I've felt the argument about "destroying the EU" forgets a few things.
- Generously, 90% of it was mid-to-garbage.
- There were no real "unanswered plotlines" that needed resolution (yeah sorry Force Unleashed, but no). All things considered, the old EU could be considered "complete".
- Expecting a casual fanbase who had not seen a Star Wars film in ten years to suddenly be caught up on dozens of books and video games is way too big of an ask if your intent is to just have the next adventure slot in right after, say, the Fate of the Jedi storyline.
And no, you can't just "make movies that don't reference those old books" because a TON of stuff happened in them that would need explaining, such as:
- A major supporting character being dead for years.
- A main character having a kid by a wife who's now dead.
- Another main character couple having three kids, two of them now dead.
- The galactic government makeup changing TWICE in the time since the Fall of the Empire.
That's not stuff that can be swept under the rug.