Spoilers 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' series [Spoiler Discussion]

[Reverend]

I'm still trying to figure out who thought they were canon? Certainly not in the Star Wars fan club I hung out in!

Not saying it didn't happen, but just, well, I never thought they were. Need to find my Star Wars Encyclopedia and see how they treated it.

It's not and never was. People get confused because they think the EU (which encompassed *everything*) used to be canon and now it's not, when in reality that's just not the case. The denial remains strong in some . . .

The sad part is that those are usually the same people that take "canon" as some sort of value judgment, which I find is reductive to the individual merits of the respective material. Personally some of my favourite Star Wars media ever is of the non-canon variety, and it doesn't affect my enjoyment of it one bit.
Indeed, right now the Kenobi show is pretty much categorically removing any possibility of my favourite Star Wars novel ('Kenobi') being even slightly in continuity. Does that bother me? Not one bit! It's still a great book, and I'm still very much enjoying this show. See also: 'Visions' just last year which had some great and definitely not canon Star Wars material.

I forget the source exactly, but I vaguely recall an old interview with Lucas talking about the Ewok tv movies and basically saying that like the movies, they're just fairly tales and that it doesn't really matter how they relate to each other, or even if they do at all.
He just liked the characters as it's something he'd developed as part of the early drafts (back when they were still Wookiees) and decided to explore their storytelling potential . . . and in typical Lucas fashion see how far technology could be pushed to pull this kind of thing off on a TV budget. It was basically testing the waters for the Indy series, and something he continued to chip away at when developing 'Underworld', right up until he sold the company and retired.

 

[Yistaan]

It's not and never was. People get confused because they think the EU

The EU only encompassed games, books, and comics.

Filmed works like Ewoks, Droids, and Clone Wars 2003 were never widely acknowledged as part of the EU proper but as filmed works and all the canon status that implies. Somehow when Disney retroactively assigned these filmed productions to the EU and put out the claim that they were always EU, they altered decades' worth of memories in people as well. That's some power.

 

[fireproof78]

It's not and never was. People get confused because they think the EU (which encompassed *everything*) used to be canon and now it's not, when in reality that's just not the case. The denial remains strong in some . . .

That sad part is that those are usually the same people that take "canon" as some sort of value judgment, which I find is reductive to the individual merits of the respective material. Personally some of my favourite Star Wars media ever is of the non-canon variety, and it doesn't affect my enjoyment of it one bit.
Indeed, right now the Kenobi show is pretty much categorically removing any possibility of my favourite Star Wars novel ('Kenobi') being even slightly in continuity. Does that bother me? Not one bit! It's still a great book, and I'm still very much enjoying this show. See also: 'Visions' just last year which had some great and definitely not canon Star Wars material.

Ok, I was pretty sure it was filed under "not canon" in my little handy dandy guide. I never saw it treated as much more than an ancillary adventure, in line with the OT, and then PT. Lucas pretty much treated his films as canon and the rest as not.

And, again, that's not a value judgement. Just a statement of how they were treated, i.e. not really connected to the primary canonical story.

More telling is the obsessive discussion over canon as if it somehow makes a story better. It doesn't.

 

[cooleddie74]

The 1980s animated series were never canon but the Prequels and other canon stories took ideas from them and the Stewart Copeland theme song from Droids was and remains fire:

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[Yistaan]

The 1980s animated series were never canon but the Prequels and other canon stories took ideas from them and the Stewart Copeland theme song from Droids was and remains fire:

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What's your take on Young Indiana Jones tv show I wonder?

 

[cooleddie74]

As far as I know that's canon in the Indy universe. I liked some episodes and didn't care for others.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull had Indy directly reference an episode of that series so Lucasfilm treats those stories as canon and the earliest chapters of his adventures(not counting the flashback sequence in Last Crusade). It was a decent-enough show.

 

[Yistaan]

As far as I know that's canon in the Indy universe.

That's the thing though, LFL had equivalent canon rules for Indy and SW and by the "Ewok tv movies were never canon" logic, the Young Indiana Jones tv show is also not canon and never was.

 

[cooleddie74]

Lucasfilm clearly decided otherwise with The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. They set the inconsistent rules. They have to answer for said rules.

 

[fireproof78]

That's the thing though, LFL had equivalent canon rules for Indy and SW and by the "Ewok tv movies were never canon" logic, the Young Indiana Jones tv show is also not canon and never was.

Never treated it as canon so I don't see the issue.

Also, and I don't remember who commented on this so apologies, but par of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was that it was older Indiana retelling tales from his youth, so any errors had a baked in excuse.

 

[Ithekro]

I seem to remember that elements of the Ewok movies did end up referenced in EU materials. The shape changing witch was classified as a Nightsister. The pirates were from some group or other that disappeared. The little girl shows up a a new reporter during the later New Republic era interviewing Leia. Things like that.

 

[cooleddie74]

The Blurrgs are from the Ewok TV-movies. So that species was made canon.

 

[Reverend]

The 1980s animated series were never canon but the Prequels and other canon stories took ideas from them and the Stewart Copeland theme song from Droids was and remains fire:

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I'd say "took ideas from" is a rather strong way to describe that.
A more accurate description would be "made a handful of sideways references to it with the background fluff, some of which might have just been straight up coincidences."
Also I get the sense that LF was a little more involved with Droids just looking at who wrote some of the episodes, so there's bound to be more affection given that some of the people working on the prequels were around for that project too.
Plus of course all the Ewok stuff is by design rather insular, so of course you're less likely to run across any callbacks. I mean where the hell are you supposed to work in a reference to Duloks, Wisties and magical stones in anything not set on Endor?!

The Blurrgs are from the Ewok TV-movies. So that species was made canon.

Yeah, though the fact that it was a Phil Tippet design probably had more to do with it. Plus it showed up in Clone Wars and Rebels way before Mando.

One thing about Star Wars is that it rarely throws away a good concept design. It's how pretty much every piece of concept are from the three prequels depicting a possible female Sith antagonist (yeah, it was considered each time!) ended up being used as the various Dathomirian Witches.

 

[fireproof78]

Aayla Secura was from a comic.

 

[Noname Given]

This one was probably the weakest of all the episodes. I mean even in the original Star Wars, Luke and Han made sure to disguise themselves and when they went into the prison area they took out the cameras.

Here it seems that the Inquisitor Fortress such as it is doesn't even have cameras as Obi-Wan is sneaking around easily until a Droid turns around and scans him. Amazing that a society was such high technology can't even put a few cameras in the hallways of a supposedly highly secure area.

And others have mentioned it, but yeah the old trope of "Hey I'm a spy and I'm here to speak to the Head Inquisitor, stop me at your peril..." is getting real old. Not to mention the fact that you would think the local network in this facility would only recognize certain user IDs. So yeah oh, the system knows that she's out of her sector but still allows your access to all these security monitoring systems as soon as she sits down at a terminal.

Yes I know this is all supposed to harken back to the old style Flash Gordon and other serials of the thirties and forties, but you thinking me 21st century the writers would at least try a bit harder to make some of the hacking and sneaking around plausible.

And yeah don't get me started on again, a supposedly highly secure Fortress, get a bunch of civilian speeders can just fly in and strafe everyone on the landing deck?

I did like a few of the character moments and it was fun to see Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan wielding a lightsaber and deflecting laser bolts back at the always missing Stormtroopers, but yeah, overall it was pretty mediocre. Ymmv of course.

At this point I'm just awaiting the inevitable final lightsaber fight between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

By original work do you mean a New Hope of the entire OT? Continuity issues are completely normal for SW.

Its far more glaring in post-OT productions, when there's no excuse for that happening at all.

 

[Campe]

The 1980s animated series were never canon but the Prequels and other canon stories took ideas from them and the Stewart Copeland theme song from Droids was and remains fire:

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“In trouble again!”

 

[fireproof78]

Here it seems that the Inquisitor Fortress such as it is doesn't even have cameras as Obi-Wan is sneaking around easily until a Droid turns around and scans him. Amazing that a society was such high technology can't even put a few cameras in the hallways of a supposedly highly secure area.

This is where Star Wars tech serves at the needs of the plot. Why do they only need one copy of the plans for the Death Star? Why are not several plans made and sent by various Rebel spies to provide the intel. Dooku does a similar thing of taking a disc and being like "Yup, this is the only copy that we will ever need of our super evil weapon. Don't worry about it.

Heck, even R2's hacking various systems should set off some alarms, like on the CIS cruiser in ROTS, or on the Death Star. Technology is there as set dressing, not as functional devices. Mandalorian Season 2 did OK with this, with Din using a console and a code cylinder. But, overall, expecting technology to always function in the name of security is asking a lot of Star Wars.

Its far more glaring in post-OT productions, when there's no excuse for that happening at all.

There's no excuse in the OT, and no excuse with the PT now either. If the PT and OT get a pass then I'm not dinging new stuff for not caring as much as the original creator didn't care that much!

 

[Jedi Marso]

that’s really cool!
It really does…We rarely do Yonkyo but every time we do it’s really memorable (as in: I have blue marks for the next two days).

I only ever met three or four aikidoka, all Yudansha and three trained in Japan, that could effectively- I mean really effectively- apply 4th control. For the rest of us it was an ongoing study.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Aayla Secura was from a comic.

Aayla started in the comics, but she has a cameo in AOTC walking across the floor of the Jedi Temple, then later in the Geonosis battle, and you see her meet her end on Felucia in ROTS.

 

[Yistaan]

Aayla started in the comics, but she has a cameo in AOTC walking across the floor of the Jedi Temple, then later in the Geonosis battle, and you see her meet her end on Felucia in ROTS.

She's also in one episode of the Clone Wars CGI cartoon, which is still canon, reminiscing about having to let her master Quinlan Vos go in advice to Ahsoka, referring to a falling out incident that Aayla and Quinlan only had in a Legends comic book that apparently was never canon. Star Wars is funny that way.