Lit When Canon is not Canon Anymore... is it Legends?

what makes you think Filoni decided to change Grievous backstory. It was George Lucas who came up with Grievous canon backstory and told Filoni that’s what they were going to use

 

In other words, continuity should take precedence over artistic license? Hmm. Be careful what you wish for on that one.

On a philosophical point, I think the idea that it wouldn't have required a "forceful change to the stories" to make them "align" does argue a bit against the idea that these are major enough problems with the continuity that all the handwringing, accusations, etc. is justified. Folks in this thread are acting as if Filoni has steamrolled the books and comics, along with the alleged promise of perfect unblemished continuity, into oblivion. Has he?

So The Mandalorian picking up the story of Cobb Vanth and Freetown from Aftermath, Black Krrsantan appearing in BOBF, Operation Cinder forming a major element of a character backstory in Mandalorian, does all that just... not count? I think the actual amount of real cohesion going on is woefully understated in favor of those "notorious cases." I've touted Numidian Prime's excellent "Star Wars Connections" Twitter feed before, and recommend it to anyone interested in examining the degree to which the current canon is actually pretty cohesive across mediums (not to mention noticeably respectful of Legends lore).

 

What? Grievous' backstory was Lucas' idea from start to finish.

TFN: So what is the deal with General Grievous’ origin? There’s the first version with the shuttle crash where Dooku upgraded him and there’s the new one with him choosing to upgrade himself. Why the different versions?

Henry Gilroy: George envisioned something different than what was created for the EU and Dave and I jumped at the chance to explore that. In my mind, the EU origin created a character that was twisted and bitter and very tragic, but not very fun. The great thing about Vader in A New Hope is, as soon as you see him onscreen, you want to boo him. He’s so over the top evil. Same with the Emperor. They are pure evil and they are fun — bad guys you love to hate! Well, until we know who Vader is. Anyway, knowing that poor old Grievous has this background as a noble warrior who was fighting for his people, then was sadly tricked my Dooku reduced him to a straight up pawn, who was played by the seppies, because he really wasn’t the master of his own destiny, he was more a product of Dooku’s evil machinations than his own pride and villainy. It was more in Grievous’ character (as created by George Lucas) to choose to upgrade himself, because he chose to sacrifice his ‘humanity’ for the power to become the greatest killer in the galaxy. He wasn’t able to do it via The Force, so he chose to make himself into a mechanical monster that dominated the most powerful beings in the galaxy, the Force users, the Jedi. Grievous is not a tragic character, he’s a cold blooded mass murderer, a classic old school villain (and different from Vader) in that he doesn’t have any redeeming characteristics. What kind of a vain egomaniac has statues of himself in his house? Maybe one who is trying to convince himself he did the right thing.

Dave Filoni: I tried to talk about this in the commentary I do online. Henry and I knew this would be a big one for EU fans. I tend to think of the Episode “Lair of Grievous” as a look more into the mind of Grievous. How you interpret the story depends largely on what backstory you like. If you believe Grievous was shot down in a shuttle by Dooku and put back together, I think that story is there, it’s just that Grievous has invented this new “story” of choosing his alterations. If you don’t believe in the EU version of the story or didn’t like it, then perhaps this new revelation that Grievous was a warrior whose lust for power made him choose to be altered, suits you better. Again a great many of the truths we cling to depend largely on our own point of view. Grievous was a great warrior in both stories, he was a Kaleesh in both stories, the major differences depend on what you believe about his past. In the end I have to say this, many die hard EU fans pick and choose the stories they think are canon based on what they like and what they don’t like. They read a novel they like it and it’s ‘in’, they don’t like it, and it’s ‘out.’ Well, we get our like and dislike in the EU directly from George and he created Star Wars, I have to say that’s a pretty big trump card. Regardless, much effort goes into trying to word things or shoot things so that the existing EU can remain, if only at times from a certain point of view.


https://www.starwars.com/video/takeuchi-master-of-design

 

Right, if anything Filoni tried too hard to reconcile the EU with The Clone Wars instead of committing to Lucas ideas

 

@The Positive Fan

Continuity vs artistic license? Why set the two as adversarial? That assumes they have to oppose and I'm sceptical of that.

As to nature of the conflicts, I think the problem is the ease of fixing makes the divergence and conflict look more deliberate, which irritatea more. Of course, if you want to go the full conspiracy route on the other side, you assume they want the controversy, as more chatter of any kind is good. I don't think they are going with the Twitter model.

I quite like your list reminders of the links they have made as it shows they can do it when they want to. I just wish it was more consistent.

OK, you can return to your conflgration dumpster fire business as usual canon thread now

 

But... isn't that the premise of the argument? The entire issue revolves around Filoni reinterpreting events that were already the subject of previous stories through his own lens as an artist and creator, rather than simply recreating what had come before in a different medium for the sake of placating fans who place the continuity above the art. What would have been the point of the latter? Continuity and artistic license don't have to be in opposition, but when they are, artistic license should win every time. And not to beat my own increasingly idiosyncratic drum once again, but one of the fun things about the current paradigm is we can have it both ways!

 

This is what I think is being missed on the artistic angle - is it compromising Filoni's artistic vision for him to respect the preceding artistic visions? Does Wiseman's work on the Kanan comic not deserve recognition from Filoni instead of being dismissed? It also had spectacular art from Larraz who has since gone on to be one of Marvel's best artists.

I think this is why the notorious cases endure in the popular perception, why every now and again Zahn and Veitch and the willingness of one to work with on and the refusal of the other to do so over Dark Empire. And Dark Empire really is a long, long time ago now!

Another infamous example is Zahn slagging off a number of other preceding stories in the Hand of Thrawn series. Did his vision really need those specifc bits? I think not.

In the case of the Bad Batch opener it's a shame that a few minutes manages to eclipse entirely ten times as much other material in the episode that works fine.

 

In the bts video for that episode Filoni says that Grievous's backstory from the EU didn't make sense to him so he went to George to ask if they could change it, and that's when George gave them the idea to have Grievous upgrading himself.

Yeah that's the one.

 

The video is right here. They didn't go to George to ask "if they could change it", they asked George what did he think about General Grievous, because that's what the EU thought of him. If Lucas was OK with it, they would have used that backstory. But Lucas was not OK with it.
Whereas you said:

 

Here's the full quote:

"In the EU there are a lot of stories about Grievous. He was an incredible general that got shot down by Dooku in a shuttle and then re-engineered by Dooku to fight as a general. And we talked about that stuff. It was in a Visionaries comic book that wasn't canon, it's just a possibility. The question is, why would a great general allow himself to be sabotaged, rebuilt as a robot, and then just become subservient to someone like Dooku? So we called George up and he came over and we said, 'What do you think about Grievous? What's his backstory? Because this is what we heard.' George had a lot of ideas about where he thought Grievous came from and what he thought Grievous was about. One of the things that George has mentioned is that he had really wanted to be a Jedi. [Gilroy: But he wasn't Force-sensitive, he wasn't able to use the Force. He knew he could never be a Sith Lord.] And his rejection of Jedi status drove him to have modifications done to his body. But we still elected to keep it kind of ambiguous. Some of the best stuff is because we don't take that mask off and show you what's under there."

I can see a clear line of implication from Filoni incorrectly describing the EU version, to talking about how it doesn't make sense, to going to George and questioning it, to using a different version in the show. Maybe that's not your read, but the point is that Filoni wasn't out there trying to stick to continuity and being continually overruled by George, he was actively looking for excuses to change stuff he didn't like.

 

So, you are just speculating? Gotcha.

Source: dude, trust me. You know, if he didn't like it, he would not have even bothered making it ambiguous to please the EU fans (yet again, apparently a mistake).

Also, since Lucas was in complete control of the show, since he gave the story outlines for the episodes, since he read the scripts and corrected them, since he watched the pre-visualized episodes before they went into post-production - he would have changed the EU backstory regardless, because what Lucas developed for General Grievous as depicted in Revenge of the Sith was completely different from what was done in the EU. And since it was his idea, and not Filoni's like you said in the first place that he liked better, I really don't know what you are trying to prove here.

 

Continuity is a nicely abstract, impersonal term. But the problem is that "continuity" = stories crafted by multiple people. It's very far from an abstract thing.

Legends had an override structure built in - Lucas. He owned it so got to say what counted or didn't. Now? Far from clear. When it all syncs up? Not needed. When it doesn't? Ah.....

At the same time there's more awareness around work-for-hire creators, especially in comics. This complicates the picture for SW but is also an opportunity. One that it has taken up on projects like High Republic. They started that off with a well known SW author in Soule and brought in others. Couple of years on and Ireland is doing a Sana series. There's an awareness there that people do follow particular creators which is good to see.

 

I think the question of whether Wiseman's work was "dismissed" can be argued. In both cases the story takes place on snowy Kaller and depicts the death of Depa Billaba and Caleb's escape from the clones who were trying to hunt him down and kill him. Even one of the clones from the comic, Grey, carries over into the animated episode. The broad strokes remain the same in both tellings - only certain details change. Filoni could have thrown all of that to the wind if he'd really not given a fig about what was established before.

And for what it's worth, let's note that Weisman didn't craft that original story in a vacuum - a certain hat-wearing executive producer was very much involved:

"When Dave, Simon, the story group, and the writers and I were writing season one of "Rebels" many months ago, we basically mapped out backstories of our six leads. All of the steps, including "A New Dawn" and "Last Padawan" were sort of laid out back then."

The same could and probably should be noted of Ahsoka - E.K. Johnston herself has been pretty open about Filoni's involvement in the story from the very beginning. If it must be said that Filoni is indeed ignoring and overwriting established canon, let's at least acknowledge that he tends to limit the carnage to canon he himself had a role in creating.

 

Which gets us back to the question how warranted it was, but we've kind of covered that.

 

Well clearly they forgot San Hill's role in the entire original story, which is why Lucas said it didn't make sense. I'd tell Filoni the same thing.

 

Well if we look at this historically, NEU is in that first phase were there isn't too much stuff, only 9 years worth, and there's still a lot of room to breath. Less than 500 years have been used, not a single millennium jump afaik. There also isn't any restrictions on the Clone Wars or the deaths of the Big Three because - oh wow we finally did it! Now given modern technology and all the experience from Legends, I'd say this period will last a little longer than the first time. I also don't anticipate a second "Dark Times". The wheel isn't stopping this time around - unless XYZ happens that I can't predict. There is still a lot of inter-film space, plus Post-9, Post-ROTJ and Pre-TPM. But eventually it will get crowded. I think before it's "massively contradicted" it'll just get too dense. Impenetrable for the newcomer. Which is a thing they are trying to stop this time around. Not many big gamechangers in NEU. The next one will be in the new movies and TV shows - of which I think you'll get another trilogy or Avengers-esque thing that will transition the NEU into the second era. The real danger is not getting "contradicted" but being forgotten and ignored. I estimate NEU will last for a further 50 years before a clean slate is given. I am just a throwing a number out there, it could be 5-10 years if they want to match generations. Whenever that point is, then yes, Canon will become Legends.

 

If they ever do OT or PT reboots, much less expand on the ST era in any way, the NEU will be rebooted.

That could be five years from now or twenty. But I suspect SW will go through at least two to four “EUs” before the IP finally fades away.

 

Nah, there's been no strawmanning on my part. You've claimed (or at least heavily implied) on a few occasions that something like "interconnected storytelling" or "creatively aligned" was the most explicit thing they said in 2014, but they out and out said that all future novels would be "true canon." That's language that anyone will have a hard time saying was misinterpreted by fans. You contend that fans saw what they wanted to see; I contend that they saw exactly what LFL wanted them to see. That's just a disagreement, not a strawman.

I'll paste something I said in 2021: "If there's a problem it isn't that fans misread it but rather that it was said in the first place. It was the right thing to say from a marketing standpoint --- why would fans get invested in a lesser-canon expanded universe when lesser-canon expanded universes can obviously be wiped out --- and hey, maybe some genuinely earnest attempts were made to keep that promise for the first few years, but it was a promise that was always doomed to start showing cracks. I agree that those cracks don't matter as much as some people believe they do, and I also agree that the individual pieces of storytelling are more important than the whole, but LFL can't very well say that outright. If they want to sell a cohesive canon, a bit of lying through their teeth via marketing-speak is necessary."

Back to 2023: "It's all one canon" is the front they have to present in order for people to feel like the new Expanded Universe matters more than it actually does. The longer it goes on, more cracks will show, and more mental gymnastics will be required to justify those cracks with claims about alignment, cohesion, the same events told differently across different mediums, etc, etc. What if Filoni wants to use a character who died in a novel, or kill a character whom a novel said was still alive later in the timeline? Is anyone really going to tell him no, or will said novel just end up struck into a weird limbo like Jedi Twilight was when Even Piell died on-screen? Is LFL's memory as long as fans hope it is, or are books from 2014 and 2015 soon going to feel like ancient history?

I'm not obsessive over extremely-tight continuity, and honestly I'm not invested enough in the new canon to care if a story I read or watch aligns with anything else. But tons of people are, and I won't blame them if they some day end up feeling like a promise was broken.

 

This might be a little uncharitable or callous, but I have to say-it seems extremely naive to think LF and Disney were going to keep any such "promise" for any sustained length of time. Especially as more films and TV shows were released.

How could anyone knowing this actually expect they would judiciously make sure the Mandalorian and some random 2015 comic lined up, or that Andor didn't contradict a novel somewhere? Disney and Lucasfilm are companies first and foremost-they will always go with the larger audience over niche ones, if that means niche audiences are ignored than that's a price they are more than willing to pay.

Its just shocking to me that some folks don't understand that.

 

How about this: instead of either of us claiming or implying anything about what was said or meant, how about we examine what LFL actually told fans to expect. Quoting their April 2014 press releases:

That last one seems to be carrying a lot of water as to your claim that LFL is reneging on promises made, so let's explore that one a little more. Did Ahsoka stop being "true canon" when Filoni retold some of its events in animation? Is the overall Star Wars storyline no longer "cohesive" because we have two differing versions of events on Kaller and Raada? Taken in context with LFL's other statements, what were they actually promising, and what should fans have been expecting?

Having said all that, it's entirely secondary to my actual argument, which is (and has been from the start) that it's instructive - and promotes our enjoyment of the material as fans - to look at how LFL approaches the question of canon in practice and align our expectations to that, rather than shake impotent fists at the sky over not getting what we were allegedly "promised."

 

LFL defined what they mean by “true canon” in the same press release.

Canon is “the immovable objects of Star Wars history.” Previously, that was only the films and TCW, and the EU didn’t enjoy that privilege. But now, everything will be an “immovable object” on the same level that only the movies used to be.

 

So the character of Grievous was George Lucas's idea to begin with, right? If he had his own idea for the character's backstory, why didn't he write that down and have it set in stone, so we wouldn't need some ugly retcon later on?

How about Asajj Ventress? She's not a George Lucas creation, so I'm surprised he bothered to rewrite her story.

 

Because Grievous backstory wasn’t part of RotS. But of course when it’s referenced in his TV show it’s an opportunity to share his ideas, why would he let what EU authors invented change his imagination.

Asajj Ventress was originally a design for Attack of the Clones, I don’t know whether the name comes from the Republic comics or the Genndy Clone Wars shorts. But her story in those comics is where the EU version splits from George Lucas conception of her.
Her portrayal in The Clone Wars is different because it’s George’s imagination of what she should be after looking at her in the short series

 

Ventress' design, as "Juno Eclipse," was created for Episode II to fill the role that ended up being Dooku. Hayden Blackman took that design and developed Ventress' character from it for the Clone Wars comics and show.

 

Well Star Wars Visions is not "Legends" Star Wars Visions is not Canon to the New Canon/Disney Universe so everything that is not Canon to the Disney Universe is not "Legends"

Legends is just the New Name for the Old Expanded Universe the reprint of the Old EU Novels or Comics are called The Legends Collection or The Legends Omnibus and the Covers have the Yellow Legends Logo but if someday Disney wants to call "Legends" everything that is not Canon to the New Canon/Disney Universe i will just call the Pre 2015 Universe as The Expanded Universe like before