I grew up with the idea that cannon was about figuring out what Lucas intended for the stories he did not tell. Reading between the lines of what he wrote himself and what he would approve. But then something happened. He sold to Disney, and with an announcement Disney dictated what would be cannon.

The worst part is how official they made it to be. Trying to control the creative license they intended to take as they veared from source material and intents of Lucas. Lucas was a terrible director, but the lore and world was his (inspired from Asimov's foundation series).

Star Wars is being turned into a platform to produce films with agenda by a company monopolizing nostalgia.

Disney will not stop until sw is remolded to support their agenda and all remnants of Lucas era productions and licenses are removed and replaced.

Sw has come a long way from the days of trying to glean the intent of a story teller and had turned into something monstrous. I came back to swtor for a need to get in touch with the past. It's not perfect , but damn good for what's available right now for sw content. Mostly because it does have the freedom to create lore and stories in the star wars Universe in a time period that does not interfere with the original films.

Meanwhile, Disney makes films all around the time period of the original films in order to reshape it and claim it's ownership of the story. To declare that cannon is what it says it is rather than a term fans used to describe content that originated from Lucas's intent and how much license approved writers took.

IMHO Cannon is only what you as an individual make it. - So if you like one film and not another, you can gloss over the dud one, similarly if you like a book or RPG or video game, you can include that in your own personal SW saga, and leave out anything you don't like.

Disney does not have the monopoly on SW cannon. It can dictate all it likes but if In my head I'm the secret lovechild of Satele Shan and Greedo, conceived in a 3-legged AT-AT then so be it.

Some time ago Wookieepedia split cannon and non cannon. Now you can see what is 'official' and what is not. - But in most cases the non cannon makes better reading and has a far, far bigger spread, tho' occasionally, some of it is actually complete bobbins.

Why do we care about George Lucas's cannon and who bought it? I mean, who even know that Lucas had a cannon? Was it functional?

Or did you mean canon? As in a source that is established as official. What's in your head isn't canon, and it never will be. Disney owns the rights. They do get to decide what is canon. Just like an author of a book series can kill off a beloved character. No matter how you headcanon it the character is canonically dead. Canon is established as an official source and what's in your head, or in fan fiction, or your wishful thinking will never be canon.

Why do we care about George Lucas's cannon and who bought it? I mean, who even know that Lucas had a cannon? Was it functional?

 

Or did you mean canon? As in a source that is established as official. What's in your head isn't canon, and it never will be. Disney owns the rights. They do get to decide what is canon. Just like an author of a book series can kill off a beloved character. No matter how you headcanon it the character is canonically dead. Canon is established as an official source and what's in your head, or in fan fiction, or your wishful thinking will never be canon.

Keep drinking the mouse Kool aid. This doesn't even happen in comic books. There is no set Canon for a character, simply different runs of a story and those considered iconic for those character. Canon was built as a function of creative outsourcing as stories drifted from a creator. These new movies are not iconic so far as they took a popular franchise and steered it into a different direction just like many different comic book runs did in the past with only a few stand out stories that set character methos.

Keep drinking the mouse Kool aid. This doesn't even happen in comic books. There is no set Canon for a character, simply different runs of a story and those considered iconic for those character. Canon was built as a function of creative outsourcing as stories drifted from a creator. These new movies are not iconic so far as they took a popular franchise and steered it into a different direction just like many different comic book runs did in the past with only a few stand out stories that set character methos.

No, canon is a defined word that you don't get to redefine just because you don't like what Disney is doing with the IP that they own.

No, canon is a defined word that you don't get to redefine just because you don't like what Disney is doing with the IP that they own.

Sorry kid but growing up on star wars and how Canon was used as a term is different from how Disney uses it to justify their awful story direction. They want you to take it or leave it, that their version of sw will be the only one. If you believe that you are drinking Kool aid that's not how Canon works.

Sorry kid but growing up on star wars and how Canon was used as a term is different from how Disney uses it to justify their awful story direction. They want you to take it or leave it, that their version of sw will be the only one. If you believe that you are drinking Kool aid that's not how Canon works.

Disney canon is still better then 90% of the EU as is very well exemplified in another thread on these very boards (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=940958). Also, odds are you are no older then the person you are calling "kid" as if it were impossible for someone who grew up with star wars to like the new movies. Well let me tell you right here and now... You're wrong. I grew up with SW. I had the movie on VHS as a kid and could mute the movie and recite the lines that's how much I loved them. I had the novelization of the movies which I read... But most of the EU I never acquired a taste for aside from the Thrawn books. Most of the post ep.6 EU for me was either poorly written and/or filled with ridiculousness. Sure, id like the old republic era to be canon, the KOTOR games and even SWTOR... but most of the post ep. 6 stuff I'm not sorry to see go at all. Trying to make an argument based of a presumed position of authority does nothing to strengthen your argument. In fact all you manage to do is seem bitter.

Sorry kid but growing up on star wars and how Canon was used as a term is different from how Disney uses it to justify their awful story direction. They want you to take it or leave it, that their version of sw will be the only one. If you believe that you are drinking Kool aid that's not how Canon works.

Um, yeah, that's not how canon works. What you're describing is headcanon. The story can exist in any way you want in your head, but no source material is ever going to draw from it.

Disney canon is still better then 90% of the EU as is very well exemplified in another thread on these very boards (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=940958). Also, odds are you are no older then the person you are calling "kid" as if it were impossible for someone who grew up with star wars to like the new movies. Well let me tell you right here and now... You're wrong. I grew up with SW. I had the movie on VHS as a kid and could mute the movie and recite the lines that's how much I loved them. I had the novelization of the movies which I read... But most of the EU I never acquired a taste for aside from the Thrawn books. Most of the post ep.6 EU for me was either poorly written and/or filled with ridiculousness. Sure, id like the old republic era to be canon, the KOTOR games and even SWTOR... but most of the post ep. 6 stuff I'm not sorry to see go at all. Trying to make an argument based of a presumed position of authority does nothing to strengthen your argument. In fact all you manage to do is seem bitter.

Disney canon is not better than the EU by a long shot.

Um, yeah, that's not how canon works. What you're describing is headcanon. The story can exist in any way you want in your head, but no source material is ever going to draw from it.

No there was a set plot points that lucas handled and even hired a group to help oversee. Things were even classified by fans as most appropriate to the vision of lucas and labeled things closest to his as official and superseding that of others that created content in Star Wars.

just because someone else bought the rights doesnt change the vision of what Lucas made star wars to be.

http://deadline.com/2015/01/george-lucas-star-wars-ideas-not-used-disney-1201354673/

Also even when Actors like Mark H signed on for new trilogy it was when LUCAS owned the rights still. It was only after original cast was under contract that Disney bought the rights and changed what the story would be.

Disney canon is not better than the EU by a long shot.

just cause you say so doesnt make it true... quite simply... you are wrong. See, normally me saying that wouldnt make it true (cause neither of us can say definitively one way or another... we can only speak for ourselves and not in universal truths) but since i applied your logic (or lack thereof) then it means it is so.

just cause you say so doesnt make it true... quite simply... you are wrong. See, normally me saying that wouldnt make it true (cause neither of us can say definitively one way or another... we can only speak for ourselves and not in universal truths) but since i applied your logic (or lack thereof) then it means it is so.

The EU and what George Lucas and his teams built is why Disney bought it for 4 Billion dollars.

The EU and what George Lucas and his teams built is why Disney bought it for 4 Billion dollars.

That was for all the rights, and the EU contributed very little to that. The cinematic universe is where the money is. And how much have they made with the 3 movies out so far? Oh right, they have recouped the investment and are already in the green with some hundreds of millions in profit... So even from a financial standpoint they are doing quite well with the franchise...

ok so i'm a little confused here.

1. What is Disney's "Agenda"

2. Are you claiming George didn't sell out? Because he gave the liscene away to anyone that was willing to pay for it to make a story game or what ever.

3. you know that George made the EU non canon when he still owned it. He originally said only the movies were canon but fans raged so he came up with the Canon Level system where you had G canon which was the movies, T canon which was TV series, and E canon that was everything int he EU then of course N canon.

But the rule was anything that contradicted the higher level of canon was made Non Canon. So 90% of the EU stuff like Thrawn and so fourth was non canon because it contradicted the Prequels and such.

I grew up with the idea that cannon was about figuring out what Lucas intended for the stories he did not tell. Reading between the lines of what he wrote himself and what he would approve.

Star Wars is, hands down, my favorite fictional universe, I absolutely love the stories, characters, and worlds that have flowed out of Lucas's work over the years and decades.

But Star Wars is not -- and never has been -- some grand, coherent vision the way, for example, Lord of the Rings was. Lucas originally wanted to do an updated remake of the Flash Gordon serials from the 1930s, but he couldn't get the rights. So, instead, he set out to make a movie that was like those sci-fi serials, but needed to put together his own original sci-fi setting for it. What he came up with was a phenomenal (and phenomenally successful) movie. From there, he had a handful of plot points and scenes in mind from earlier drafts that didn't fit in the run-time of that original movie, and then he just started making the rest up as he went along.

Lucas didn't stick "Episode IV" onto the re-release of Star Wars because he had a meticulous plan for three prequels, he did it because it added to the Flash Gordon-esque serial feel he was originally going for. He didn't envision a trilogy with an overarching story of a son redeeming his father and finding his sister, because he didn't even decide to make Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker be the same guy until after ANH had already been released. The "Clone Wars" was a cool sci-fi sounding name to fill out a line of dialogue with when he wrote it, not a key part of some elaborate backstory. Leia being Luke's sister wasn't something he had planned out from the beginning, it was a way to wrap up the love triangle without leaving one of the fan-favorite characters brokenhearted once he decided not to kill anyone off (and all the actors signed on for the third movie).

My point is, what Lucas "intended" was never a set vision, it changed -- sometimes based simply on merchandising. Midichlorians, sticking rockets onto R2-D2, clone Boba Fett, all of that is pure undiluted Lucas, too, because he was just playing it by ear as he went. Star Wars is a fantastic universe that sprang from Lucas's original work, but any talk of what is or is not true to Lucas's intent or vision. . . there was no overarching vision or intent to be true to, just what the guy liked or didn't like at any given point in time.

ok so i'm a little confused here.

 

 

1. What is Disney's "Agenda"

 

To maker money by pushing out scripts that would be forgettable if it didn't have the Star Wars mark on it and sell toys and tickets to fans that will go no matter the content. While pushing against patriarchy and jedi code and undermining the balance between light and dark by not going to a middle ground but by eliminating both.

 

2. Are you claiming George didn't sell out? Because he gave the liscene away to anyone that was willing to pay for it to make a story game or what ever.

 

George Lucas hoped disney would resurrect the cinematic universe because no would want to produce another movie with GL at the head. Even dispite the critical acclaim of Clone Wars which he produced.

 

3. you know that George made the EU non canon when he still owned it. He originally said only the movies were canon but fans raged so he came up with the Canon Level system where you had G canon which was the movies, T canon which was TV series, and E canon that was everything int he EU then of course N canon.

 

Elements of canon were in the EU and that was clarified by Lucas and a staff he had hired to oversee the EU. This creative control method is why we used the term Canon with star wars.

 

But the rule was anything that contradicted the higher level of canon was made Non Canon. So 90% of the EU stuff like Thrawn and so fourth was non canon because it contradicted the Prequels and such.

This statement lets me know you have no idea how canon was discussed pre disney and how Lucas was used as the benchmark.

Star Wars is, hands down, my favorite fictional universe, I absolutely love the stories, characters, and worlds that have flowed out of Lucas's work over the years and decades.

 

But Star Wars is not -- and never has been -- some grand, coherent vision the way, for example, Lord of the Rings was. Lucas originally wanted to do an updated remake of the Flash Gordon serials from the 1930s, but he couldn't get the rights. So, instead, he set out to make a movie that was like those sci-fi serials, but needed to put together his own original sci-fi setting for it. What he came up with was a phenomenal (and phenomenally successful) movie. From there, he had a handful of plot points and scenes in mind from earlier drafts that didn't fit in the run-time of that original movie, and then he just started making the rest up as he went along.

 

Lucas didn't stick "Episode IV" onto the re-release of Star Wars because he had a meticulous plan for three prequels, he did it because it added to the Flash Gordon-esque serial feel he was originally going for. He didn't envision a trilogy with an overarching story of a son redeeming his father and finding his sister, because he didn't even decide to make Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker be the same guy until after ANH had already been released. The "Clone Wars" was a cool sci-fi sounding name to fill out a line of dialogue with when he wrote it, not a key part of some elaborate backstory. Leia being Luke's sister wasn't something he had planned out from the beginning, it was a way to wrap up the love triangle without leaving one of the fan-favorite characters brokenhearted once he decided not to kill anyone off (and all the actors signed on for the third movie).

 

My point is, what Lucas "intended" was never a set vision, it changed -- sometimes based simply on merchandising. Midichlorians, sticking rockets onto R2-D2, clone Boba Fett, all of that is pure undiluted Lucas, too, because he was just playing it by ear as he went. Star Wars is a fantastic universe that sprang from Lucas's original work, but any talk of what is or is not true to Lucas's intent or vision. . . there was no overarching vision or intent to be true to, just what the guy liked or didn't like at any given point in time.

Genetics were part of the Star Wars universe in the EU. Midichlorians and cloning.

Clone Wars even mentions in Episode 4. The scientific explanation of the force was also important because of the idea of cloning a force user. Namely the Emperor being cloned. Approved EU stories focused on these elements heavily and reappeared in many productions and games as major themes. You think he had less planning than he actually did. When in reality he had plans that people didn't want him to do. Episode 2 and 3 went into heavy changes after massive media attacks Episode 1 that attacked the film as racists and promoting homosexuality through the character of Jar Jar, you can still look up archives of these media attacks. BUT I remember seeing Episode 1 opening night and I remember the love there was for the film at the time, there was nothing like it. The graphics WERE GOOD for the time. People laughed at jar jar. The media attacked it, the co-producers attacked it. Actors withdrew their involvement (Leonardo D. C) and key roles had to be recast and to appease others characters re-written.

promoting homosexuality through the character of jar jar,

rofl lol what?

rofl lol what?

I kid you not

https://nypost.com/1999/06/10/jar-jar-gay-the-truth-is-out-there/

edit: The hate for Episode 1 -3 was MANUFACTURED and Meme'd before social media was a thing.

This is all that matter, and this is the end of the discussion. At least for me it is. You have this idea in your head, it's called headcanon, of what Star Wars is, of what Lucas intended, of how he had this grand, overarching idea that spread across multiple movies, books, comics, graphic novels, TV shows, etc., etc. etc., when there was no such thing. Lucas considered the EU, and everything in it, separate from his SW's universe. You can headcanon a blending of the two all you want. For you, Chewie is dead and Han is alive, Luke had a thing with a force ghost who wore his apprentice as a skin suit, Palpatine was cloned who knows how many times, the Yuuzhan Vong happened, and Zonama Sekot is actually out there somewhere, but to Lucas it didn't exist and was separate from his Star Wars universe.

“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.” – George Lucas, from an interview in Starlog #337

The EU isn't canon. And no matter how many times you try to you're not going to convince others to accept your headcanoned definition of canon.

This is all that matter, and this is the end of the discussion. At least for me it is. You have this idea in your head, it's called headcanon, of what Star Wars is, of what Lucas intended, of how he had this grand, overarching idea that spread across multiple movies, books, comics, graphic novels, TV shows, etc., etc. etc., when there was no such thing. Lucas considered the EU, and everything in it, separate from his SW's universe. You can headcanon a blending of the two all you want. For you, Chewie is dead and Han is alive, Luke had a thing with a force ghost who wore his apprentice as a skin suit, Palpatine was cloned who knows how many times, the Yuuzhan Vong happened, and Zonama Sekot is actually out there somewhere, but to Lucas it didn't exist and was separate from his Star Wars universe.

 

“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.” – George Lucas, from an interview in Starlog #337

 

The EU isn't canon. And no matter how many times you try to you're not going to convince others to accept your headcanoned definition of canon.

Using the term Canon is poison to Star Wars now that there is no longer a single person in creative control of it. It makes zero sense to continue saying x is and y is not canon when George Lucas himself is told his ideas will not be used.