Lit Wookieepedia, the Star Wars wiki

It's actually like that for me too.

 

It's like that for everyone. You simply need to type in a title for your thread to the left of the button before you can click create.

 

Oh, it looks like I'm unable to click on the button as well. I'm investigating it now.

EDIT: Nevermind

 

Solution: make the empty title field more obvious.

 

If Wookieepedia has to to include FFG information in the Legends and Canon articles, there should just be a disclaimer above the information, the same way they handle unlicensed sources.

With conflicting sources like The Bad Batch, I'd really prefer if they included both accounts, all the while stating which source each account comes from. I don't think Wookieepedia should try and enforce a "C-Canon", "G-Canon" type heirarchy where there really doesn't have to be one.

 

I like the Star Wars explained method of as long as the broad strokes line up

 

There are two issues. The first is that they flat-out said at the time of the Legends announcement that "all aspects of Star Wars storytelling moving forward will be connected." Since then, several VIPs have waffled in unvetted Tweets on that point, but at no point has something been said from an official outlet rescinding or modifying that claim. From a strict literalist standpoint, FFG material is every bit as canon as the Sequel Trilogy. Now, we all know better than that, but Wookieepedia can't, and shouldn't, be trying to define canon differently in the absence of direction from official sources.

But the bigger issue is, the nature of canon itself has changed. In the Legends era, there was a sense of Watsonian verisimilitude, that the Star Wars galaxy was a place where facts could be known and contradictions of fact could, and likely would, be reconciled. In the post-Legends era, canon is a lot fuzzier. It's probably no likelier now that a source will contradict a past source than before; the Kanan scenario isn't probably any worse than any number of EU contradictions that cropped up. But in the EU era, there was a sense that an author, or even someone like Leland, would look for plausible ways to make both of those stories true as much as possible, include that tidbit in a subsequent source, and even, where applicable, use it as a launching point for further storytelling. If the contradiction couldn't be reconciled, we at least had the sense that the creative forces were at least trying. I get no sense of that in the new canon. The ambiguity of Kanan's situation isn't meant to be reconciled, because the mode of storytelling has changed to one where keeping the details aligned is less important than it was before.

Which is not a storytelling mode that is inherently bad. It's just bad for people like me, who relate to Star Wars and other media franchises more as ways to explore a coherent world than as fans of story; and for projects like Wookieepedia, for obvious reasons.

I think even this is more structured than the new canon actually is; it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, canony-wanony stuff. But the idea that the materials you've described here as "the outer sphere" are getting much shorter shrift in the new canon than the old is true. These used to be the sources where, in addition to a lot of the connective tissue integrating the old EU were created, a lot of those contradiction reconciliation retcons were implemented. In the current paradigm, however, they're being minimized, in terms of number created, depth of detail included, and reliability with respect to the "truth" of the setting depicted.

 

How does Wookieepedia know that the Lego stuff isn't canon? Or Adam Driver's appearances as Kylo on SNL?

Or this picture?


There's no "direction from official sources" saying they're not canon. For that matter, there's no official statement that, say, Beowulf isn't canon. It's just obvious. Why does FFG suddenly remove everyone's ability to think?

 

That's clearly from the Lost Stars manga.

 

I'm sure this has been discussed countless times, but why doesn't anyone from the Story Group clarify such canon issues? Isn't that part of their job?

 

I gather from this that it is ultimately the "strict literalist" mindset that should change, then. Place accuracy of the content above a one-size-fits-all policy, and react to how things actually are, and not what was said in that press release (which I don't think ever actually meant what most fans take it to mean, but my opinion on that is neither here nor there). Wookieepedia shouldn't define canon, but it also shouldn't be at odds with it.

You're describing the change from the "magic window" paradigm to the "based on a true story" paradigm that I alluded to earlier. That can't possibly be that difficult to work with, especially given some of what went on the Legends continuity. Describe both versions of a given event and note where they differ... that's all it really needs to do, right? Perhaps in the canon paradigm it's not Wookieepedia's place as an encyclopedia to "reconcile" these things.

Their job is to align the storytelling within Lucasfilm. That may involve "clarifying canon issues" but that does not necessarily imply communication to the fans outside of the stories themselves. (The real issue is that Lucasfilm itself considers "canon" a different sort of thing than what the fans consider it to be. We look at canon as a puzzle where each story is a piece that fits perfectly into a clear and coherent whole, with the consistency of the whole ultimately being more important than the individual pieces themselves. Lucasfilm clearly has a distinctly different vision. As I've suggested before, it behooves us as fans to adjust our expectations about that sort of thing, because the truth is "contradictions" will keep happening whether we want them to or not.)

 

It's from From A Certain Point of View.

 

I would say that from a strict literalist standpoint, "connected" and "consistent" are different words with different meanings. We certainly all came away from that release expecting more consistency, and I'd go so far as to say they intended as much, but they were also fully aware that things like Lego and SWTOR and FFG were going to still exist at the margins. I think the point that quote is getting at was more that the various forms of storytelling would spring from the same core creative operation (the coordination of which is Story Group's actual job), and support each other in a way they didn't when Lucas was running things and didn't ultimately care what the books said.

Which isn't to say you need to have the same interpretation as me, I'd just push back a bit on what's "literalist" here and what isn't.

 

While I do agree that how things actually are doesn't accurately reflect what was said in the press release, what was said in that press release absolutely did mean what fans took it to mean:

~~~~~

"Going forward, Lucasfilm has begun mapping out the narrative future of Star Wars storytelling that will appear on film and television and in other media so that all projects will benefit from real-time collaboration and alignment. The future Star Wars novels from Disney Publishing Worldwide and Del Rey Books will now be part of the official Star Wars canon as reflected on upcoming TV and movie screens."

“We’re extremely proud of the hundreds of amazing Star Wars books we’ve published at Del Rey,” said Scott Shannon, SVP, publisher, Del Rey and Digital Content, “And now we’re excited to finally be able to call our upcoming novels true canon — a single, cohesive Star Wars storyline."

~~~~~

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. Like you said, though, the trick is not to care so much about it.

I agree that FFG shouldn't be treated as canon, but this... this isn't the reason why. Wookieepedia covers officially licensed SW releases, and we all know that. You could argue that officially-released material that bases its world-building on Canon but includes some Legends content is ambiguous enough for Wookieepedia to err on the side of caution, but you couldn't argue that for an SNL sketch --- the two aren't analogous at all.

 

That costume though was made Canon in Resistance ;p

 

It’s canon to me

 

The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special is officially licensed material. Its page on Wookieepedia even has a thing at the top that says (emphasis mine) "This article covers a subject containing comic or obvious non-canon material or that Lucasfilm otherwise declared non-canon in the canon continuity." Matt Martin didn't post on Twitter that The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special isn't canon; it was merely inferred. One could argue that it would be easy to assume that a less ridiculous version of the events depicted in TLSWHS really did occur - that Rey post TROS started training Finn as a Jedi, the whole gang went to Kashyyyk to celebrate Life Day, and Rey had some weird force visions about things from other times. No one erred on the side of caution by trying to incorporate these events into canon pages. Meanwhile we have multiple Legends characters with canon pages whose only "canon" source is something like Nexus of Power.

 

True..Because i do consider The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special the most canon of the lego specials.

 

The Lego comparison makes sense, unlike the comparison with an SNL sketch or a random webcomic, but I'd still argue that it isn't a one-to-one analogy. Something based around a humorous take on the SW universe where Lego people and Lego ships can break apart and then reattach themselves isn't the same as something that's presented in earnest. I mean I do agree that the Wook shouldn't err on the side of caution here (seriously, what is this), but FFG wouldn't require a less literal interpretation to fit into canon the way Lego SW would, so I do understand where jSarek is coming from.

 

This reminds me of how Lena Freemaker is canon but not her name.

 

Can you even have canon or a wiki then, in that case? The whole point of canon is to say what happened. Either Kanan did this, or he did not do it. But if everything is all nebulous and vague, then what's the point? How does it even work?

 

I mean, I'm kinda of the mindset that everything is canon in some shape or form, but reading though this discussion I get the distinct impression that that's an unpopular idea. XD

 

I'm far from the first to note this but even real history often doesn't work that way.

 

That's because we don't have a perfect God's eye view of real-life history. But for a fictional universe, we should, shouldn't we?

 

I relate to this on a spiritual level.