Lit Apocrypha: an in-depth analysis of non-canonical media

Star Wars has always had a rich history of stories and media released outside of the official canon. From non-canon toy lines, to scrapped concepts, to unlicensed novels, much of Star Wars' storytelling history was never considered canon. While the current universe continues to see quality stories, there are still many mysteries left unsolved. The Expanded Universe, while more thoroughly explored, is mostly stagnant at this point. However, by factoring non-canon stories into the official canons, we can uncover a bigger picture. Many scrapped storylines were part of larger narratives that never saw the light of day. The purpose of this thread is to give non-canonical stories a deeper look and see how they could factor into the new canon and/or the EU.

One massive corner of Star Wars that gets little exploration is the Lego line and its tie-in media. For example, our only representation of Dosmit Ræh likely appears in Sandspeeder 75204.

Spoiler

There's plenty of other things to be found. One obvious question is who Jedi Bob could be.

 

The blurry edges between canon and the Lego-verse are filled with oddities. All the Freemaker Adventures stuff that was canonized in Droidography, for example, or all the TFA backstory that only appears in the Lego Star Wars TFA video game.

The sandspeeder itself has an interesting journey into maybe-canon - it started off as a cancelled Kenner toy, made its way into Legends via WEG (which probably didn't actually have the cancelled toy in mind when they created their own version of the sandspeeder), and may or may not be canon since its only "canon" appearance thus far is in a Lego short (and the associated toy).

There's also the interesting phenomenon of fanon creeping into canon, mostly due to authors researching a topic on Wookieepedia and incorporating what they find into their work thinking the Wook properly vetted their info (which they haven't because the Wook can't seem to work out their ongoing problems with correct canon sourcing). Just today NumidianPrime noted (Brotherhood spoilers following the link, proceed with caution) that Brotherhood contains a reference to the Festival of Stars, originally a non-canon holiday that first appeared in a fan-made calendar, from there somehow showed up on the Wook, was then cited in a Legends source by an author who found it on Wookieepedia, and ended up with a canon page because an editor wrongly sourced the Legends source as a canon one. Presumably Mike Chen then found that page while searching for "canon Star Wars holidays" or something along those lines, and ended up making the holiday canon (while presumably being entirely unaware that it wasn't)!

 

I listen to Christmas in the Stars every time I rearrange my SW collection bookcase. They live on Earth in that one, and

Spoiler: Spoiler!

Santa's son is a guy who gives presents to intergalactic kids!

 

Where on the timeline would you place it then? Given SW is a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.... modern day earth? ancient high culture earth before our history? Hmmm.. or the version where as ANH was advertised once before the a long time ago came around, "in the year 3000" on Earth?

 

How come Star Tours didn't get tossed into this category of non-canon apocrypha? Certainly would have been easier and more convenient than trying to wrangle out this story about a Death Star III.

 

Gosh! Probably modern day. Confusingly, Luke and the gang exist ON EARTH in the album.

BTW ColeFardreamer, I've looked at your site and could you please add my blog to the lionks list? I would really appreciate it. https://jedisabacc.blogspot.com/

 

Yub I think I can do that. Love your blog! Updates to my site are way overdue and hope when I have some time I can get to it. At least the link page may triple in size with what I wanted to add there by now. Other entries, well wish I would post more regulary there but so far feedback is better on social media and TFN than a blog and kids leave me not much time.

 

I've never heard the year 3000 number. I'd love to know more about that. The idea of Star Wars being in the future has obviously been overshadowed a bit but there's ways to salvage it. We definitely have people in the future retelling the stories of the Skywalkers, (i.e. the Heyne mini books, The Storyteller). Of course it's technically in the future of human civilization, as per Alien Exodus, even if it's chronologically in the past.

The intersection of Earth and the GFFA is another massive rabbit hole. I vividly recall hearing talk about how the story of Star Wars was supposed to be told to Earth by R2 and C-3PO. I wish I could remember the specific source.

Perhaps in the future of the GFFA, Earth is discovered by the galaxy at large. R2 and 3PO would make perfect diplomats. Maybe it was E.T.'s race that discovered Earth. Either way, Luke and his friends could be clones or Human Replica Droids. But I'm adamant that the first GFFA-Earth interactions would be Into The Great Unknown.

 

Old ANH advertising concept pre 77!

Gesendet von meinem FP3 mit Tapatalk

 

I headcanon think SW is some distant future, with Earth as Coruscant. I don't really think Alien Exodus is Canon, and I'm iffy on Supernatural Encounters. The year 3000 thing might help my little retcon though!

 

Thanks a lot! I hope it attracts more readers! Good luck with your site! It's sure been a help for linkfinding for me!

 

I just found your blog. It's pretty cool! I added it to my blog's link list!

 

Thanks! Now that school is out I'm gonna try and give it some much-needed attention

That's definitely a way to reconcile the year 3000 issue. Perhaps the most coherent way to look at Star Wars is as a series of isolated, self-contained continuities. Looking at Star Wars as being in Earth's future is an interesting thought experiment. Perhaps the galactic civilization follows THX-1138 in a world where Earth's history is mostly forgotten.

 

The May 1973 synopsis/treatment says, “It is the thirty-third century, a period of civil wars in the galaxy.” The first three drafts ot the script don’t say when it takes place as far as I know. The (unrevised) fourth draft script introduced, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”.

 

I can't wait for more of your website! As for THX-1138, I have never seen it. But 3000 seems to work for me!

 

And how about those Kenner ads from 77-83?

Jabba: "This was your last solo, Snootles!"

These kids ctreate weird scenarios!

 

That advertising is so 70's!

 

I've always had The Star Wars set in the far future in my headcanon. With this in mind, the 3200s would make for a great date. Well after the apparent fall of the Heyne mini books' 1000 ABY Republic.

 

One Non-Canon topic I'd like to discuss is Monsters and Aliens from George Lucas. This was a book published in the early nineties and written by Bob Carrau (of Ewok films and shows fame). I own a copy, and it's barely a SW book. It's just concept art from SW, Ewoks, and Willow with humorous captions. I have tried going through the whole book to separate Canonical from Silly and it's not easy. What's everyone else think?

 

what do you mean with silly? It is entirely canonical! Lots of good stuff in there, even if weird.

 

It was definitely Non-Canon. Mentions of Earth and Earthy stuff (Fresnel lens and such), and Leland Chee said it was pretty much Non-Canon.

 

Monsters and Aliens is very weird. It basically takes concept art and stills of aliens and creatures from the Star Wars films, the Ewok TV movies, and Willow, and humorously speculates what kind of poems, music, want ads, etc. such creatures might create. Some of it is actually very funny, but there is very little that aligns with actual Star Wars lore (it is not branded as a Star Wars book) and is definitely not canon. I never realized the writer worked on the Ewoks cartoons and films; he certainly has one of the more interesting pedigrees amongst writers associated with Star Wars, I'll give him that.

 

I have to read this book

 

I actually tried to include a throwaway reference to this book in my Hyperspace source article, but I botched it because I misspelled the name of a sector or something. I'll have to go back and check my notes.

 

Holy crap I'm a celebrity. I read Slave Pits of Lorrd a month ago! I liked your reference to the Ewoks cartoon (Raygar)!