Hiding fandom in the underwear drawer since 1977

The announcement we've been waiting for, dreading, eagerly anticipating came today, with Disney/Star Wars announcing, : “In order to give maximum creative freedom to the filmmakers and also preserve an element of surprise and discovery for the audience, Star Wars Episodes VII-IX will not tell the same story told in the post-Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe.”   They've also announced the release of three new, Original Trilogy and beyond-era novels. 

Dunc at Club Jade has a nice wrap up starting here.  The video is here and features old friends Pablo Hidalgo, Dave Filoni, and Tim Zahn, plus, sniff, Aaron Allston.


So, we've got ourselves a reboot, retcon, AU in the Star Wars EU.  As I tweeted, I'd be happy with it all going but gosh, the one thing from the EU that I do so much want to stay, is Mara Jade.  Sniff.  Really, I can live in a world where Waru, ghost sex in the machine, and Yuuzhan Vong never happened and Chewbacca (and Mara) never died.

Admittedly, I'm feeling nostalgic as I saw Tim Zahn at Awesome Con this weekend plus an old friend, the editor of some of the anthologies and the Star Wars Adventure Journal, from West End days, Pete Schweighofer.  Pete was the one who introduced me to Mr. Zahn back in 1995, so I've got really fond memories of those times.  Knitress sent me The Last Command by diplomatic bag when I was on a volunteer stint in Eastern Europe on its release.in 1993.  I never thought that making movies of what has already be written in the EU made any sense.  But might some of it come in?  Maybe?

For those of you out there who've been through this before -- the reboots and retcons in other 'verses, and where there's an enormous body of written material that gets joss'd when they start making movies, any thoughts?  For Marvel and DC folks, you must be used to this by now, yes?  Are you tsking at the Star Wars wailing and rending of garments? 

So the OFFs (Old Fandom Friends) and I have admired the considerable assets of ODAE (Obi-Wan Dressed as Ewan Mcgregor) for many years.  Salmon Fishing in the Yemen hit econopodder 's ODAE-radar and she decided we HAD to see it.  knitress was going to come but there was a ticket snafu alas and lexsara was waiting for a refrigerator so it was just me and econopodder in the theater (I did not see anyone confirmed by the Senate or elected by popular mandate which is unusual in this particular theater).  But the three of us got coffee afterward and I told my OFFs about what a depraved reprobate I am. 

But, back to ODAE, reflecting that we all are getting along in the years, no longer struts his Jedi stuff and doesn't go Fully Monty any more (which he used to be counted upon to do reliably (Velvet Goldmine, Pillowbook) but really this is just a delightful film.  Granted it is not QDAL (Qui Gon Dressed as Liam Neeson) with Wolves but instead we get Obi-Wan with fish. As Qui-Gon said, "there's always a bigger fish" which just had to be said, even if not relevant.



In other VERY exciting news, I get to meet TWO New Fandom Friends over the next two days. I'm very excited.