Saga The Final State of Lucas Canon

Yes there was. Prior to that he said many times that the movies stood on their own as the only Lucas endorsed canon. Meaning everything else was separate from that. Then TCW came along & it was not placed in that category alongside the movies until years after it began. That Lucas didn't come out & announce that every individual bit of content "wasn't canon" is irrelevant. It was understood that there were the movies, then everything else. When he added "something else" other than the movies, ie a cartoon series, that was a change of mind. Particularly when it was something that had already been on the air for years.

 

And for very good reasons, I should add (and refer to my signature). Unfortunately, I don't know what exactly compelled George Lucas to make such a clear distinction, but I have a few ideas or theories, because "Uncle EU" neglected basic Lucas settings, here is just the tip of the proverbvial iceberg:

The "Ponda Baba / Dr. Evazan duo myth"
An obvious conjectural and erroneous EU invention, as already the screenplay referred to a trio of "The Three Cantina Stooges"

The hideous freak is obviously drunk. Luke tries to ignore
the creature and turns back on his drink. A short, grubby
Human and an even smaller rodent-like beast join the
belligerent monstrosity.

which can be clearly seen in the final film with 'Evazan' talking to his buddy 'Kabe' as Luke enters the Cantina (screenplay overrules EU).
In addition the Lucas approved radio drama identified 'Evazan' as "Roofuu" and as a "punk" (and not a PhD) (just noticed that this information has finally been purged from the corresponding databanks, welcome to 1984... )

Some fighter names at the Battle of Yavin are first names, others are monikers
We do know that "Luke", "Biggs" and "Wedge" are the first names of the X-wing-fighter pilots and used as such during the Battle of Yavin, still some EU contributors felt that "Dave" (Red Leader) and "Dutch" (Gold Leader) shouldn't be first names, too, but monikers instead.

 

This is what he said in an interview for Starlog magazine in August 2005:

LUCAS: "I don't read that stuff. I haven't read any of the novels. I don't know anything about that world. That's a different world than my world. But I do try to keep it consistent. The way I do it now is they have a Star Wars Encyclopedia. So if I come up with a name or something else, I look it up and see if it has already been used. When I said [other people] could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one. They try to make their universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions."

This is what he stated in an interview in the May 2008 edition of Total Film magazine:

LUCAS: "They have their own kind of world. There's three pillars of Star Wars. I'll probably get in trouble for this but it's OK! There's three pillars: the father, the son and the holy ghost. I'm the father, Howard Roffman [president of Lucas Licensing] is the son and the holy ghost is the fans, this kind of ethereal world of people coming up with all kinds of different ideas and histories. Now these three different pillars don't always match, but the movies and TV shows are all under my control and they are consistent within themselves. Howard tries to be consistent but sometimes he goes off on tangents and it's hard to hold him back. He once said to me that there are two Star Trek universes: there's the TV show and then there's all the spin-offs. He said that these were completely different and didn't have anything to do with each other. So I said, "OK, go ahead." In the early days I told them that they couldn't do anything about how Darth Vader was born, for obvious reasons, but otherwise I pretty much let them do whatever they wanted. They created this whole amazing universe that goes on for millions of years!"


Here's another one from 2008 in which he repeats that Lucas Licensing is separate from him , overall he's always been pretty consistent about separating his work from the others.

Interviewer: "Do you think you'd have other people continue the Star Wars saga past Episode VI or turn some of the other material into films?"

LUCAS: "But there's no story past Episode VI, there's just no story. It's a certain story about Anakin Skywalker and once Anakin Skywalker dies, that's kind of the end of the story. There is no story about Luke Skywalker, I mean apart from the books. But there's three worlds: There's my world that I made up, there's the licensing world that's the books, the comics, all that kind of stuff, the games, which is their world, and then there's the fans' world, which is also very rich in imagination, but they don't always mesh. All I'm in charge of is my world. I can't be in charge of those other people's world, because I can't keep up with it."

As for the Force Unleashed:
Pablo Hidalgo ‏@pablohidalgo
He never considered it canon & was actively developing television material that disavowed it at the same time.

Pablo Hidalgo ‏@pablohidalgo
It was gonna get into the origins of the rebellion (did a bit in Season 5). Starkiller didn't start it.

Pablo Hidalgo ‏@pablohidalgo
Yeah, George's ideas about the origins of the rebellion were quite different from what the game proposed.

Sorry, I've been unable to think clearly all day. I get it now. One last thing: what was the REAL amount of George put into TFU, in comparison to TCW. I know he didn't see it as canon, but knowing it would relax me.

Pablo Hidalgo ‏@pablohidalgo
Minimal. He gave the okay to make the game. He never saw Vader as having an apprentice.

Personally I don't think it matters if a story is "canon" or not, if you really like a story whether it's canon or not shouldn't damper your enjoyment. It's certainly the last thing to cross my mind when I choose what I want to read.

 

Just to address that bit of silliness - "Dutch" is too Earth-sounding to be a Star Wars name... let's change it to Jon. They should have kept things like that in the Legends where they tried to consolidate writers imagined scenarios with what the filmmakers intended. Like how Hobbie and General Veers had a long run in the EU... despite a deleted scene showing Hobbie's speeder crashing into Veer's AT-AT. Yes, they both survived.

 

Says who? Did Lucas tell you in particular that he only considered TCW canon after someone decided to ask him in some interview? No.

No, it isn't. You're claiming that he changed his mind. To change his mind, he had to have made an opposite claim. He didn't.

No. The movies were apart from everything else because the movies were his works, his story. He later decided to expand his story with TCW, therefore (just like the movies) it's part of his canon. His works were what's canon, that's always been the rule. The medium of the works were never part of the definition.

 

Nonsense. He acted as producer & consultant for TCW. He didn't write or direct them. If he had we all would've assumed that they might be canon from the start. That wasn't the case. All of your spin here does not alter the facts. He said very clearly many times that only the movies were canon. He allowed his company to continue to announce that even while TCW was airing for years. Then he changed that policy & decided to make the cartoon show canon, supposedly on the same level. That's a change of mind, policy & position.

 

No, you not liking facts doesn't make then nonsense. He was not a mere producer and consultant. He came up with the stories, approved the scripts and the episodes at various stages of development. He didn't need to direct the episodes.

Yes, it was.

What spin? Again, I've stated facts. This stuff is well documented in BTS videos, interviews, etc...

Yes, before TCW happened. Before TCW, his movies were his only SW works.

What? "Allowed"? Announce what exactly? His company was the one pretending that his movies and the Licensing world (EU) were all one and the same despite the fact that Lucas made it clear many times that they weren't. He simply didn't care.

No, it isn't. Lucas never changed his mind as far as what he considered canon (part of his universe). Licensing's internal canon policy and respective works are irrelevant to him. Always have been.

Lucas' canon are, and always have been, his works. His works were the movies. After 2008, they were the movies and the series (since it's part of his works). No change of mind whatsoever. Feel free to prove me wrong.

 

"Now these three different pillars don't always match, but the movies and TV shows are all under my control and they are consistent within themselves. " That was in 2008.

 

And dated back to 1999, right around the time TPM came out.

 

People always seem to forget this part -
G-Canon was George Lucas Canon; the six Episodes and any statements by George Lucas (including unpublished production notes from him or his production department that are never seen by the public).

"I don't read that stuff, I haven't read any of the novels. I don't know anything about that world. That's a different world than my world. But I do try and keep it consistent. The way I do it is they have a Star Wars encyclopedia. So if I come up with a name or something else, I look it and see if it has already been used. When I said other people could make thier own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have TWO universes: My Universe and than this other one. They try to make THIER universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions."
~ George Lucas, August, 2005
https://ibb.co/Km1CcNs
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"Howard Roffman [President of Lucas Licensing], He once said to me that there are two Star Trek universes: there's the TV show and then there's all the spin-offs. He said that these were completely different and didn't have anything to do with each other. So I said, "OK, go ahead."

~ George Lucas 2008

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"What George did with the films and The Clone Wars was pretty much his universe ,” Chee said. “He didn’t really have that much concern for what we were doing in the books and games. So the Expanded Universe was very much separate."
~ Leland Chee, 2017 - SYFY WIRE

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“There are two worlds here,” explained Lucas. “There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe – the licensing world of the books, games and comic books."
~ George Lucas, Cinescape, 2002
.........
"TVGuide: Yet novelists have written "Star Wars" sequels using the same characters and extending their stories.
"Oh, sure. They're done outside my little universe."

~ George Lucas, Flannelled One, November 2001 - TV Guide interview
............
"Q: What do you think of the Expanded Universe of books?
A: "The books are in a different universe. I've not read any of them, and I told them when they started writing I wouldn't read any of them and I blocked out certain periods [they couldn't touch where the real story happens]."

~ George Lucas 2003
...........

"The question selected from The Furry Conflict poll was: How much does the Expanded Universe influence the movies?

"As I asked him, Lucas leaned back a moment and said to me *“Very little.” When he first had agreed to let people write Expanded Universe books, he had said “I’m not gonna read ‘em” and it was a “different universe” and that he wanted to keep away from the time period of his saga. He jokingly complained, however, that now when he writes a script he has to look through an encyclopedia to make sure that a name he comes up with doesn’t come too close to something in the EU."

- "Marc Xavier", November 2003, "The Furry Conflict and the Great ‘Beard‘ of the Galaxy (report based on a Q&A session with George Lucas which occurred at USC on 11-19-03)
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“Lucas’ canon – and when I say ‘his canon’, I’m talking about what he was doing in the films and what he was doing in The Clone Wars – was hugely important. But what we were doing in the books really wasn’t on his radar.”
~ Leland Chee, 2018
..........

"Dave Filoni is better equipped to relay Lucas’ true feelings about the EU."
~ Leland Chee, 2009
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“I did not have direct contact with George about Star Wars continuity. Dave Filoni, who worked on Clone Wars, definitely did. So for me, the spirit of George’s work is what’s in the films, and it doesn’t go too far beyond that.”
~ Leland Chee 2018
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"There's this notion that everything changed when everything became Legends. And I can see why people think that. But, you know, having worked with George I can tell you that it was always very clear -- and he made it very clear -- that the films and the TV shows were the only things that he considered Canon. That was it. -
Dave Filoni interview on 'The Star Wars show' [41.40 mark]-



"So everything else was a world of fun ideas, exciting characters, great possibilities, the EU was created to explore all those things.And I know and I fully respect peoples opinions about it that some of the material said 'the next canon part of it' <wink,wink> [It wasn't canon].... But from the filmmaking world I was brought into, the films and TV shows were it".
~ Dave Filoni speaking about working with George Lucas

"There is no more clear illustration of the difference between the Expanded Universe and the Star Wars created by George Lucas. The EU is a well of ideas, and there's what's on screen. They don't live in the same universe. Everyone wants to think so, I know… We just need to think of it all as a creative collection of fun ideas separate from what George Lucas has made."
~ Dave Filoni 2012
....................
"The terminology of "Expanded Universe" was a careful one; it expanded on the world created in the core stories, but was never officially meant to be Star Wars canon, according to the Maker himself, George Lucas."
~ Dave Filoni 2017
................
How early on did you know that the show [Clone Wars series] would be considered canon?

"Everything that I’ve worked on at Lucasfilm has been considered canon. Working on Clone Wars, it was always canon. I never really worry about it. I always figured that most things that are done in a cinematic form, whether it be television or movies, are the only things that George considered canon because it was the stuff that he helped produce. So,it made sense that this would be, as well."

~ Dave Filoni Interview, 2014
https://collider.com/star-wars-rebels-easter-eggs-episode-7/
......

"Back then We were the only thing really happening in canon while we did Clone Wars [series]."
~ Dave Filoni
Star Wars Rebels Executive Producer Dave Filoni Interview, 2015

Interviewer - "Thank you for making Darth Bane canon"


.......

“For me and my training here at Lucasfilm, working with George, he and I always thought the Expanded Universe was just that. It was an expanded universe. Basically it’s stories that are really fun and really exciting, but they’re a view on Star Wars, not necessarily canon to him. That was the way it was from the day I walked into Lucasfilm with him all through Clone Wars, everything we worked on, he felt the Clone Wars series and his movies were what was actually the reality of it all, the canon..."

~ Dave Filoni 2017
..............

"In the same interview, Dave Filoni said that George Lucas told him, that the movies and The Clone Wars television series, were the only thing Lucas considered canon."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_expanded_to_other_media

.........

'Do you consider The Clone Wars canon or part of the Expanded Universe? Is the old Cartoon Network show canon? How do the two relate and where do the two series fit in the Star Wars Universe?'


"That’s one of the biggest debates in Star Wars, what counts? The idea of what is canon? When I talk to George I know that he considers his movies, this series and his live-action series canon."

But theres never an implicit connection between the micro-series that Cartoon Network did previously and the series that we're doing now.

~ Dave Filoni, SW:TCW 2008
..........
"The TV series is exactly like the movies, exactly. I mean, you can see it in the clip. It’s basically just the movies only with cartoon characters. It’s basically a dramatic series, there’s a lot of action, a bit of humor."
~ George Lucas, 2008 Interview about the Clone Wars series.

[George Lucas was more involved in the Clone Wars series than he was in his own movies! heh He delved into every aspect of it. He loved it. People like to think it was Filoni, it was George Lucas who came up with almost all the stories and their own comes. Quotes to this effect below.]

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"The importance of The Clone Wars that cannot be understated is that it was the last huge expansion of the Star Wars universe that came directly from George Lucas."
~ Pablo Hidalgo

---------------------
"I get all my information on the Clone Wars from him. [George Lucas]. I can pitch him ideas and say 'lets do certain things', but at the end of the say he will say 'yes' or he will say 'no', and than that is the way it's gonna go."

~ Dave Filoni, 2010

...............
"The way we've been fortunate is that George has been with us every step of the way. For 7 years I've been fortunate to work with him and basically be his student on how you specifically tell the story of Star Wars and how he edits it and how he lays it out..."

~ Dave Filoni, 2012 Transmission CVI - The Clone Wars interview.
[Lucas referred to Dave Filoni as 'his Padawan'. They were and are extremely close even to this day.]
...................
"We still talk and if I’m stuck I will bug George for ideas." Filoni went on to explain, "He is the canon. He created it and I respect that. One of my jobs and purposes is to keep things as intact to what George laid down as possible."

~ Dave Filoni, 2020
................


"I always think of the research you speak of as what I knew about the EU before I took this job. As I stated above, working directly with George changes the way you see the EU and everything in it."

~ Dave Filoni 2008
.........
"This series [Clone Wars Series] at least to George is NOT EU, it is a part of Star Wars as he sees it. I think if anything there was a period where Henry [Gilroy] and I had to learn exactly what it took to be a part of George Lucas’ Star Wars, and tell the Star Wars story his way. We had to learn how to look at the Galaxy from his point of view and let go of some of what we considered canon after we found out the ideas were only EU. Really we had to “unlearn what we had learned” and go back to the movies as the defining source material."
~ Dave Filoni 2008

.........
"When I was making Clone Wars, I always knew we were doing the 'c-bomb,' or the 'continuity bomb,' and I'd go into the office and be like: 'wait until you hear what the Mandalorians are like according to George.' And I would know a year or more in advance what that was going to do.

~ Dave Filoni
.......................
Question from Reporter at Comic con International- 'Are Sabine's teeth filed down, because in the EU men have pointy teeth and the women are filed down because they're enslaved so are her teeth filed down?'

"That's not something that exists in the canon. George and I never once talked about filed down teeth or anything like that."
~ Dave Filoni 2014

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'And what goes in the blank timeline spaces of the Film Only universe - can we never know the history or background of that Star Wars universe like we can in the EU Star Wars universe?'

"Nothing. That's why it's film only."
~ Leland Chee, 2007
.......
"I think people over emphasize the importance of the canon level. The intent of the canon levels was, as the main intent was 'if someones looking for the ships from a film, they can than use those fields to check for them only in the films, and thus separate that from what was in the EU. So we can look at it case by case. I think there is an over emphasis of what those fields mean and what they represent".
~ Leland Chee


"That 'level of canon' thus helps in terms of bookkeeping. Those 'canon levels' are for the holocron."
~ Pablo Hidalgo


ForceCast #273: The Galaxy Is Reading - Interview with Leland Chee and Pablo Hidalgo, 2013 -Starts at about the 1 hour mark so 1:00 - 1:02 mark
http://www.forcecast.net/stor/home/ForceCast_273_The_Galaxy_Is_Reading_154431.asp

[The Tiers of canon were not official policy, it was a filing system for the Holocrom, like the Dewy Decimal system. It was used for Lucas Licensing. There is no question they used deception and wording to give the impression the EU had more validity than it did. People care about canon and Lucas' views. And many people would not spend money on things that 'didn't count' and that even Lucas wouldn't even let me in the same universe as his universe.]
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"Understand, that the Holocron's primary purpose is to keep track of Star Wars continuity for Lucas Licensing , and to some degree Lucas Online. To my knowledge, it is only *rarely used for production purposes."

~ Leland Chee 2005/6
...............
"The G/C/S-level canon stuff is a construct specifically for the Holocron. Non-Holocron users would have no idea what this stuff even means. and I would say most of the people who use the Holocron don't use the field, instead looking specifically to the source of the material. Individual entries are not broken down by canon level."
~ Leland Chee 2005
..............

'What are the most common misconceptions about your job?'

"Star Wars continuity, even EU continuity, does not rest on my shoulders. Understand, that the Holocron's primary purpose is to keep track of Star Wars continuity for Lucas Licensing, and after that, if the editors or developers have any questions, they pass it along to me to check for continuity. At the same time, I am constantly on the lookout to make sure that any new continuity being created gets entered in the Holocron. With regard to the the films and The Clone Wars, I am not involved in continuity approvals though I have often been asked to provide reference material."

~ Leland Chee, 2012
.........


"As far as LucasBooks and Lucas Licensing are concerned, of course it is. Lucas Books and Lucas Licensing hold sway over the content and storylines of the Expanded Universe, and thus have every right to declare a canon of those materials.Whether this internal declaration is subscribed to by parent company LFL or Lucas himself is another matter, one which, though interesting, is outside the scope of this Holocron-oriented thread."

Leland Chee 2004
https://roqoodepot.com/interviews/leland-chee/
.............
Q - 'I've always wondered, what Star Wars games are considered canon in the EU Universe?'

"The short answer is, the stuff that fits. There has definitely been a greater effort to make newer games fit within the rest of the EU than in years past.
~ Leland Chee, Douche bag Holocron dude, 2005

https://ibb.co/b17GVns

Canon is not a word that should be used with regard to the EU. Lucas considers none of that canon, its a separate universe. He didn't care about at all other than for paying the production costs for the Prequels and development in digital LightsAndMagic. The point to note here is that they are speaking about the 'EU Universe'
...............

"The fact of the matter is that the merchandising side of Star Wars is
something that never enters my mind during pre-production or even during production. Merchandising is only a secondary thought and is important for the fact that it makes the production of the prequels financially possible."
~ George Lucas, 1997

Licensing/merchandising
(Merchandise, Like Toys, Books, Comics, Video Games, etc.).
............

"What George Saw as Canon"

"In the old days, George Lucas saw his universe as separate from publishing [EU]. He wasn't at all interested in connecting."
~ Pablo Hidalgo [Lucasfilm Story Group] 2016
http://i.imgur.com/6ZOkAau.png
..........

Pablo Hidalgo on Lucas and the EU being separate Universes.
https://i.redd.it/3fpbkocr43q01.png

"He [Lucas] only considers his movies and TV projects as his universe, and told the Clone Wars writers to only worry about those."
-Pablo Hidalgo [Lucasfilm Story Group]
.........

"Canon is only what's on the screen. - Episodes I-VI, TCW and what's to come."
Pablo Hidalgo, 2013 -
https://ibb.co/S0fYM7q
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"From Issue 77 Of Star Wars Insider [The Official Star Wars Magazine] , Using Dark Empire & The Thrawn Trilogy As Examples. - https://ibb.co/K9PMgH3

"So so episodes beyond Return of the Jedi exist? Nothing beyond possible story points and ideas, certainly not fleshed out story treatments or scripts. Fans often wonder if Dark Empire or the Thrawn Trilogy were based off those notes or are meant to be Episodes VII, VIII, IX. - That's not the case.

Those works are the creation of their respective authors with the guidance of editors at Lucas Licensing. They are not, nor ever were, meant to be George Lucas' definitive vision of what happens next"
~ Pablo Hidalgo, 2004
..........
"But Lucas allows for an Expanded Universe that exists parallel to the one he directly oversees. […] Though these [Expanded Universe] stories may get his stamp of approval, they don’t enter his canon unless they are depicted cinematically in one of his projects.”

~ Pablo Hidalgo, Star Wars: The Essential Reader’s Companion, 2012
...........

Question - "One last thing, why did [Howard]Roffman keep saying that stuff was canon even after 2008?
Pablo Hidalgo - "I don't know why he'd say that. I do think they wanted to think that George would consider their storytelling." ~ 2016
https://ibb.co/0DPDWb0
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There's no question they [Lucas Licensing, Howard Roffman was the President of it and was in charge of the EU for it's entire existence.]
Howard Roffman comes clean in this 2017 TV interview. This is from the horses mouth. There can be no confusion after seeing this. The EU was never canon and it was a seperate universe and Lucas was not interested in it or cared about other than the money. - This is checkmate.
.........................................

"That was one of my mandates, when I began the spin off publishing program it was a sacrosanct rule that everything had to relate to each other, be consistent with each other and be consistent with the movies, 'which were canon.'

We were pretty religious about doing that, our biggest problem was a guy named George Lucas, because he didn't buy into the spin off fiction and the game program and all the 'alternate universe' we were creating."

We wanted it to be one universe, we felt strongly that that's what it needed to be, but George as the filmmaker didn't want to be beholden to somebody else's creative vision.

So we would have very interesting skirmishes because we had a bunch of stuff that became, for the fans, pretty much canon [head-canon] about what happened after Return of the Jedi, what different places in the galaxy were called, lots of different things and if he was proposing to do something in the prequels that contradicted that we would have long debates which usually ended at least after the first session with "I don't care this is what I'm doing" , and maybe after the 4th or 5th session sometimes "Alright 'maybe' we can change it this way"

Now that everything is controlled by one central committee [Lucasfilm Story Group] we can have canon that applies to everything.

Messing with a Classic — Howard Roffman, Lucasfilm, 2017 interview. -
[12:40 mark]

.................

This isn't even half of it, I have tons more. This really should do it, but if anyone wants more, I have a ton. Even from EU authors themselves admitting they were all told the EU wasn't canon.
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In 2014, Disney declared the Expanded Universe was no longer canon. It became ‘Legends’. What do you think of this, seeing all of your work suddenly become non-canon?

"Those of us writing the EU were always told, all along, from the very beginning (have I stressed that strongly enough?), “Only the Movies are Canon.” Sure, it was disappointing."
~ Kathy Tyers, EU author Interview [Truce at Bakura, NJO. ect.], 2018
https://starwarsinterviews.com/various/authors/kathy-tyers-author/
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"In the canon debate , it is important to notice that LucasFilm and Lucas are different entities. The only canon source of Star Wars are the radio plays, the movie novels and the movies themselves - in Lucas' mind, nothing else exists, and no authorized LucasFilm novel will restrict his creativity in any way.""

~ Steven Sansweet, EU Author - Director of Content Management and head of Fan Relations at Lucasfilm Ltd.
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"[Steven Sansweet] was asked specifically if any of the characters like Admiral Thrawn and so on would make appearances in AoTC or the movie thereafter, and he responded quite clearly that that all the EU material is ”taking place in a separate universe”. [...] there were quite a few nasty mumbles from the audience when he (Sansweet) said what he said."

Steven Sansweet, EU Author - Director of Content Management and head of Fan Relations at Lucasfilm
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Dark Empire Introduction - Kevin J. Anderson -


"When you read Dark Empire, or any of the other novels [EU] remember that although Lucasfilm has approved them, these are our sequels, not George Lucas's."

"If Lucasfilm ever makes films that take place after Return of the Jedi, they will be George Lucas's own creations, probably with no connect to anything we have written."

But in the meantime, enjoy these graphic stories, read the novels of Timothy Zahn, Kathy Tyers, Kenneth Flynt, Dave Wolverton, and myself.[Kevin J. Anderson]"
...........

"That said, I think George has always felt that the comics were an “alternate Star Wars universe” from the films. I don’t think he ever saw the comics as canon — although he did use them as a resource for ideas and images."
~ Tom Veitch, EU Author, Dark Empire Trilogy 2016
.........
"I know that GL doens't create the storys and concepts for the SW novels, but does anyone know if he approves overall story ideas?"

"George doesn't see the overall story ideas or concepts. If there is a sensitive area, or if we are developing backstory for a character he's created or mentioned in an interview, we can query him to get more information, his approval, or whatever. And yes, we always query him if we're doing something drastic to a film character. I believe he does read the concepts for the games though."

- Sue Rostoni, Lucas Licensing (LLP Managing Editor),2004
........

As far as ”legitimate continuation of the films” -- If George had continued making SW films past Return of the Jedi, I don't think they would have reflected what the SW authors have written. The books, comics, etc., are a ”legitimate continuation” of the Star Wars saga as we [Lucas Licensing] define it."

~ Sue Rostoni, Lucas Licensing (LLP Managing Editor), 2005
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"George knows more about Star Wars than we do. He doesn't see the Expanded Universe as ”his” Star Wars, but as ”ours.” I think this has been mentioned previously, maybe in other places, but it's not new info, as far as I remember."

~ Sue Rostoni, Lucas Licensing (LLP Managing Editor),2004
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“George had bigger fish to fry. He was trying to change filmmaking with digital technology. He wasn’t going to get involved in the minutiae of the Expanded Universe. He, quite literally, had better things to do.”

Jonathan W. Rinzler is an author and editor for Lucas Licensing's book division, interviewed for SWNN’s “The Resistance Broadcast”

https://www.starwars.com/news/introducing-jonathan-rinzler
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TFN: It’s well know by now that authors and writers of other Star Wars projects are often given creative ‘boundaries.’ Assuming this is the case for the new Clone Wars series, were there any surprises to you in terms of what wasn’t off-limits?

Henry Gilroy [Head Writer TCWs/ EU Author]: George gave Dave and I a lot of freedom and he didn’t want us to be limited by what the EU had established.

TFN TCWs Interview 2008
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'And more generally speaking, did you pay attention to what have been doneregarding the Clone Wars (books, comics) in order to create the stories for this series?'

"I always tried to pay respect to the book and comics that chronicled the war, but George didn't want us to be limited in any way. Still, using characters that came from the comics, like Asajj Ventress were a blast to work with and we had a lot of fun developing them further on screen."

~ Henry Gilroy, Head Writer TCW, EU Author, 2008
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"George is the Alpha and the Omega, and is involved in the story from beginning to end. On The Clone Wars, that means from the initial story idea until the final sound mix. I knew from the moment I got the job that The Clone Wars was going to be George's show. My job was to execute his vision and I have always tried my best to do that.

"As time went on George became more involved and wrote more stories and just about every story now comes from 'The Maker Himself'.

~ Henry Gilroy, Head Writter TCWs, Star Wars Insider 103
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'Hi Ashley! Loaded question here. What would you like to say to EU fans who are quite concerned about continuity issues the show sometimes presents? I know you personally have no control over that, but might you have any words of wisdom? We love you!'

"In terms of our show have continuity issues with the EU, I would say that The Clone Wars stories are directly from George Lucas. He has been integrally involved in the show from day 1 and he chooses the stories and the outcome. I think Dave Filoni has done a brilliant job at combining some EU characters into our show."

Ashley Eckstein Interview [Voice Actress of Ahsoka Tano, Clone Wars], 2013
https://roqoodepot.com/2013/02/28/ashley-eckstein-live-chat-transcript/
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Full article about Lucas' direct involvement in TCW series 2008, From Star Wars Insider 103
https://ibb.co/JRzWBQN
https://ibb.co/w7DG9v2
https://ibb.co/2MhRXh3
https://ibb.co/zJBhGxK
https://ibb.co/F5JrX8J

 

Thank you for that expansive listing, @GrimOnTheDarkside. Makes their position crystal clear when they haven't changed their position in two decades.

I was always hesitant to include TCW with the undisputed status of the six saga films, but I suppose it carries the same weight. I've had a hard time with the various inconsistencies with the movies, though I guess the movies have their own continuity issues between entries and it doesn't hurt the overall experience.

 

Imo Lucas canon never existed Lucas just made the products and that is it for me only the original 6 movies are canon