that George pockets a few bucks off of.

Tons of stuff in the pre-Prequel novels contradicts what we saw in the prequels: No Padawans, the nature of cloning, married Jedis, the nature of the Sith...

It is true that George Lucas signs off on them, but I don't think it means anything. He's occasionally requested a few changes, like in Zahn's "Heir to the Empire" trilogy, the Joruus C'Baoth character was originally supposed to be a clone of Obi-Wan Kenobi until big George but the kibosh on it.

The "Clone Wars" cartoon appears, on the surface, to be relatively canonical since a lot of elements from it carried over "Revenge of the Sith." But that could just be because the creators of it had access to the RotS script and decided to "fill in some blanks."

Presumably the upcoming television series' -- the live action and the CGI one -- will be fully canonical.

Josh H

Beats me.

I actually liked the decision. The books were getting a little stale as you new all the main characters were never any any real danger.

That changed things and set the tone for the future books by showing how dire a threat the new republic was under. Unfortunately they drug that New Jedi Series out to0 long and I quit reading after 7 or 8 books or something.

milo bloom

I thought there weren't any pre-prequel novels for that very reason? All the pre-prequel stuff I know of is the Tales of the Jedi stuff that was set like thousands of years before TPM, presumably so they could write without having to worry about stuff like that since it was enough time for customs and technology to change.

If you want shovelware, try the majority of the Star Trek novels. For every Best Destiny and the Entropy Effect, there's a hundred more that are just, indescribable. I think Lucasfilm has managed to keep the SW novels on a much shorter leash. A few inconsistencies have crept in, but I'm sure there's plenty of people here that will say there's inconsistencies in the movies too. I've read a fair share of the SW novels, pre NJO, and the really well written ones can take me into the SW universe just like the movies. Tatooine Ghost is a very good example, where Leia is given one of Schmi's diaries. It really gave us that connection between the PT and the OT that a lot of people aren't feeling.

I like to consider the Clone Wars series as canon, any exaggerations I can write off as a storytelling device. I hope they can keep the energy level and tone for the two new Clone Wars series coming up.

shaggy

I don't really care if its officially canon or not but Lucas himself put it together to bridge the gap betweeen the films. The cartoon was excellent, and the Grievous cough was awesome. It gets a great reaction every time from people who saw the cartoon. I'm sure its a little weird for those who didn't see the cartoon.

ytrez

As far as I'm concerned, the cartoons are the only decent thing about the prequels!

I couldn't stand eps 1, 2 & 3 but I love that frickin' cartoon!!! At least the first volume. Can't wait for Vol 2 next month, especially after watching ep 3 this weekend.

milo bloom

The second volume was even better. The longer format really let the stories breathe, and there's a really neat, but trippy sequence where Anakin gets some glimpses of...things...

al_bundy

i saw E3 over the weekend when I rented it from blockbuster. All I can say is that the cartoons were pretty good and I'm glad I didn't spend money to see this in the theater.

Terrell

To each their own. The cartoons are highly overrated. They're basically stylized action sequences extremely short on story and character. But I enjoyed them for what they were worth.

One clone wars series. The live-action won't be based on the Clone Wars. Personally, I think Lucas should cancel the TV series altogether and put Star Wars on moratorium for at least a decade.

al_bundy

the movie wasn't exactly big on story or character development either. GL can make a nice backstory, but he should have let someone else fill in the details.

In the OT he had Joseph Campbell help him with the story and that is one reason why everyone loved the OT. I think the PT would have been a lot better as a multi season show on HBO like The Sopranos or Rome. HBO is telling several years of Julius Ceasar's life over 12 episodes that cover several years. I think there was too much time for 3 two hour movies. That and GL doesn't give very good reasons for Anakin's fall. My guess is because he is not good at writing emotions.

Terrell

Um, Lucas actually had a planned out story with the original trilogy, and it was his passion to make those films. It was his dream. Lucas made up a lot of the prequel trilogy and admitted that he felt obligated to make the prequels, and if he didn't do it now, he never would. He felt he would end up regretting not having made them. Not exactly the best of reasons to make a series of films. Still, Episode III is a very good film in my opinion, and Lucas did a very good job. Not perfect, but good. But since we'll never agree, I'll leave it at that.

And for what it's worth, nobody loved the OT because of Joseph Campbell. They loved them because they were extremely well-made, entertaining films with an effective story and compelling characters.

A hell of a lot more story and character than the Clone Wars.

milo bloom

I just can't agree with that. Anakin benefits the most from the Clone Wars series. I mean, the bug eating scene alone speaks volumes more about his character than most of the PT films.

I've said it before, I love, love, love, love the stories and ideas and concepts Lucas comes up with. But he is not as good at executing them as he'd like to be.

Getting into DVD has really exposed me to a lot of different ways of making movies and such, and one of the things that's really struck me is how often it's a collaborative effort that helps something be better than it might have been if only one person was running the show.

The PT would have benefitted dramatically from having an objective third party. Lucas still would have final cut, but he might have also had his eyes opened to a myriad of possibilities of storytelling he might not have considered on his own.

Terrell

C'mon milo! You've got to be kidding. Not only was that scene beyond stupid, there just wasn't anything there. Like I said, these are nothing more than little animated action sequences. There's no story that I can see, just fractured battles of the clone wars. Cool little action shorts, but highly overrated.

Beyond that, I have no desire to engage in the same old discussion of the prequels, and whether they suck or rule, or whether Lucas is a talentless hack or not.

milo bloom

I think that scene perfectly contrasted how Anakin was different than the rest of the Jedi. If they Jedi hadn't been so inflexible, they might not have been so easily wiped out. Anakin was a new type of Jedi, that if the rest of them had really learned to see what he was about, might have provided a blueprint for a more humanitarian Jedi Order. One that might have been a little more likely to see the corruption that destroyed the Old Republic.

War stories may be a little cliche, but they're still a good way of seeing what people are really like. The stress and horrors bring out the true self, and that always creates better drama. That's something that a third party might have been able to tell Lucas.


Look, I've told you before, I enjoy the prequels. I didn't have really high expectations for the PT, mainly because I didn't really care. Honestly, when I heard about the PT being made, I was a little disappointed that it wasn't more stories about Luke, Leia and Han. I enjoy them for what they are, but I can also admit that they could have been better.

Fok

The books should be interesting now since Ep3 has been released......well hopefully, they've been pretty boring for the most part.