"There Has Been An Awakening..."

I keep waiting for my brain to catch up to reality that this is actually happening.

That we're sitting here on the cusp of the release of a brand new Star Wars movie.

Episode 7.

Something that was never supposed to happen.

I'm having fun with my font emphasis because - hey, seriously - this is pretty epic stuff right here.  Star Wars fans were always led to believe that episodes 7, 8, and 9 would never be made as movies.  The books and comics (known as the "Expanded Universe" or "EU") were our means of carrying on these stories and having adventures with these characters that we'd come to know and love.  We were fine with that because that was the way things were.  That's all we knew would ever happen - ever again.

Along comes Disney.  Buys up Lucasfilm.  People are either uber-excited or mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore.  New movies are coming out.  Again, either cheering or booing.  Then the Expanded Universe is wiped away.  Gone.  Eradicated from existence like Alderaan.  Like Han would say, "That's what I'm tryin' to tell you, kid.  It ain't there.  It's been totally blown away."

This left a lot of fans with a bitter taste in their mouth.  The EU had some pretty die-hard fans, even if not all of the stories were stellar.  The sad thing is that some great characters, great plot lines, and epic events have been wiped out because of this effort to "clean the slate" for the upcoming movies and new plot lines.  I'm sure that some of them weren't surprised by the move.  After all, one time I remember seeing Timothy Zahn speak at a convention.  Someone asked how he felt about them killing off his character Mara Jade in a later book (that he had nothing to do with).  Timothy explained it simply (and I'll paraphrase because I can't quote this after so many years): "You know, we get this great opportunity to come over and play with George's toys.  He invites us over to play with them, and we jump at the chance.  But all of his toys are in the driveway, so sometimes you just have to be prepared for a car to back out of the garage and run over one of your toys."  No doubt - you're crushed that you've lost this toy.  But holy cow, you got to play with it in the first place.

I will still say that I mixed feelings about the erasing of the EU.  I don't really love the idea because there are things I'm truly going to miss (most of which are Zahn's stories, actually).  But I also have to admit that I understand why it's being done, and for the most part, I agree with it.  I think if we're finally going to continue this storyline, we're going to have to start from scratch.  The EU had so much information, detail, new characters - there was no (good) way that any new films could stay true to it and still have a decent story, in my opinion.  It would have required a lot of effort, knowledge, and work-arounds to get it to finally become a decent stroy.

I really hope that they justify this decision to wipe out the printed stories by giving us one hell of a show on the big screen come December 18th.

I'd love to be able to watch that movie, laugh, cry, gasp and grip the edges of my seat.  And at the end of it, I want to be able to truthfully say, "Chewie - we're home."