A/V Tales of the [Jedi, Empire] series

But why does one have to take precedence? That's what makes the "based on a true story" approach useful - both versions are adaptations of what "really happened," and neither needs to take precedence over the other. If both stories lead to the same endpoint, why does it matter which "really happened"? These stories live in our heads anyway - what "really happened" can be whatever we want.

And for what it's worth, Pablo's confirmed more than once on Twitter that this is how Story Group itself approaches the idea of canon. We as fans might prefer there being "one true version" of events, but we're swimming upstream against Lucasfilm's own style of storytelling, and that's going to continue to be more frustrating than rewarding over time.

 

Problem is, in the popular perception, does "based on a true story" = continuity?

For me, they're two different things. If one is being sold as the other then that is going to be problematic for some.

The better, more critique than full blast rage takes lay out how the entire last episode mess could have been avoided without giving up anything. The danger is "based on a true story" approach will become linked to TV being cavalier to other medium stories. And those other stories? They do work with each other and TV. This is a specific and one-way situation.

 

What do we want to see in Tales of the Jedi Season 2, if they do one?

While they could be all over the timeline, most were prequels to TCW kinda. And of course we want Legends TotJ, but that is sadly unlikely.

here's my most wanted wishlist:
1 more young Jedi Dooku and Qui Gon!
2 Barriss Offee's fate after her trial and her redemption (and how she survived Order 66 webstrip style, might be two separate shorts)
3 Padawan Dooku with Yoda
4 Mace Windu post window-fall ROTS, survival, amnesiac recovery, turning Rebel and Imperial nightmare, rematch vs. Lord Vader (unless they do that in a Bad Batch Horror themed episode where they either have to face him or help him in Coruscants Underworld)
5 Yoda and the Wookiee's Force mythology arc (and in general more cut TCW content they still did not put into anything else yet)
6 Quinlan Vos after Order 66 working with the Path (from Kenobi) and helping Jedi children to reach Master Plett's safehouse on Belsavis (though Andor's mention of the Empire having a prison on Belsavis makes me wonder if that was only established AFTER the discovery and raid on the safehouse)
7 Sifo Dias and Dooku buddy story
8 The Jedi kids from TCW and how they survived Order 66 thx to Hondo Ohnaka
9 The Grand Inquisitors life story from Jedi to Inquisitor

And no more Ahsoka please... thx.

 

I like those ideas.

Part of me says High Republic Jedi stories but can they resist screwing around? I don't know.

 

I don’t think most people see continuity of a fictional universe in that way. It implies that there is some unseen ‘true’ version of events and that everything we see or read is an ‘interpretation’ of these ‘true’ events. Luke Skywalker didn’t ‘actually’ look like Mark Hamill, for example.

Rather I think people see the media as a ‘window’ into the ‘actual’ fictional universe. Sometimes there is a filter (like animation) but what we are seeing is the Luke Skywalker, or Ashoka Tano, etc.

I think it’s a very natural way to enjoy these universes, and I think the whole ‘well it’s just an adaption, Luke Skywalker might have ‘actually’ looked more like Harrison Ford,’ to be somewhat counter intuitive. For example, if they one day remade A New Hope, would that remake be considered canon in the main continuity with the original, or would it be considered an alt universe?

 

If we run with George Lucas's conceit that Star Wars is adapting chapters out of The Journal of the Whills, then I think that the correct interpretation is indeed that Luke didn't look like Mark Hamill and that every event depicted on screen or on print is via foggy window.

 

Yeah, but Lucas found continuity restrictive and therefore don’t care for it. That’s fine, but then why should we consider continuity at all? It seems the Story Group doesn’t want to commit to one or the other.

In any case I’m doubtful that they’ll actually apply this approach to on-screen media, so I think the tiered interpretation is workable.

 

I saw it when it came out and enjoyed it.

Spoiler

Dooku episodes were heads and tails better. The animation is jaw dropping (Though on rewatch I can't help but notice they're still reusing some assets, that Aqualish Jedi sure moves around fast. I suppose its part of the charm of TCW at this point. )

I'll agree with the consensus that those episodes don't overtly contradict anything from Dooku Jedi Lost or Master and Apprentice, but it definitely hugs those stories in a rather awkward way (Specifically whether or Not Dooku ever did serve on the Jedi Council). There is also now a similar wonkiness to Mace Windu's age as Depa Billaba.
53 at death.
40 in TPM (32 BBY)

Dooku leaves the Order about 42 BBY?

So, Mace must be in his 20s when he was appointed (Unless it happened very shortly before Dooku left the Order. Ok, that is possible. The question is if we want to make room for Dooku being appointed to the Council sometime after the events of their episode. If that's the case Mace must only be a couple years older than Anakin when he became a member of the Council. A concern Aggravated by Depa Billaba's appearance in the episode (Seemingly already a Knight at the very least). Nitpicks, nitpicks I know. Ones with potential answers that are far less complicated than the ones the Ahsoka episodes leave us.

For them, yes at this point I'm content to toss the Ahsoka novel from canon all together. Never enjoyed it much anyways. Mildly annoyed at the new continuity which was designed to be more closely knit than the old one ending up so Loosey goosey with the facts despite the reboot. But I honestly don't have much desire to salvage the book at this point. At least Dooku Jedi Lost is still mostly intact.

Head Canon:
The woman standing to Mace Windu's left during Katri's funeral is Yula Braylon.

 

Does James T. Kirk look like William Shatner, Chris Pine, or Paul Wesley?

You're right in that many people who really care about continuity probably think more in terms of "magic window." But like it or not, that's not how Lucasfilm and the current creators think about it. To them the universe isn't a big stack of data to be precisely defined and entered into Wookieepedia and continuity isn't defined by having every detail in perfect harmony across stories (though that's nice), but how the individual stories themselves interconnect to create a bigger and more meaningful story.

Well, if the current Story Group philosophy holds, it would be canon alongside the original film, The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy, and the revised version of Ryder Windham's junior novelization of A New Hope. All different retellings of the same events, and all equally canon. Which is your favorite? That's the one that best reflects what "really happened."

 

Spoiler

Add in Jor Aerith and Cyslin Myr into that family tree and you end up with an interesting and very extensive timeline (As well as a bonus reason for Mace Windu being appointed to the Council. Ever notice Council members like appointing their own former Padawan's to empty seats?)

 

He looks like all three, depending upon the timeline or the point in the timeline.

I’m not really convinced that all the creators have this point of view and I’m doubtful that it’s just people who care about continuity who see it as a ‘magic window.’ The test of this is that I’m doubtful we’ll ever see two on screen events depicted in a truly incongruous way.

Novelisations are canon except where they contradict the on screen material. I think that’s perfectly consistent with what we’ve been provided with. I view the whole ‘it’s all true’ as a way to keep the marketing line of the multimedia ‘counting’ as much as the on screen media, while also not having to completely commit to that because it’s so difficult. I’m perfectly fine with bits of non-screen media being ‘redacted’ as incorrect and unless they start contradicting themselves onscreen, I can’t see that being a problem.

 

Pre-reboot novelizations are "canon except where they contradict the on screen material." Post-reboot novelizations, comic adaptations, etc. are fully canon. And it is the "based on a true story" paradigm that enables this.

But - how do you know that non-screen media is "redacted" by what's on-screen? Lucasfilm has made no such statement. How do you know which is "incorrect"?

 

LFL doesn’t make offical statements on anything like this do they? I think it’s up to people to decide how they interpret things at the end of the day.

For instance Legends is ‘non canon’ even though Pablo said that he suggested the Legends concept to preserve it as a separate continuity. Legends is de facto a separate continuity even though that doesn’t really fit with it being ‘non canon’ as the official LFL position. Why? Because canon, as a marketing concept, means ‘Disney continuity.’ Visions also is non-canon, yet it's still something that we can watch and enjoy. It's just as 'real' as any other story we see. Are we really expected to interpret these new stories as 'not happening' even in their own separate continuity? I think that's just silly to be bound too closely to a made-up 'canon' system about made-up stories.

I don’t really feel the need to be bound in interpretation by the “based on a true story” concept. I like the idea that what’s on screen has primacy.

 

Everyone should be careful not to block out the creator from his own work like they're trying to do to J.K. Rowling.

 

I just want to know...why did they take the guy who got his whole village killed with them? Should have just left him there.

 

Who said I was blocking Lucas from his own work? We’re talking about the Disney canon firstly, and I don’t think disagreeing about one particular was to interpret the film on a meta textual level is really that big a deal.

I’m not going to get into the JK Rowling controversy.

 

Luckily Lucas seems to be smart enough to stay off Twitter so we don't have to hear about whatever thoughts he may have that certain crowds would try to tear apart.

 

Everyone needs to realise that Twitter isn't real life. Just because everyone on twitter thinks one thing, doesn't mean the remaining 60-70 percent of the world doesn't agree with you.

 

Are you two really that desperate to have such a conversation rather than stay to the actual topic of discussion?

 

You guys mentioned JK Rowling's and I didn't know what that was all about so I looked it up and it was just another Twitter war. Have a good day. This Ahsoka novel controversy has become a bit tiresome so I am not going to get involved in that. Just look at it this way. They both are admittedly the same story (just told in different ways) so just choose the version of the story you like best. It's not like Ahsoka went home to live with her mom in one of the stories. She basically did the same thing in both.

 

Related - a lot of people on this board seem to treat a single Reddit conversation between two or three people as the majority of fans' opinions.

From the fan sites I go to, I didn't see the backlash against Tales of the Jedi. There are a large group of what I'd call "newish" fans who emerged during the Sequel/Mandalore era who base their opinions on the films and anything that came out on Disney+, and they're a pretty innocent bunch. My suspicion is a lot of people watching Tales of the Jedi don't read the books, even the new books.

That's separate from whether I think that's a good or bad thing... I do miss the old conversations in the post-PT era, when most fans still hanging around websites were book and videogame fans. But those often got super polarized about specific authors and the canon debates were deadly. These days things seem more chill. Granted, we have a looser canon system. But in a way we sort of always had a lose canon system, we just didn't like to admit it while we wrapped the leaks in retcon ductape.

 

He was young and he made a mistake. He realized that by the end and he felt remorse. The two other survivors were his father (I’m assuming) and sister, who had just lost their home and everyone else they knew. Leaving him there would be cruel and heartbreaking. He made a single mistake and it cost him everything.

He’s the one who called the Inquisitor down on Ahsoka and yet she saved his life. Mercy and forgiveness is the Jedi Way, especially for those who repent. Leaving that misguided boy there would have been unnecessarily cruel. Far better to take him with them and let him learn from his mistakes.

That boy was young and naive and greedy. He believed the Empire’s propaganda because he didn’t know any better. He had no way of knowing that he’d bring down death on his entire village. I think it speaks well of Ahsoka that she doesn’t hold a grudge and has the wisdom and generosity to forgive his actions against her. Very Jedi-like.

 

Well most people on Twitter think Elon Musk taking it over is a bad idea and the World agrees with that

 

Some things are unforgivable. If no one else had been killed that would be one thing...but his actions led to the destruction of the whole village and the death of everyone (except those 3) there.

Forgiveness may be the Jedi way...but that doesn't mean you take a known threat with you.

 

Will he do it again? Knowing what he now does, of what follows from trusting the Empire, how likely is it? Probably very low.