Full Series *Official* Clone Wars Continuity & Canon Thread

Canon should work like this: Believe what you want, but don't impose your beliefs upon others.
People who only like GL works? Go right ahead.
People who accept the total EU? All for it.
People who mix and match to their personal continuity? Their choice.

You can go with any of these combos, but don't feel like yours should be held any higher than anyone elses.

 

That's what I say when I discuss about beliefs in general, and it's very good guideline in other parts of life as well.
I usually take everything EU as canon, except when something truly condradicts how I feel about the universe. Like, let's say there are a few dozen sources saying that Ryloth is tide-locked (for example, The Essential Atlas). If in the Clone Wars one line of dialoque says that it isn't (which hasn't even happened. Yet), I'll go with a few dozen sources versus that one, whatever it's letter status may be.

 

I just wanted to address this.

Obviously C- and G-canon aren't independent: in particular, C-canon depends on G-canon (and now T-canon).

But clearly Chee is talking from the point of view of managing EU continuity. I mean, that's his job.

The whole canon hierarchy is just an internal set of rules for deciding what the current continuity is WRT the EU. It serves no other purpose.

IIRC, the radio dramas are considered G-canon within the hierarchy. But it's more than conceivable that TCW or the live action series will contradict the dramas. I doubt GL considers the dramas sacrosanct.

So if you like going by the external standard that LFL uses for internal purposes, you're welcome to, but you don't have to--GL doesn't.

 

The problem is...well, what we think doesn't really matter. What matters is that these continuty issues affect products. And, as customers, people have a right to care when the quality of their products is impacted. One need only compare how Jedi acted in Tales of the Jedi to how they acted in Knights of the Old Republic to see the effect of GL's ideas on Star War as a whole.

When we see Mandalore from now on, it is be cubist. Even in places where it is chronologically inappropriate.

That is what we are talking about: not the past of the Eu, but the future.

(Plus, sometimes the changes are massive lost opportunity. Like Ryloth. Filoni's original plan for the Ryloth episodes used Ryloth's tide locked nature in cool way to explain the strategic importance of the places that were fought over. That was changed...and I don't see what the story gained from it. A few, blink and you'll miss theme scenes of night? So the galaxy can have another generic desert planet?)

 

It may serve no other purpose, but that one purpose is actually most important of all. Look, if you want to create your own canon by selecting and picking what you like on whatever basis - that's fine. But there are some of us who actually prefer to follow the official, internal continuity used by Lucasfilm because... it's official. And when the two groups engage in canon conversations, we get discussions like this that serve very little purpose. I still don't quite get it how you manage to both decide what's canonical and what's not based on what you like and believe it to be more official than the current LFL internal continuity. I just don't get it.

 

Has anyone said that?

I personally take my cues from GL himself. But if tomorrow he makes an episode of TCW where it turns out that Palpatine is possessed by an evil spirit called Bob who's been having an affair with Padme, that'll be the end of SW for me. Whether it's canon or not is a total non-issue.

I don't think I have any access to some unique objective truth about SW. But I do think LFL and GL have differing views on what "counts" in SW, and seeing as I prefer GL's take on the universe, he's my source for SW.

But if someone chooses to only include episodes IV-VI, say, in their personal SW canon, are they saying that that's all that is objectively true in SW? No, only that it's "true for them".

That's solipsistic, and I'd caution against anyone adopting this approach IRL for things like science and such, but this is fiction we're discussing. "True for me" is equivalent to "the story I prefer". Did Han shoot first? Well, officially, no, but everyone has a preference, one way or the other.

 

the thing that continues to amaze me is how this debate rages.
i must have read like a million posts of people explaining that licas (film) has pissed them off by ignoring what they have alreadly published (and authorised) yet still people say - oh its georges world - he can do what he wants

firstly- yes ultimately GL is the man and can do what the heck he wants
he can burn his home down too - if he wants

secondly- is george writing and directing cw? if not surely its davewhathisface doing this?
if so why is he screwing with the Continuity
the whole mando thing- i have yet to see anything in the cw that justified ruining (or trying) the republic commando books- some of the best most coherent eu written

i appreciate the errors forced into the thrawn trilogy etc and would love to see an animated version corrected for the prequels

but people!! please understand you might love/hate the cartoon etc but anyone can express their opinion
my opinion is its pretty to watch and i quite enjoy it- but cannon?

i tend to regard it as a tales of.... and i can edit stuff i dont like as if it a story being told fourth hand and someone got something wrong

just as i do with some of books

 

Some recent comments by Kattie Lucas involving Licensing Continuity versus Lucas' Films and now Television


http://www.bigshinyrobot.com/reviews/archives/20452

Big Shiny Robot: This series of episodes seems to delve a lot into the Nightsisters and Count Dooku and, obviously, Savage Opress? A lot of people have been pretty vocal about how this rewrites other pieces of the expanded Star Wars universe? How do you respond to those kinds of questions? Are you even all that aware of the Star Wars universe outside of the films or the show?

Katie Lucas: I am vaguely aware of the extended universe, though we try to keep as much of it out of the writer?s room as we can. We want all of our stories to be as fresh and as new as possible.

 

Weird. That flies directly in the face of other articles that said Katie had been hard at work researching the Nightsisters and Ventress' background when writing the Nightsisters trilogy...

 

I see nothing wrong with that. More originality.

 

It doesn't -she obviously studied it- that don't mean she wouldn't have been avoiding of using it....

 

That could also mean they don't care about it, which basically happens.

 

But how can you make an in-depth study of Ventress' origin and the Nightsisters and still be only "vaguely aware of the EU"? She makes it sound like she glimpsed the cover of a comic once and that's it.

 

That's what's wrong with journalists, they write things down exactly how you say them, not how you think them. I think she propably meant that she wants to keep the EU out, but still treat it with respect when she has to. I mean, how else can carefully done retcons of Ventress' past and Maul's origins be explained?

 

Yeah it does sound that way. Perhpas she was saying she simply knew only about a small part of the EU such as Ventress and the Nightsisters and she is almost completley oblivious to the rest.

 

TCW is actually EU. EU is anything star wars related that isn't the films. TCW is just a higher level of EU then most EU.

 

True. But George does not consider it EU. I doubt his daughter would either.

 

that depends on definition of 'EU'- Lucas doesn't consider TCW to be EU.....

 

I think the problem here is that Katie makes a very general statement here. In this context, the word "vaguely" could mean anything.

For example. People could say I'm only vaguely aware of the EU because I've read only six or seven books' worth of it out of the stacks and stacks of the stuff I see every time I go to B&N. Anything else, I get from skimming Wookipedia when I'm bored. Therefore I only have a vague idea of what's going on in it, and really that's not a whole lot. So, if I were a writer on the show, I could make accurate references to the material in the books I have read, but not to anything else, and it would be very easy for me to retcon something without even realizing I was.

Then, I suppose, the argument would be that writers on the show should be fully versed in the EU. Katie seems to suggest, though, that they're avoiding that so they aren't locked into some rigid structure and have more creative freedom.

On the whole, the statement, I think, is open to interpretation until she clarifies it, if she ever does.

 

I could get a lot more behind George & Katie's creative freedom from the EU if they stopped strip mining the EU for ideas and actually, you know, showed some creativity.

Some of the best stuff they have done has been the brand new characters that aren't tied to anything previous. Terra Sinube, Embo, Sugi, Hondo, so on, there is some exceptional value there in my opinion - awesome creativity.

Then I tune in and see Nightsisters, Dathomir, Quinlan Vos, Delta, the Mandalorian stuff, and I just kinda go meh. Even if you own the universe using other writers creations can't be counted as being original.

 

I don't care for the EU at all, but I really agree with this. Why ruin things for the people who like it? Be original... Cad bane is great, for example.

However, I do like some aspects of the EU and I can't help wanting to see some of it on the show... for example: Nar Shaddaa. I wouldn't want to see it if they totally changed the concept of it though.

 

they had Nal Hutta and it had rings but it was EU-accurate otherwise bu no Shaddaa seen was disappointment.... Nar Shaddaa should appear- reused models of Coruscantcity with color changes and some additions would be very easy- just a place for those Twi'leks and Weequays to hand around without probs.... also they should show Sriluur in this- since Weequays are obviously their favorite species

 

Ithorians, Swash, Ithorians.