The New SW Canon

[SilverDragonRed]

I like Phantom Menace Maul. Bringing him back in the cartoon was fucking lame. It's the PTE equivalent of the EU bringing back Boba Fett.

Oh and what character did it add to him? That he was a crazy Sith Lord with mechanical legs seeking revenge against one Jedi instead of a Sith Lord seeking revenge against all the Jedi.

The character I'm talking about comes from the Death Watch/Mandalore arc where he displays his ability to think indirectly, quick improvisational planning, ruthless cunning, and the ambition that comes from being part of the Sith. Though, really, even that isn't an excuse for the stupid decision to bring him back.

Also, how can he be a Sith Lord if he was the apprentice? I thought you had to be the master in that relationship.

I don't know about that, PT is actually pretty simple in its themes and what it centers around (Anakin's fall). While more sombre and a bit more complex than the original Star Wars movie (the first one), Anakin's journey has its echo in Return of the Jedi. Every time Vader and Luke (and Leia) discuss their relationship, the tone is sombre, with mixed emotions and uncertainty (save for Luke's belief that there's still good left in his father). It could have been handled better in the PT, sure, but it was good enough. Many problems with PT seem to be more about Lucas being not that great with writing dialogue or directing people - something which he knows himself, since he tried to get others to direct the movies and asked several colleagues of his to read TPM's script and suggest improvements. I often wonder how things would have turned out if someone had done as Lucas asked - maybe PT would be held up as equal or near-equal to the OT. Maybe not. The dark side is hard to see and understand, the fandom even moreso.

The 'Fall from Grace' story is not simple. It is complex by its nature because you do have to keep in mind the moral event horizon that you can't have the person cross it while he/she is still a hero. The hero has to embody the virtues that people think of them, the shades of gray morality during their transition, and the failings of personality the enables their fall. All of that is before you get to the series of events that drives the fall step-by-step.

Where did you get that behind-the-scenes info 'cause if that's true then a more interesting tale leading to the PT needs to be told than what is 'commonly perceived'.

[Rogue 9]

Old news by now, of course, but I didn't see it in the thread. I was just browsing through the official Star Wars YouTube channel out of boredom, and came across this:



It's from late April this year, about the same time all this was blowing up. From the way all the Star Wars bigwigs working on current projects (notably Rebels) were waxing rhapsodic about the old EU, I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that parts of it will be back when it can fit in with what they're doing. Of course, that could also have been last-minute hype to try to get people to buy out the stocks of the old books, too. We'll see.

[FTeik]

Getting rid of the old EU and starting anew would have been okay in my book, if they were doing it right. Instead - with a few exceptions - TPTB deliver the same kind of crap they delivered before.

[Batman]

Also, how can he be a Sith Lord if he was the apprentice? I thought you had to be the master in that relationship.

Vader was referred to as a Sith Lord all the damned time and he survived his Master by what, all of five minutes? Sith Lord seems to be used rather informally for all powerful Sith.

[Borgholio]

Sith Lord is a title, like Jedi Knight. Maul is referred to as a Sith Lord by Palpatine himself in EP1.

[Tychu]

From this weeks Star Wars (Marvel) we learn that Dengar is back in canon! And is that Jar Jar too? Even Marvel wouldn't be so bold.

[Adam Reynolds]

Getting rid of the old EU and starting anew would have been okay in my book, if they were doing it right. Instead - with a few exceptions - TPTB deliver the same kind of crap they delivered before.

I wonder if the idea of an expanded universe in general is destined to produce crap(which also applies to spinoff series like the wider Star Trek universe). With few exceptions, the old EU fit this problem to a T. And I have no doubt that the new EU will too.

There are three fundamental problems. The first is that of brain bugs, as mentioned by Mike Wong on the main site. When an author of Star Wars books watches the movies he generally comes up with ideas for how things should be. Stormtrooper accuracy, cardboard TIE fighters, and Jedi power levels are all major examples of this phenomenon.

The second problem is attempting to exactly recapture the feeling of the movies. Dark Empire did this in a terrible fashion by bringing back Palpatine. Clone Wars similarly did this, bringing Darth Maul back from the dead and having a second invasion of Geonosis.

The third problem, in a contradiction with the second, is going too far away from the films thematically. See the Clone Wars episodes that heavily featured the Force. I would bet that someone in the creative process was literally on acid. The novels The Crystal Star and Children of the Jedi both similarly made this mistake.

[the atom]

Does anybody know if Wong is planning on doing any reactions and analysis to the films of the new series like he did before, or is he completely and permanently out of the game now?

[Havok]

Not at all about canon, but why don't you PM him and ask? He's on Facebook as well.

[lGrand Anhoop]

"Anything in the the novels created by George Lucas (whether it comes from unpublished early script versions, unpublished author interviews with George, or George's revisions to the novelization manuscript) would be G-level unless contradicted by the films."

Sorry if this has been addressed in this thread already and I missed it, but do they have any policy on what to do when something in the films, is contradicted by something in other films?
As retcon-happy as this film series, this neat worldbuilding idea of different canon levels with the Film Series as the holy bible on top, doesn't really seem to work out in reality.

But it'd be cool to know if they had some mechanism to account for that!

[Elheru Aran]

Presumably if the films contradict each other, it'll either be minor issues that they leave to the EU to solve that are unimportant to the plot... or there won't be any contradiction. They're smart enough to not fuck up the major plot points by crossing wires such as "Han and Leia don't actually have a romance" or something like that. The prequel series was more of a retcon than the sequel trilogy will be, as some people had already theorized in the EU about the start of the Empire and all that. The new trilogy simply overrides the old EU rather than being a retcon-- it's an entirely new continuity stemming from the OT.

[lGrand Anhoop]

Well I mean stuff like "Anakin didn't grow up with Owen and then decided to go on an idealistic mission while his passive brother refused to get involved" - pretty important stuff.
But I guess technically one is just a retelling so you could say "eh, they all lied" or "their brains made the memories up" in case of Leia. Completely undermines the dramatic meaning of those scenes, but I guess it can be forced to work...

Now I'm struggling to think of any contradictions that that couldn't be explained away with lies and poor memory - I think the most important ones can

[Elheru Aran]

Uh... the OT never stated outright that Owen was Luke's uncle by virtue of being Anakin's brother. Him being his *stepbrother* works fine IMO. It's not particularly important what Owen's actual relationship to Luke or Anakin is, his only role in the story is to provide some minor foundation for Luke's character.

Any other apparent contradictions?

[Rogue 9]

Leia remembering her mother is the other big one.

[Borgholio]

Leia remembering her mother is the other big one.

Given how the PT played out, I always interpreted that as stories told by her adoptive parents to help keep her past hidden...similar to how Owen told Luke that his father was just a navigator on a freighter. That, or a "Force imprint"...

[Gandalf]

Uh... the OT never stated outright that Owen was Luke's uncle by virtue of being Anakin's brother. Him being his *stepbrother* works fine IMO. It's not particularly important what Owen's actual relationship to Luke or Anakin is, his only role in the story is to provide some minor foundation for Luke's character.

Any other apparent contradictions?

Even then, "Uncle/Aunt" don't always mean the siblings of one's parents. In some cultures, it can mean one who isn't parental, but nonetheless commands respect in a similar manner.

[lGrand Anhoop]

Uh... the OT never stated outright that Owen was Luke's uncle by virtue of being Anakin's brother. Him being his *stepbrother* works fine IMO. It's not particularly important what Owen's actual relationship to Luke or Anakin is, his only role in the story is to provide some minor foundation for Luke's character.

Any other apparent contradictions?

The brother thing isn't that important, but according to IV they grew up together and then Luke's father decided to go on an "idealistic crusade" while Owen was being the grumpy reserved "stay out of trouble and trouble won't come to you" guy and was probably shaking his head in disapproval or something.

I-III simply told an entirely different story altogether.

Leia remembering her mother is the other big one.

Given how the PT played out, I always interpreted that as stories told by her adoptive parents to help keep her past hidden...similar to how Owen told Luke that his father was just a navigator on a freighter. That, or a "Force imprint"...

Leia REMEMBERED her mother - Luke was TOLD his father was a pick-up redneck trucker. Big difference there.

Retcons like "it wasn't a memory but Force vision" are possible when writing a new story based on both Sith and Jedi, but when you pick one version and declare it canon for all new stories to be based on, you kinda compromise one of them - and good writing is required to make this plot twist ring true.
Which of course demonstrates my original point, namely that merely saying "all movies are canon" isn't enough as you also ned some additional guidelines or decrees to resolve those kinda issues.

Then again, can't anyone write any story they want anyway, and it simply won't be approved as canon by the high priests? The way I see this is, did Agamemnon cut Clytemnestra's baby in half and then force-married her? Or was he a good guy and his wife a snivelling conspirator with a lover?
If the SW movies went for the whole "multiple choice mythology" thing, so should the EU... and it already does from what I understand.


By the way, anyone remember how SFDebris handled any of those, or the lightsaber inheritance for that matter? The way he incorporated Mustafar into the Chapter I finale was BRILLIANT!

[Havok]

Th problem really is that Lucas never went back and said "OK, let's sit down and watch the OT and see what I wrote and what was said.". There were some very easy fixes for what he had already established to not be contradicted.

[the atom]

Leia remembering her mother is the other big one.

Given how the PT played out, I always interpreted that as stories told by her adoptive parents to help keep her past hidden...similar to how Owen told Luke that his father was just a navigator on a freighter. That, or a "Force imprint"...

Leia REMEMBERED her mother - Luke was TOLD his father was a pick-up redneck trucker. Big difference there.

Honestly I always just sort of assumed Leia was talking about her adoptive mother or something.

[RogueIce]

Given how the PT played out, I always interpreted that as stories told by her adoptive parents to help keep her past hidden...similar to how Owen told Luke that his father was just a navigator on a freighter. That, or a "Force imprint"...

Leia REMEMBERED her mother - Luke was TOLD his father was a pick-up redneck trucker. Big difference there.

Honestly I always just sort of assumed Leia was talking about her adoptive mother or something.

Except Luke directly asked about her real mother, so...not quite.

[Joun_Lord]

Leia REMEMBERED her mother - Luke was TOLD his father was a pick-up redneck trucker. Big difference there.

Honestly I always just sort of assumed Leia was talking about her adoptive mother or something.

Except Luke directly asked about her real mother, so...not quite.

Did Leia even know she was adopted until Fluke says that she be his sister? I don't recall anything about her saying she was adopted in any of the trilogy so presumably she thought Bail and his wife were her real parents until Luke told her she came from Vader's dick. However the StarWars.communist databank (which has gotten really terrible looking since last I was on the site way long ago before it turned to crap with fucking retarded "Whats the Story? shit and Dark Moose turning it into his own fiefdom) says she always knew she was adopted, so I dunno, I can't find a canon source to back this up and I trust the SW databank about as much as I would trust Neelix's cooking advice.

The adoptive mother thing makes far more sense then it being a fuck-up about her remembering Padme. Behind the scenes stuff even mentions that they made Breha look like Padme to explain how she would remember her mothers smile.

[RogueIce]

It's just the way the line was said.

"Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?"

And Leia just answers him, no confusion about "lolwut I only had one mother" or anything like that. Which yes, carries the implication that Leia had to have known she was adopted, and saw her real mother at some point when she was very young. Otherwise the scene makes no sense.

[Havok]

Oh for fucks sake. If you don't know what was said in Return of the Jedi what the fuck are you even doing here? This isn't some random site or YouTube comment thread, this is Fucking StarDestroyer.Fuckingnet. If you don't have a verbatim recall of the OT just go punch yourself in the face repeatedly until unconscious, but certainly get out of threads like these.

[Paolo]

It's just the way the line was said.

"Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?"

And Leia just answers him, no confusion about "lolwut I only had one mother" or anything like that. Which yes, carries the implication that Leia had to have known she was adopted, and saw her real mother at some point when she was very young. Otherwise the scene makes no sense.

Force vision?

[RogueIce]

It's just the way the line was said.

"Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?"

And Leia just answers him, no confusion about "lolwut I only had one mother" or anything like that. Which yes, carries the implication that Leia had to have known she was adopted, and saw her real mother at some point when she was very young. Otherwise the scene makes no sense.

Force vision?

Uh...no?

I mean sure, you could try to make some kind of hand-wave like that. But it does nothing to address the fact that yes, it's a plot hole because the end of Episode III pretty much contradicts that scene in Episode VI. It was a screw-up and no amount of after-the-fact retcons can really change that.