I'm interested to know why this switch seemed to flip all of a sudden with people. I mean, as far as I used to be aware, everyone hated George Lucas and wanted him dead, or at the very least kept away from Star Wars at all costs. Now no one else but Lucas is worthy of the Star Wars mantle?
I've been accused of EU bashing and/or drinking the Lucas kool aid, so this isn't something that just happened with me.
As for the policy of Lucasfilm, let me continue the Biblical analogy if I may. You can have different levels of apocrypha, but you can only have one level of canon. Canon is your most reliable stuff, or the least doubtful stuff if you want to look at it that way. While there may be discrepancies among the canonical gospels, no one of them is considered more reliable than the others. They're all considered equally reliable despite any discrepancies, hence they're all considered canonical. Other stuff is considered less reliable/more doubtful, and is therefore considered apocryphal. Some of it is pretty close to the canonical material. Some of the apocrypha is the source of accepted Church doctrine and tradition, even though the entire text didn't make it into the canon. Other apocryphal sources are wildly different than canonical sources. Different levels of apocrypha, one level of canon.
The other thing to consider is that Christianity only has an EU. There's no autobiography of Jesus Christ. Star Wars, on the other hand, doesn't only have indirect sources. The stuff that Lucas is directly involved with on the creative side is the most reliable/least doubtful stuff by definition. Nothing else can have that same level of reliability. Lucasfilm acknowledges as much. What they don't seem to get is that canonicity should only be conferred on your top tier stuff. If it's less reliable/more doubtful than stuff by Lucas himself, even if only by the smallest degree, then it's apocryphal.
Children believe what we tell them, they have complete faith in us. I ask of you a little of this childlike simplicity, and to bring us luck, let me speak four truly magic words: "A long time ago...." (Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast)
but has there been any attempt by Leland Chee or anyone else at Lucas Film/Arts to canonically reconcile the recent obliteration of EU Mandalorian history by The Clone Wars Animated Series beyond just "Well, George wanted it that way"? I've looked around and found nothing, and it's bugging me because I'm running a Dark Times game involving Mandalorian PCs, and I need answers!
The long and the short of it is: the Clone Wars series overrules the EU. The former is part of GL's canon, while the latter is purely apocryphal. This is backed up by the language frequently used in the "Secrets Revealed" sections of the Season 3 Clone Wars episode guides.
For example, regarding Ventress's new backstory in the "Nightsisters"episode: "For The Clone Wars series, writer Katie Lucas preserved much of this EU backstory for this authoritative depiction of Asajj and her history."
Also, from the more recent episode "Citadel Rescue": "The Expanded Universe of Star Wars novels originally had Even Piell survive the Clone Wars only to be killed while as a fugitive in the early days of the Empire. Piell's death in the Citadel Mission is the character's true fate."
For that matter, what happened to Aurra Sing and Slave I?
Episodes of The Clone Wars aren't shown in chronological order. The Season 2 finale which ends with Aurra crashing in the Slave 1 is followed by the Season 3 episode, "Assassin", in which Aurra stalks Ahsoka. Both of those episodes precede the Season 1 finale in which Aurra teams up with Cad Bane when he goes to the Senate to secure Ziro the Hutt's release.
The jumbled up timeline confuses the heck out of some people, but I think it's totally in keeping with the whole pulp action genre that Star Wars is built on (The Clone Wars plays out in the same way that Pulp Fiction does).
(And btw, why was it ever called Slave I in the first place? Usually you start numbering things with the second one...)
Air Force One?
EDIT: As for LFL and Lucas and that ... GL has reached the point where he's got enough clout that no one can tell him what to do. It's a common occurrence in all the creative industries. When you're first starting out, you have to acquiesce to the wishes and demands of your editors/publishers/etc. But as you become more famous and more wealthy and whatever else, those editors and publishers start acquiescing to your wishes and demands instead. Take the Harry Potter series: I bet the reason the first few novels are a lot shorter than the later ones is because when Rowling first started, her editors told her to cut stuff out and keep the books to a certain page count, but later on, they were no longer able to tell her to do that and she could insist that anything she felt was "vital" to the story be left in the book.
Anyway, if the "Stewjon" incident is anything to go by, Chee et al certainly do appear to treat GL like he's some kind of Russian czar or something.
By way of explanation, the story goes that if a Russian czar ever mispronounced your name, congratulations! You had a new name! In GL's case, he jokingly told John Stewart that Obi-Wan's homeplanet was called "Stewjon", yet for some reason Chee et al took him seriously and have since decreed that that is the name of Obi-Wan's homeplanet.
Lucas is actually very fuzzy on the subject. When asked in interviews, he talks about "different worlds" and how there's what he thinks happens in the movies and what happens in the books, and how he leaves it all up to someone else to handle and just focuses on telling the stories he wants.
"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. They don't intrude on my world, which is a select period of time, [but] they do intrude in between the movies. I don't get too involved in the parallel 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."
"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."
TOTAL FILM: "The Star Wars universe has expanded far beyond the movies. How much leeway do the game makers and novel writers have?" 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!" TOTAL FILM: "Are you happy for new Star Wars tales to be told after you're gone?" LUCAS: "I've left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII-IX. That's because there isn't any story. I mean, I never thought of anything. And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn't at all what I would have done with it. The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn't come back to life, the Emperor doesn't get cloned and Luke doesn't get married..."
All Lucas, the last from 2008. His words, anything not inthe movies is not Star Wars canon; not part of his universe. My favorite is the end, where he specifically points out some EU events which he says never happened.
RT, thank you for getting those quotes and proving my point with minimal effort on my part. Lucas never mentions canon at any point, he just talks about different worlds and what's his story and what's someone else's story. He just wants to do whatever he likes with the story, and as long as he can do that he doesn't care about continuity.
Interesting that the bit you say is your favourite, where Lucas says the Emperor was never cloned and Luke never marries, is preceded by him saying "which isn't at all what I would have done with it". Implying that, although it wasn't his vision, it's been done, and, in some way, it counts.
Also interesting is that this only ever comes up when someone directly asks Lucas about tie-ins in interviews. He never makes any proclaimations about continuity in any other context. He's not like JRR Tolkien, keeping watch over his entire fictional universe. He's outsourced it, and as long as he can have his vision of things he doesn't mind what happens.
No, not really. That was a question. I'm interested to know who decides biblical canon if not the Church (which I felt was a vague enough term that I was bound to be right). Obviously there's a gap in my knowledge here and I'd like to fill it.
But I am confident in saying that it wasn't God. I've been a Christian all my life, and if there's one thing I've learnt from that, it's always be skeptical when someone says something comes directly frm God.
Lucasfilm is the only official entity involved in Star Wars that maintains a canon.
You talking about the Holocron; Chee's thing. That's an internal continuity to help keep EU straight. That's where all those letters and differing levels of canon come from. But that's not a Star Wars canon. The only official Star Wars canon that can exist must be determined by the creator or those standing in his place. Lucas, given that he is still alive and active, decides what is canon.
Now this interesting. Why must the person who originated the story be considered the only arbitrater of canon? Why is this the rule?
George has created an entire branch of his company to look after continuity. They make proclamations on canon, he doesn't. He just, when asked, says that it's a "different world" and it's not what he would have done. In this case, he appears to have passed on his automatic canon deciding status to others.
You're right, Lucas really doesn't care about EU. Because he doesn't consider EU to be part of Star Wars. It didn't happen. His actions show this as well. Notice how he just burns any EU he doesn't care for?
Like I said, he just wants to be able to tell whatever story he wants to tell. As long as he's free to tell whatever story he wants, he doesn't care.
I'm interested to know why this switch seemed to flip all of a sudden with people. I mean, as far as I used to be aware, everyone hated George Lucas and wanted him dead, or at the very least kept away from Star Wars at all costs. Now no one else but Lucas is worthy of the Star Wars mantle?
Yeah, those people. Some of them are still around, but I think I found a poisoned most of them. There have been a few times on these boards where I thought that was the prevailing line of thought, but in my experience, most of the Star Wars fandom loves Lucas. Really, the hate-Lucas thing is only prevelent among those whoe read lots of EU, and thus have some vested interest in it. Unfortunately, those fans tend towards being elitist, and so they don't accept someone who has only seen the movies as a fan. But those people are idiots, so we can just ignore them.
Oh, I've got to give it to you RT, you've really got me cracking up. Most Star Wars fans love George Lucas? The only ones who don't are die-hard EU fans?
Yes, there is a lot of snobbery from EU fans, and that doesn't stand. No fan should ever look down on another fan as being less-worthy because they simply like different things.
But trust me, even among people who've only seen the movies, George Lucas is not well-liked. Just do a quick YouTube search for the Red Letter Media videos. Watch what that guy has to say about Lucas (and this is fom a strictly movie point-of-view). See how many people have commented and reposted those reviews, and basically held up Plinket (or whatever his name is) as the champion of all the grievances.
And I say this as someone who likes George Lucas! I respect the man, and I'm grateful to him for creating my favourite franchise. But that doesn't mean I'm blind to the heavy criticism he receives.
Look, this is getting nowhere. So how about a compromise? I'll drop the issue, on the grounds that nobody uses "well, that's EU, so it's not canon" in this thread again.
You know why? Because it's boring.
This thread started out with promise, with Rob kicking off a discussion about the inconsistencies in Mandalorian lore. But then just responding with "only the cartoon is canon, and that's the end of it" is so dull.
Instead, I propose that EU be taken into account in all cases, and then we can decide whether it fits or not on a case-by-case basis. Disregard it alltogether and then there's basically no Star Wars universe for us to discuss.
And I for one am all about discussing the universe, not what is and isn't canon.
Josh Cheesman - journalist and Star Wars fan.
Visit the YBtC Hall of Fame to see the winners of the Praxeum's regular You Build the Character competitions.
So anyway, now that that's settled, here's one that's been bugging me:
In ESB, Luke escapes frm the wampa's cave on Hoth. He's weak, he's cold, he collapses to the ground. He sees a vision of Obi-Wan, telling him to go to the Dagobah system and meet Yoda.
The question is, why then?
I mean, ESB is set 3 years after ANH. Luke has been going about his business, using only the Jedi training given to him by Ben, and that was fine. In those 3 years, Obi-Wan never appeared to him and told him about Yoda. Why not appear the day after the Battle of Yavin? Why drag out the war more than necessary?
Obviously, from a real world perspective, that was just the plot device that gets the story of ESB (or Luke's story anyway) in motion. But why in-universe did Ben wait so long, when it had already been established that he could talk to Luke from the netherworld of the Force?
I mean, in the Infinities version of ANH (whihc we can all agree is non-canon ), Obi-Wan tells Luke to go to Dagobah as soon as the Rebels flee Yavin. Looks like the writers there were coming up against the same issue I am.
Here are my theories (not all of which are entirely serious):
1. Luke had to reach a certain level of skill before it was worth his while going to train with Yoda. In the wampa cave, he'd just managed to pull his lightsabre to his hand. This may have been his first use of telekinesis. At that point, he was connected to the Force enough that he could actually benefit from Yoda's training.
2. Similar to the first point, maybe Luke pulling his lightsabre to his hand was proof that he was connected to the Force on a deeper level now. That deeper level allowed him to actually see Ben's spirit (remember, this is the first time we actually see Obi-Wan as a ghost, as opposed to just hearing his voice).
Heir to the Empire has Obi-Wan telling Luke that his connecton to the 'mortal plane' (I can't remember exactly how it was phrased) was fading, and he wouldn't be able to appear any more. Maybe something similar happened after his death on the Death Star - Obi-Wan only had a limited window of time that he could talk to (and only talk to) Luke, since the latter wasn't fully in-tune with his Force-ness yet. Once Luke was attuned, it was easier for Obi-Wan to appear in full spirit form.
3. Luke's conscious mind would have simply rejected Ben appearing to him, so Ben had to wait until Luke was nearly collapsed from exhaustion to get through to him. I don't really buy this one, but it could work if you say that Luke's mind only accepted Obi-Wan's voice in ANH because he was mourning him at the time. Then once Luke had seen Ben's ghost, he could accept it while in his right mind, such as later on Dagobah.
4. Luke is hallucinating due to being near-death. Of course, because he's Force sensitive, his hallucinations actually proivde him with useful information. (I admit this one is a stretch.)
5. Luke was too important to the Rebellion to tell him to leave it too early. But again, why that particular moment? Why not after the Battle of Hoth, where Luke had an important role to play?
Could it be that Obi-Wan told Luke about Yoda to give him something to hold on to, something to live for?
6. Obi-Wan forgot he was supposed to tell Luke about Yoda, and only remembered when the kid was on death's door.
So yeah, anyone have any thoughts on this?
Josh Cheesman - journalist and Star Wars fan.
Visit the YBtC Hall of Fame to see the winners of the Praxeum's regular You Build the Character competitions.
Any of those (except #6, Obi was way too straight laced for that ) seem reasonable to me. I'd just take the one that personally seemed best to you (after all leaving the audience to decide the details of why some things happen is fine by me).
My personal choice is a varient on #3 (after reading Legacy which delt with the main character not seeing the spirit he wanted to see for so long due to him blocking it subconciously). Luke didn't want to see Ben (he didn't know he could of course, didn't have the training to know how to make the connection, and he might have anger/sadness over ben allowing himself to die) and it was only at the point of near death that Ben was able to break through and get his message across.
My personal choice is a varient on #3 (after reading Legacy which delt with the main character not seeing the spirit he wanted to see for so long due to him blocking it unintentionally). Luke didn't want to see Ben (he didn't know he could of course, didn't have the training to know how to make the connection, and he might have anger/sadness over ben allowing himself to die) and it was only at the point of near death that Ben was able to break through and get his message across.
I reckon at the moment I'm leaning towards a combination of 3 and 5 - Obi-Wan let Luke do his own thing for a while because he was a great asset to the Rebellion. With the Rebellion about to go into hiding (the fleet seems to just stay on the move between Hoth and Endor, not making any major strikes), it's the perfect time for Luke to disappear for a while and learn from Yoda.
Then you could say that the specific timing of just after he escaped the wampa was down to Luke being at his most susceptible.
This is actually something I never considered before - was George/Irvin Kershner/whoever trying to make us question whether Obi-Wan's ghost was real? It seems odd to consider, given his advice from beyond the grave in ANH is presented as being real, but maybe we supposed to think that Luke might be going mad.
Josh Cheesman - journalist and Star Wars fan.
Visit the YBtC Hall of Fame to see the winners of the Praxeum's regular You Build the Character competitions.
This is actually something I never considered before - was George/Irvin Kershner/whoever trying to make us question whether Obi-Wan's ghost was real? It seems odd to consider, given his advice from beyond the grave in ANH is presented as being real, but maybe we supposed to think that Luke might be going mad.
I don't know about mad but hallucinating from lose of blood, injuries, exhaustion, ect... maybe. I don't think there was ever really supposed to be any doubt though, not after the first movie.
I think Luke got too wrapped up in the rebellion and to some extent let his Force training fall to the way side while he was off doing awesome things for the Rebel Alliance. Perhaps Luke using Move Object on his lightsaber was proof to Obi wan that he is ready for more intense training. Going by the films alone we do not see Luke use any Force powers between A New Hope and Empire. He spent a Force Point to add to his attack roll (possibly a DP) against the Death Star and then that was it. The next power we see him use on film is Move Object. So, maybe in that time between ANH and Empire he leveled, gained some Force Powers and finally used those Force Powers to success. A mark to Obi Wan that now he is ready.
Oh no, my young Jedi. You will find that it is you who are mistaken, about a great many things.
Winner of the Winner of You Build the Character #34: Padme Amidala
), Obi-Wan tells Luke to go to Dagobah as soon as the Rebels flee Yavin. Looks like the writers there were coming up against the same issue I am.
