I don’t assume being a fan longer than another person is especially a advantage, and if something, you need to be serving to different individuals benefit from the factor you get pleasure from as a lot as you may have.
Nevertheless, in mild of all the latest dialogue about Star Wars, inclusive of a complete lot of commentary about The Acolyte, I believed I’d forged my historic, hoary thoughts backward throughout the ages.   Â
Buckle up.Â
Star Wars is My Life
I noticed Star Wars once I was 3 years outdated, and I didn’t bear in mind the plot, however I remembered photographs from that film till l lastly obtained to see the film once more on HBO years later. As a result of no one had VHS gamers in my city.
I learn the Marvel Star Wars comics when Carmine Infantino was drawing the ebook. I used to be there for Droid World and the Hoojibs. I had an emotionally dysregulated second when Luke was contaminated with the Crimson Endlessly illness in Star Wars #50.
One of many first novels I learn was Splinter within the Thoughts’s Eye. I learn the Han Solo trilogy. A lot afterward, I even learn the Lando Calrissian books.
I used to be there on day one when Inheritor to the Empire got here out.
I learn novels throughout the Bantam period and the Del Rey period. I learn Shadows of the Empire, each the novel and the complimentary however separate story within the Darkish Horse comics.
I learn the Tales of the Jedi comics and the Boba Fett comics. One way or the other, I even completed Darkish Empire and its sequels. Palpatine simply stored returning.
I performed video video games like TIE Fighter, Insurgent Assault, Darkish Forces, Shadows of the Empire, Empire at Struggle, The Pressure Unleashed, Knights of the Previous Republic, Knights of the Previous Republic II, and performed via a number of class tales in The Previous Republic MMO.
I performed the primary d20 Star Wars RPG, and had each single ebook for Star Wars Saga Version, and ran it many occasions. I’ve nearly each Fringe of the Empire, Age of Insurrection, and Pressure and Future ebook that was produced by Fantasy Flight.
I had Star Wars miniatures from WotC and even performed the wargame that was marketed with the miniatures. I had approach too many units of the Star Wars Residing Card Recreation and approach too many ships for the X-Wing miniatures recreation. I performed in informal video games and tournaments for each (and wasn’t superb, however that’s inappropriate).
I learn the Knight Errant collection, the Daybreak of the Jedi comics, and the Daybreak of the Jedi novel.
I say this to make clear that, sure, I perceive that within the EU, there have been retcons launched to account for taking Obi-Wan’s remark a few thousand generations actually and Palpatine’s remark in regards to the Republic current for a thousand years.
I do know that within the EU, the treaty of Ruusaan marked the “refounding” of the Republic and that usually individuals (now no less than) check with the refounding because the Republic as a complete. I do know that the Battle of Ruusan is when Darth Bane set off the Thought Bomb that destroyed all the Jedi on the planet, in addition to all the Sith, so he may refound the Sith with the Rule of Two.
And I inform you, as somebody who has skilled all of that, that Star Wars incorporates unreliable narrators, and it was maybe somewhat foolish for Darkish Horse to have primarily based their chronology on a single remark that they took as an absolute assertion of truth (solely Sith deal in absolutes).
Right here is The place We Get Actual
As somebody who has skilled all of that, I inform you that Lucas by no means thought of the EU canon, by no means felt beholden to it, and at most, would see one thing he thought was cool and reinsert it into what he was engaged on, typically in a a lot completely different context. It doesn’t matter what advertising and marketing copy mentioned on this or that novel, in each interview Lucas ever gave, he’s strengthened the concept he didn’t take into account the EU canon.
The Expanded Universe had a canon. All the EU was speculated to match all the pieces else within the EU, however the prime directive of the EU was that if one thing in a undertaking that George Lucas was concerned with, particularly the flicks and the Clone Wars tv collection, the canon of the EU needed to replicate that. That was the aim, nevertheless it wasn’t at all times the truth. Plenty of Leland Chee’s job because the Keeper of the Holocron was to provide you with causes that issues that contradicted each other, really didn’t.
That doesn’t imply you possibly can’t have fond reminiscences of it. As a long-term DC Comics fan, I nonetheless love lots of pre-Disaster tales. I ought to make clear what Disaster I imply, however I just about imply all of them. DC salvages bits and items of these earlier continuities and reinserts them, typically with completely different contexts, into the following iteration of the story.
It does imply that after Disney purchased the property and declared the EU exterior of canon for what they needed to do, that’s what’s true for all Disney initiatives shifting ahead. It’s additionally true that if one thing is launched from the EU into present initiatives, the one factor that’s “canon” about that factor is the factor itself. Nothing brings in any additional stuff within the backdoor simply because it now exists in trendy Star Wars.
Defining Canon
It’s also price what “canon” means. Canon means completely nothing, aside from the concept the individuals working at Lucasfilm have a restricted set of tales that they assume to have a bearing on future initiatives. That’s it. It really means nothing to you, as a fan, or no less than it means as a lot as an organization directive that claims “All the things is shot digitally” or “We’re not calling a type of music jizz anymore, are you kidding me?” The Expanded Universe, as a undertaking, had a canon, that existed to information creators in what they need to and shouldn’t embody of their work. The Expanded Universe had a canon, on this context. Star Wars doesn’t have a canon. It’s a property, it’s a set of tales, themes, and concepts, and that may’t have a canon. All these concepts, themes, and tales exist, even when they aren’t referenced by present creators.
Individuals engaged on a shared property usually wish to construct collectively, not in parallel. Lucasfilm has a narrative group for that form of factor. And sadly, if a undertaking is large enough, you get Disney wanting over your shoulder and handing out directives. Like, you possibly can’t have one other 12 months to develop the following film and so they all have to come back out each different 12 months as an alternative of supplying you with three years between motion pictures.
In accordance with what the creators and Lucasfilm have agreed shall be thought of for his or her media initiatives presently, we do not know how outdated the Jedi are. We would if James Mangold’s film is, certainly, a Daybreak of the Jedi-type story. However that hasn’t occurred but.
In accordance with what the creators and Lucasfilm have agreed shall be thought of for his or her media initiatives presently, there was one Republic that lasted for in all probability round 1000 years, as a result of contextually no one appeared to disagree with Palpatine when he mentioned it, and Luke grew up in a world and not using a Republic and had no context on which to problem some outdated man saying “generations” as an alternative of “years.”
We all know there was a earlier Sith Empire as a result of Palpatine mentions it within the Clone Wars, or no less than that the Sith dominated the galaxy. Perhaps we’ll discover out that that’s solely true from a sure viewpoint. In the case of a number of Republics, at most, there’s a throwaway line within the story arc the place the Darksaber is first launched within the Clone Wars collection, the place Pre Vizsla says one thing in regards to the Jedi Temple being sacked throughout the Previous Republic.
I personally assume it was a throwaway little bit of dialog referencing The Previous Republic MMO, and utilizing Previous Republic form of implies the New Republic, however the Previous Republic, to customers of the sport, meant the identical Republic that the EU had assumed was in place for hundreds of years, so its a matter of utilizing an “out of world” time period for one thing “on the planet,” and folks leaping on that as proof of one thing.
However certain. There hasn’t been a galaxy-wide warfare in 1000 years, that’s type of established within the present canon. So if the Jedi Temple on Coruscant was sacked, it both implies a galaxy-wide warfare . . . or it implies that perhaps Coruscant wasn’t the capital on the time, and it was extra of a regional battle with the Mandalorians than a galaxy-wide warfare. We don’t have a definitive reply.
There might not have even been a galaxy-wide authorities earlier than the Sith conquered the galaxy, which makes for some fascinating hypothesis as as to if perhaps attempting to take care of a galaxy-wide authorities simply because a earlier one existed is a worthwhile aim. It’s enjoyable to invest, nevertheless it’s actually all simply hypothesis till somebody makes a TV present, film, or animated collection about it. Perhaps a ebook or comedian.
Even the fashionable “canon” of Star Wars initiatives, stuff that interprets throughout media “type of” occurred. Look initially of the Dangerous Batch versus the Kanan comedian ebook collection. All the things is fuzzy across the edges, stuff is within the normal form of a canon, particularly between media produced years aside.
Understanding Media
Once I was an adolescent studying the Marvel Star Wars comics, and Splinter within the Minds Eye, one way or the other I understood that completely different media might not at all times consider different media from the identical property. In all of my problems with Bantha Tracks, there was by no means an official assertion that the comics or the novels weren’t canon. I simply form of understood that.
Within the Marvel Godzilla comics, SHIELD had a devoted helicarrier to chase kaiju. I by no means anticipated to see that in a Godzilla film. Spider-Man was in problem three of the Transformers comedian, and Buster Witwicky and his associates have been listening to Dazzler on the radio. I by no means anticipated to see that referenced within the Transformers motion pictures, and even for Spider-Man to point out up within the cartoon again within the 80s.
Sure, these are crossover properties, nevertheless it underscored to younger, unwise-in-the-ways-of-the-world me that storytelling mediums are sometimes distinct from each other, so that you get pleasure from what you get pleasure from within the context wherein they seem. In The Mandalorian, there isn’t one large, big mythosaur skeleton proving that the creature exists, and that’s okay.
Why are we like this now? I don’t know. It might be straightforward to say “the web,” however I believe it’s extra probably that we’re like this as a result of dangerous individuals discover dangerous methods to make the most of instruments that different individuals would use for enjoyable or with extra accountability. Hate and outrage are stoked on the web as a result of grifters get one thing out of it. People who find themselves nostalgic for the way in which issues have been will be stoked by grifters away from “I appreciated this higher,” to “This was empirically higher, and I’m owed the established order.”
Individuals have a selective reminiscence once they get emotional and wish to show their level. I’m not going to fake that I’ve by no means held on so tightly to my interpretation of a factor that I forgot that numerous components of the property meant my interpretation wasn’t proper, and argued vociferously for my model of actuality. I thank each particular person on the web who put up with me whereas I used to be studying and rising out of that section of life.
I assume I’d ask individuals to recollect the phrases of Imaginative and prescient in Avengers: Age of Ultron, when he mentioned, “A factor isn’t stunning as a result of it lasts.”
, Imaginative and prescient. Who was Jarvis. Who wasn’t a butler, however an AI.
