Disney/Lucasfilm de-canonized all their Star Wars novels

I'm kinda pissed they decanonized the Star Wars books.

The reason I even considered reading them was BECAUSE they were supposedly canon. I have to admit that I'm glad I read many of them because they were often well-written and FUN.

But after all this time, suddenly they're NOT canon?

That's some bullshit.

At least I have Star Trek.

No it's not canon, but I always knew they were not canon. And I could take it for what it is, a Star Trek adventure.

 

On screen Star Wars already contradicted and ignored the EU whenever they wanted to anyway, and were you really expecting Disney to adhere to twenty years worth of novel continuity?

It's questionable that the novels were canon to begin with, since Lucasfilm eventually discovered the contradictions and attempted to patch it up with that "tiers of canon" nonsense.

 

Shouldn't that be the way one enjoys all iterations of Star Trek, filmed or otherwise?

 

And then aliens land in their flying saucer and say "Took you long enough."

 

Lucasfilm's use of "canon" was always overreaching. Fundamentally, canon just means the stuff made up by the original creator or owner as opposed to the stuff made up by other people without the creator or owner's direct participation. Even if the creator/owner wants to let other people create canonical works, as long as it's not under their direct guidance there will inevitably be inconsistencies and it'll end up being declared extracanonical. We saw this with the Dell Babylon 5 novels that were published while the show was in production and thus didn't have Straczynski's direct and steady oversight as the later novels did. We saw this with the Man-Kzin Wars anthologies, I think -- initially they were presented as chronicles of the actual Man-Kzin Wars that Niven himself didn't write much about because he didn't write war stories, but these days they're apparently considered distinct from Known Space canon. So Lucasfilm may have tried to entrust the creation of canon-consistent works to other creators, but they learned, as everyone else does eventually, that it just doesn't work that way, that there are bound to be inconsistencies and differences of interpretation that keep it from working out.

The only times that extensions of canon really work are when the actual creators are directly in charge of them, like the post-series B5 novels, the Buffyverse, Serenity, and Dollhouse comics that Whedon directly oversees or co-plots, and the Avatar: The Last Airbender comics that are co-plotted by the show's creators.

So really, unless the same people that produce the new Star Wars movies and shows are also co-plotting and vetting the novels, I don't see this new "unified canon" working in the long term any better than the old one did.

 

Yup. I remember reading a line from Lucas, something like: "All EU is canon, until I contradict it." at which point I went: "Well, obviously he neither knows or cares what canon means."

I think at one point even the events of 'Star Wars Galaxies' was "canon".

 

I'd imagine he meant that anything in the EU could be assumed to be a valid part of the continuity until it was contradicted. But the thing is, that's pretty much how fans have always approached Trek Lit -- it might as well be true so long as it doesn't contradict anything, yet. The only difference is that Trek left it to the fans to choose that for themselves while Lucasfilm asserted it as a formal policy.

And in practice, the only real difference is that all SW tie-ins were expected to be consistent with each other while ST tie-ins were free to differ.

 

Does the books not being canonical somehow make them less well-written and fun? If not, then why does it matter at all?

 

I hope that, when the time comes for Pocket's novelverse continuity to end, we get a proper send-off like David Mack's original Cold Equations finale.

 

It matters because I went to it because it was supposed to be canon. And I read all those books, which were fun, under the pretense that I was being led to believe they were all canon in this great, wondrous universe called Star Wars.

But then the new people in charge come in and tell you, "Sorry, guys, everything you believed was canon for the last 20 or so years is now an alternate universe."

It kinda feels like I've been lied to. Or to put it another way, it's kinda like false advertising.

 

Also: Humpback whales? No longer at serious risk of extinction.

Well, I'll agree it was false advertising, but I don't see why it matters if one imaginary story is inconsistent with another imaginary story. I can enjoy, say, Spider-Man stories or Doctor Who stories without needing them to be in the Star Trek universe, so why can't I enjoy a Star Trek story without needing it to be in the canonical Trek universe?

And seeing alternative takes on a fictional universe and characters can be more entertaining than just seeing one inflexible one, because it lets you explore more possibilities. For instance, Sherlock Holmes fandom would be so much more sterile if there were only the original 60 stories, plus tie-ins designed to be slavishly consistent to them. It's fun having so many alternate takes on Holmes from the Rathbone/Bruce films to the Jeremy Brett series to Sherlock and Elementary.

To paraphrase Spock, canon is the beginning of entertainment, not the end. Canon is the theme, and other continuities are the variations.

 

Disney isn't making their Star Wars movies for the die-hard fans of the franchise, since simply put there aren't enough. That's not a slam against Star Wars, no franchise has enough die-hard fans to sustain it long-term. They need to make this movie accessible to everyone possible, the die-hards, the casual fans, and even the folks who have no familiarity with Star Wars at all. It's a lot simpler to hook these folks if the only material that is relevant are six movies that are readily available on DVD, Blu-ray, Netflix or whatever and two TV shows, one which is currently airing new episodes, the other easily watched on Netflix than it would be if twenty years worth of novels and comic books also counted.

Besides, how is this any different than say when Clone Wars pulled that infamous stunt with the Mandalorians?

 

I've never been a big Star Wars fan, but I enjoyed Truce at Bakura as it began just after Return of the Jedi and featured Darth Vader's funeral pyre and his appearing to Leia. I remember getting the Micro Machines models based on the novel too, which was nice.

 

I assume then that you also have refused to see any of the Marvel movies or Man of Steel or the Nolan Bat-trilogy or watched any of the three different and contradictory versions of Sherlock Holmes currently running (the RDJ movies, Sherlock, and Elementary). After all, they're not canon, either.....

 

You assume incorrectly. If that's what you think, then perhaps I'm not doing a very good job of conveying my feelings on the topic.

Up until now, comic characters---like Superman---and Star Wars have been different.

Star Wars has always been its own thing. I could always count on Star Wars stories being ONE UNIVERSE (with probably rare exceptions).

Comics have a long history of rebooting and having different versions of their characters. Superman, Batman, Spiderman, they've all been rebooted into different incarnations. I think comics are different. Their characters don't change or grow very much, and whenever there's a death, the character comes back. It's like comics are in a perpetual state of "Shore Leave": nothing is permanent with Stan Lee as the Caretaker.

Star Wars, however, has always been one universe and the books have always been canon. So I guess I've taken the storyline a little more seriously in that regard.

There's never been a reboot such as Silver Age Superman turning into the John Byrne reboot of the 80s.

James Bond has always recast the part. Does that mean Han Solo should be recast?

It would be one thing if Star Wars is being rebooted, but that's not what's happening.

They're taking the same storyline that has always been canon, and after readers have spent their money on it for 2 decades, they are now saying it's not canon. I don't agree with that.

For the record, I didn't think Man of Steel was very good and couldn't touch the Christopher Reeve interpretation of the character, but thought the Nolan Bat trilogy was better than any previous live action Batman and thought Christian Bale was a better Batman/Bruce Wayne than Michael Keaton. I grew up on Sean Connery's James Bond, but think Daniel Craig has virtually matched Connery's effectiveness.

I can understand that Disney is making a Star Wars film for the masses. That's not being disputed. They should make a film that appeals to everyone the same way George Lucas did in the Original Trilogy.

I just don't see why the EU has to be dumped. (Although I am glad Chewbacca is going to be in the film...)

 

No, they haven't. That's the fiction Lucasfilm tried to sell fans, but it was never true. There have been plenty of times when tie-ins have been contradicted by later movies or other tie-ins. The early Marvel comics in the late '70s once had a flashback in which Darth Vader and Luke's father were portrayed as two separate people. The first novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, contains a number of elements that were contradicted or rendered problematical by later movies, such as a direct confrontation between Luke and Vader and fairly strong romantic content between Luke and Leia. The prequel movies contradicted a bunch of stuff from earlier novels and comics, such as Boba Fett's backstory. The animated series The Clone Wars ignored Karen Traviss's Mandalorian novels. The tie-ins have been getting overwritten by the source material all along, because that's how it always works. It's just that the novels have struggled to come up with retcons to patch the inevitable plot holes, and a lot of their content has just been ignored or rationalized away.

Because it never was canon. This, again, is hardly the first time something in the Expanded Universe has been contradicted by the films. It's just that, before, the EU retconned itself and pretended that there hadn't been a contradiction, but there have always been parts of it that have been cast aside in favor of new screen canon. The only difference here is that it's the whole thing instead of bits and pieces.

Because most of the people who see the movies will have no idea it even exists. Because it's a subsidiary, supporting component of the franchise catering to a finite segment of the audience. Because the movies make Disney immensely more money than the books do so it would be stupid for them to inhibit their choices about the movies based on something in some old book. Because tie-ins are not canonical, and Lucasfilm abused the word and misled its readers by claiming that they were. Canon, by definition, is the original work itself. Anything supplementary to that from another source is, by definition, not canonical. It merely supports canon, and can strive to coexist with canon and stay consistent with it, but it will never direct canon, except to the extent that canon may find it useful to borrow from it. And if it gets in the way of canon, then it gives way, because it only exists to support canon.

 

Yeah, I probably should clarify that I'm referring to the adult novels, not the comics or youth oriented books. I'm well aware that many of the Marvel comics weren't canon and that they've tried to patch up stuff with "retcons".

The bottom line is: I haven't read many of the Star Wars books, but I've read a good amount and I'm disappointed that after investing time and money on them (mainly due to the notion that they were canon) that they've now decided it isn't.

Christopher, you seem to be making an argument that they were never canon, but quite frankly, that was not what I felt Lucasfilm led me to believe. (Don't ask me to quote sources because I started reading these things 20 years ago and can't remember the publications/interviews or what have you.)

It's just disappointing.

I'm sensing a defensiveness in some of the responses I've been getting from some of you guys (not sure why since I'm not picking a fight or trying to piss people off), but I think we'll have to agree to disagree here. I can't help how I feel about the situation.

Just being honest and giving my opinion.

 

Unfortunatly, it is true. Lucas has stated that before, and it has happened that information about characters or events were later contridicted by the movies. Lucas says things to please fans, but will act differently when he feels like it. So yeah, if stating that it's all canon will please fans into believing everything is connected, he'll say that. But if it works for him to ignore stuff from the novels or comics because he wants something to happen in the movies, he will.

This is not about trying to convince you're wrong and we are right. It's about.... hoping that you can enjoy the books still, for what they are. Good stories.
If a movie is made about DS9 set 10 years after the show, with the original station still there, Kira still in command, Sisko never returned, all that stuff.... I'll still enjoy the books because they were very entertaining, touched me emotionally, and told a story I really liked.
To me, that can be enough. Hopefully, for your aswell.

 

There is an interesting thing about the way Lucasfilm/Disney has things setup right now. Because Star Wars: Rebels is coming soon and they plan to have several other movies/projects aside from the third trilogy films, they can actually pick and choose from the old EU to make stuff canon at the whim of the producers and authors.

I can already imagine a crossover in Rebels with the 30 years past Droids cartoon to establish part of that as canon. Also lot of the writers and people involve in things like Rebels were writers for the EU and, most specifically, the old West End Games Star Wars Roleplaying Game.

I can already see stuff in the previews and artwork that is decidedly from the days of the West End Games version of Star Wars from the late 1980s to 1990s. From before the Prequels. Before the Vong.

Rebels even looks like a standard six person Roleplaying game group of characters.