Lit A/V Clone Wars Continuity Discussion (Spoilers Allowed)

Whoa, back up a second.

First, my target isn't you guys, and if it is, I apologize.

Also, this is more "D'oh!" than "Ha!"

I picked up the "Canon go boom" from you lot and have used it to show the problems that LFL seems to have. We talked about this in private before, and in public as well, and I think I just mentioned it in my last post.

LFL continues to assure us that all is well, that EVERYTHING is going to fit into canon, and they MUST know that it won't. They must at least know that changing sizable chunks of character motivations, when characters did things, why characters do things, adding characters, adding battles, adding stories that overlap with the timeline of pre-existing stories will overrun the canon that already exists.

As a customer, I resent being lied to. Heck, I'd like it more if they brought in some sort of "No-Prize" for this stuff (Marvel comics fans will know what I mean). They don't, instead they say NOTHING. We've all been wary of what's going to happen from day one of the announcement, and now instead of making any announcements at any level they just make a databank change.

Why?

Why not just treat us like the adults most of us are and inform us, in the interviews on the subject, on their own website, anywhere, that while they respect the EU and the novels and comics that they're all different animals and the reality of the franchise is that they just can't or won't make everything fit.

This isn't an accidental overwrite. They claim to know the EU, then they know when Anakin was knighted. Period.

I apologize if you think this is all on you guys, but it's not, and the only thing I'm mildly amused by is that people will tie themselves into knots to try to make things fit.

I WANT a complete continuity that fits. Seriously, I really do, but as it is set up right now I don't see it happening unless they change their business practices in a serious manner. The cartoon guys have a host of stories from the EU to tie into, and instead, they're going back and stealth editing everything.

Now, on one hand, my core personal belief is that, as Alan Moore said in "Whatever Happened to the Man of Steel?" is that:
"This is an Imaginary Story...but aren't they all?" (may be paraphrased). IOW, it's fiction. I can get onboard with that, but I think it's unfair to pretend that it's all meant to fit, that everyone is making sure it all fits, when they are obviously not concerned with that.

I want a concise, coherant EU, but if they're going to change it, I don't want my intelligence insulted by telling me "It all fits" when I can read the material or watch it and see that it doesn't.

And I don't believe it's not possible, I think it's very possible, but not one has tried to make it work.

Maybe the answer is a series of "soft-Crisis" type non-events where the reality of the story is simply changed.

BTW, the bet was with another fan that LFL wouldn't tell anyone if they decided to change the timeline, but just do it.

Now what about people like Nathan Butler who put all that love into doing their timelines?

What about people who thought that they were supposedly reading one complete story?

Why couldn't they have just told us ahead of time this is what was coming?

My thing is that I can't pretend it all fits, because it DOESN'T.

So, I have one of two ways to go, I either do their work for them and try to fanon out some explination (which...the Anakin thing is kinda big), or I accept that they aren't going to try to keep a singular canon and either we'll drift into every

 

I'm warming up to my "temporary rank" idea. The fact that they were going to allow him onto the Jedi Council as a knight shows how they were willing to bend the rules for him anyways.

 

QFT.

And I think maybe that's what drives me up a wall the most.

There are other major franchises that have dealt with mutable canon changes for decades and have survived just fine, but the companies behind them have always given it a bit of a nod and wink.

I've never seen someone who basically says that a huge section of his empire doesn't matter. The Harry Potter movies may not line up with the books, but does anyone see JK Rowling coming out and disavowing them?

There's a sensible way to handle mutable canon that maintains the integrity and also the respect for the fans, and I just don't feel like this is the way to do it, imo.

 

Who decides that though?

And I mean that honestly.

All reviews are subjective. There's no objective standard. If material has passed through the editors...then it is part of the "canon" of that universe.

Also, there's loads of stuff that people like that others are not going to like. How do you trim the bad parts away without taking out some of the good?

Look, I apologize for sounding flip about it, but it's not the idea of a strict or even a semi-mutable canon that annoys me. Quite the opposite; I'm enough of an anorak that I WANT that, I LOVE that idea, but I'm honestly bothered that LFL keeps putting out stuff that they know goes against things they determined to be in-canon, then won't stand behind their creators, and basically also have the stones to say; "It all fits!"

Except it doesn't.

Meanwhile, the creators are getting a drubbing for going against canon when they probably asked "How do you want me to handle this?", or "Do you want a straight adaption or can I change this bit?", or any of a dozen other things and when asked online and they bother to answer it's back to; "It all fits" with maybe a smiley face.

After all the bunk about respecting the EU and making sure it all fit and all of us assuming they'd somehow stick this all in the last six months...we get a stealth databank change? Seriously?

I'm not calling for anyone's head, but that just seems to fall under "Not Cool" for me, and being flip about it is what I have to do not to get seriously annoyed by that kind of treatment as a customer.

 

Well said.

I would love for Star Wars to have a fixed, immutable continuity. I would love for continuity to be "history"... but it's increasingly apparant that it simply isn't.

LFL say they care about making "everything fit" when, quite clearly, they don't. Why can't they just say this? Maybe some people would drop their titles (I wouldn't, I read Star Wars first and foremost for the setting: read lightsabers) but it would show a great deal more intergrity and respect towards their fans if they would just admit... well... what they're clearly doing.

At the moment, it almost appears to be a situation where you've got the Leland hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

Still, though I mentioned "Clone Wars canon go boom" in the Clone Wars thread... I don't think this is the worst thing that could happen. Squeezing the current Clone Wars canon into a shorter space of time is perfectly doable, I think... and hey, maybe Asajj was tempted back (after Obsession) into Dooku's fold with promises of Sith teachings? Maybe it'll be a plot point?

(*Uli dodges the thrown projectiles of people who want Obsession to be Asajj's last story*)

Edit: Urg. Mixed up "there" with "their". Urg. How is that even possible?

 

Patch - yeah, there's the rub. At least 90% of fans would plot out a worse EU than what we got given the chance I don't know how they decide that. All I know is that in the Bantam era they seemed to know to choose Mara over Callista, give us I, Jedi over the JAT, give us a better Zsinj in the Wraith books than what we saw in COPL. It seemed like they had a better hold on what would work with fans and what wouldn't...

(Even at the time, I don't think I knew of -anyone- who was a Daala fan. Though I knew Callistafen)

Back to Clone Wars, I'm more concerned about the characterization than the exact timing of events. The timelines are in many cases -obvious- kludges anyway. For instance, we've been given five dates for the Battle of Galidraan ranging over a decade.

But the jury's out on what they're doing to Asajj...it looks like her dynamic with Dooku and her dynamic with Kenobi have both been altered. And while Obsession was seriously on crack in places, I'm not sure that's a good thing.

 

I wouldn't cry if we lost jedi trial.

Maybe Lucas can barrow grant morrison or geoff johns and have clone wars crisis. Hell maybe they can grab bendis and make this the start of the ultimate star wars universe.

 

In general, I'm thrilled with canon developments that make existing events make more sense. And with the Clone Wars, there's lots of room for improvement.

 

As I pointed out in the other thread, all of this additional stuff is under "The Movies" while the old CW continuity is in "EU" where it has always been. Basically, TOS is saying that the new details are the official events.

 

Man! I been telling you the exact same thing a year ago, remember?

 

Leland has clarified the T-canon ranking, over at TOS message boards.

And...

About what we expected, I think. So it's probably G > T > C > S > N.

 

Eh...yeah, the creators are given some flak, but it's possible to do completely subversive rewrites and at the same time not randomly step on canon. I, Jedi's the case in point. I'd strongly prefer more I, Jedis to more Path of Destructions, so to speak.

Luceno did a brilliant job in Labyrinth of Evil making Dooku and Nute Gunray's motivations make some vague sort of sense. I'm still slightly in awe of that. I know some don't like the Luceno approach, but I'm a definite fan.

Meanwhile Stover's version of Dooku was...interesting, but kind of stepped on the EU in completely unnecessary ways.

 

Well, THAT'S new.

And unfortunate.

Oh well.

 

I am optimistic about this. It could all work. Chances are everything will be done to make sure it doesn't work... but I think maybe it has a chance.

 

Begun this Canonicity-Level War Has.

 

Not so much new...we've known for weeks that the T-level was going to be above C-level. Tasty's post saying as much here is from the middle of March.

 

That's totally fair, and I one thing I've come to realize is that I have to make an important distinction, one I hadn't before and I think this coloured how what I was saying was percieved, in that there's nothing wrong with being upset something was changed, but at some point an author turns in an outline and discusses what they want to do with an editor.

At that point, with something like PoD, and editor can give the nod to changes or not, and the nod was given to changes to "make the story better" in the eyes of the author.

I'm not going to argue whether that worked or not, because that's the subjective part. If it didn't work for you, then by all means, you don't like it, fair enough, but my point is back when the editor gave the nod, or saw the change, or was asked by the author; "Do you mind if I change this?" or when they hired the author and said; "We're doing an adaption of Jedi vs Sith", because the editors could have said; "We're lockstep continuity, you can add side bits, but we need to follow what is in the comic because it's canon".

It's not hard. Give an author direction. If he/she doesn't follow, do a rewrite, make them do a rewrite, or just don't work with them again.

So, by all means, judge the author by what is on the page, but there's also the fact that if canon has been changed then the company that OWNS the work gave the go-ahead to do it, and this means that canon is mutable.

Then you get the really weird things (imo), like people taking the time to explain a typo out of universe in INSIDER while just sort of ignoring the fact, even when asked outright, that events don't line up with their counterparts in the graphic novel. It's just odd, imo.

 

Personally I am shocked about these news. Like I was about Invincible. But in retrospective, Invincible has pretty good things to consider despite not being what I expected. So maybe this will have, too! I doubt it but well...

The problems I see are:

They use EU chars and EU plots for their T-canon ideas.
I could live with 2 separate canons, like paralell universes.
BUT...

I can not understand why they then also produce books, tie-ins and stuff for the series that would be considered EU, wouldn´t it? And how about the real live series or other cartoons coming?

If they keep it clean and separate, well, ok, bad for my money but good otherwise. Interesting even. But if they mix it, very bad for both. They should not use Asaj or EU inventions if they don´t want to stick to the EU of that creations.

 

I think "it all fits" as much as a multi-billion dollar franchise handled by hundred of creators, writers, artists could fit. As evidenced by my sig below, I'm working on my own epic saga and, guys, I STILL contradict myself from time to time and I have to go back and retcon something. And this is just ME handling this stuff. But, you know, I get excited thinking about something in the series and I go with it and, before I know it, I just wrote myself into a corner and I have to do something creative to get out of it. And this is for a series I'm constantly thinking/dreaming about.

So, while, yes, not everything fits in Star Wars in the strictest black/white sense, I think it still fits in spirit--or at least aims to. And, thankfully, I don't think we've become like the X-Men franchise (and most other franchises), where each cartoon, each comic book series, each movie series, is a totally different universe. Star Wars is far from perfect in its continuity, but it's dang close enough for me.

I'm crazy excited about the new series and I'm not going to let something like "what specific date Anakin got his scar" stand in my way. If it doesn't fit PERFECTLY--like has been said by others here--my mind will just make the fanon leap to uphold the suspension of disbelief. Because, like Mulder, "I want to believe."

And, on a side note, I really liked your posts, patch. You expressed yourself beautifully and I totally understood where you are coming from.

 

Nah, thought that was the general T-canon post which said that they were intermediarily making the new TV series "T-canon" to classify them differently without any further indication as to what "T-canon" meant other than giving a label to the TV stuff. As well, they were calling the TV stuff EU at that time.

 

Wait...is this supposed to indicate that T-canon and G-Canon are NOT part of the EU? Or maybe I should write that the EU is NOT part of T-canon or G-canon?

So none of the EU stuff exists in the "T-canon" or "G-Canon" pillars?

(well, we know that GL doesn't consider the EU "real", so that sorta makes sense)

And since when did we have pillars? Pillars run side by side, so does that mean SW is held up by the pillars of G/T/C-canon? With each one running alongside but not touching?

Did the universes just seperate or am I reading that totally wrong?

 

We made it through the PT and all its "continuity-busters" relatively in tact. We shall survive this, too.

And, making this a "seperate universe" from the rest of the EU CW stuff...um. I don't think so. If they were RADICALLY different, maybe, but we're talking about different dates and different shades of motivations. It's not like Asajj is a guy in this or Dooku loses the bottom half of his torso and spends the rest of the series in a robotic walker.

 

Depends on which day you ask GL. I've read some interviews where he says "They're parallel unvirses, never the twain shall meet", and then I've read others where he says "Yeah, it counts, it's just not the story I'm interested in telling."

 

I *think* it's like descending pillars that you can step on...

At the top is G-canon and then you step-down to T-canon, then C-canon...

At least that's how I read it, but meh...

 

According to Lucas, SW continuity is now "three pillars"--Lucas's stuff, EU, and fanon. The new TV shows are being filed under Lucas's stuff.

And dp, your interpretation is the same as mine, hence the interpretation I gave Chee's old quote.