Disney Star Wars and its ‘canon fodder’ problem

[geektalk]

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Thor Skywalker

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now several years back at this point

shortly after disney purchased to

lucasfilm

they made an announcement that

henceforth everything that came out

every movie

show game book comic book everything

would all be considered

canon it’d all be in the same continuity

or part of the same history of a galaxy

far far away

if you will and at the time something

called the lucasfilm story group was

formed in order to keep it all straight

now they wouldn’t so much

drive or dictate or come up with the

story or stories but instead they’d make

sure that what one person was doing with

the story be it in a book or a comic or

even a movie

that it basically wouldn’t conflict with

what either already had been established

elsewhere

or conflict with another story that

maybe someone else was working on

and something else that happened at this

very same time was a discontinuing

and rebranding of the expanded universe

no longer would

any new stories take place in it and all

previous stories would be

relabeled legends as to not confuse them

with what new stories would be taking

place

in the official canon oftentimes called

the disney canon

and as i’ve talked about before i wasn’t

entirely shocked by this announcement in

fact i

kind of expected it when disney

purchased lucasfilm

for better or worse i didn’t think

disney would want to be holding

themselves to decades of materials

not all of which was consistent with

each other though in all fairness the eu

did a rather good job with its

consistency

even without any sort of official story

group there to keep it all

in check also again for better or worse

depending on your point of view

george lucas himself had never

considered the expanded universe a part

of

his star wars it had always been sort of

a canon unto

itself and a great one mind you i don’t

say any of this to downplay how good it

was or to

make it sound like i’m happy to see it

go i was

and am and always will be a huge fan of

the expanded universe

and though like i said i didn’t think

disney would hold to it as they told new

stories i thought they’d want to do

something completely new and original

with the sequel trilogy for example

i was still very surprised when they

flat out discontinued the expanded

universe i saw no reason and still see

no reason

why new stories couldn’t continue to be

released in it i mean if they’re willing

to reprint stories with the legends tag

what’s the big difference between that

and releasing new stories with the

legends tag

but anyway letting that go the sort of

silver lining that came with all of this

that was basically promised by disney

and lucasfilm

was that again everything from then on

would be official canon

everything would be consistent there

would be one giant story of star wars

and not only that but there would be

great interconnectivity between the

stories interesting threads from one

source to another

what you might read about in a book

could end up being set up for a movie

not so much required reading for that

movie or anything like that

but that would instead maybe give you

extra backstory and or context

it would basically just enhance your

understanding of the overall story

and thus your overall enjoyment and at

face value i must admit all that sounded

great

so great that i was willing to sort of

let go of all the years and years i’d

spent reading and loving the expanded

universe to set it aside to an extent

though i would always go back to it and

read

one of its many good stories from time

to time but i was willing to embrace

this new canon

as an official canon that would not only

be well managed by

a story group but again would tell epic

stories across multiple different

platforms

unfortunately though none of that has

really happened there have already been

contradictions and some pretty big and

blatant ones that i’ll talk about in a

bit

and there hasn’t really been any true

good interconnectivity at least not when

it comes to

the books and comics though there’s

certainly been some good stuff in the

shows that relates back to

well other shows but the books and

comics rarely have any real connections

to

well anything else and when they do

relate to say a movie

it’s almost always reactionary it’s

almost always trying to fill in a plot

hole or explain something that

maybe didn’t make a whole lot of sense

in the film and a lot of the time they

make things

worse it’s rarely if ever true

setup for something coming out and the

only real good example i can think of

that felt relevant to the movie it was

connected to and came up before the

movie

is the book catalyst which is an

incredible prequel to rogue one

and yeah as i said before you don’t want

to make any of this stuff required

reading or you’re going to lose the

general audience and probably a lot of

casual fans as well

and though i wouldn’t say catalyst is

required reading for rogue one

it is about as close as you can get

without it being just that

but the real key is it’s good enough to

be worth reading

not that you have to read it but that

it’s a good story in and of itself and

there are some interesting connections

to the film

and that is important if you’re going to

promise those connections like for

example calling something a part of the

journey to the force awakens like the

first aftermath book did

there should then at least be a shred of

relevancy to the movie

but there honestly isn’t or wasn’t there

wasn’t a connection to it at all

and anything you thought might end up

being a connection to the movie like the

acolytes of the beyond becoming the

knights of run

it never pans out and i know and have

heard some come to the defense of the

story group by saying something like

it’s not easy to keep all this straight

and to some degree that is true

but the problem is there are plenty of

fans out there who keep all this stuff

straight

just for the heck of it just because

they love it just because they want to

embrace and immerse

themselves in the bigger story of star

wars so if they can do it for the sheer

joy of it

certainly a group of people being paid

can do it too

right but the real problem with the

story group are one of the big ones i

know a lot of people have other

issues of other kinds with the story

group anyway one of the main problems

is i don’t think they have any actual

sort of power

over the story or maybe it’s that they

only have power over

parts of it meaning if someone wants to

do something in a comic book that will

maybe conflict or just doesn’t seem like

something very star wars like

they can tell them no but if someone

writing and or directing a movie wants

to do something that maybe they wouldn’t

approve of or isn’t very star wars like

well that ends up being above their pay

grade and they are the ones that get

told no this is how it’s going to be

regardless of what happened elsewhere

in a comic or if say dave filoni with

one of his animated shows

wants to go ahead and change something

that happened in a comic book or in a

novel

then he can go ahead and do just that

the story group can’t stop him

and we end up with a contradiction in

the official canon

and mind you i’m not exactly upset that

someone like dave filoni would have that

power or that he’s used it to

again rewrite canon heck i think he

should be in charge of everything story

related at lucasfilm and that would sort

out a lot of the issues

nor am i talking about or complaining

about small contradictions or little

inconsistencies that may happen here and

there i do not expect the canon to be

perfect

in fact i’ve always seen star wars as

probably being told a second hand anyway

and depending on who’s telling the story

and to who they’re telling it to

you may end up with slightly different

versions of events for example

if you tell a story to young children

you may give a more

watered down version of events than if

you told that same story to adults

or just in general two different people

may see the exact

same event but how they describe it what

details they focus on or maybe leave out

are going to differ and so again i’m

okay with little inconsistencies i can

operate under the belief or assumption

that these stories are coming second

hand like i said safe may be the ones

that come straight from george lucas

his i assume are taken from the journal

of the wills

while everyone else who tells a star

wars story is telling what they heard

come from

the journal of the wills again they’re

telling it more second hand

plus there is another side or way to

look at this altogether

that what happens in a comic book that

let’s be honest only a small percentage

of the fan base is actually going to

read

that it shouldn’t keep a potentially

great idea or story from being put on a

big screen

for a much larger audience in other

words a bad or maybe unnecessary story

told at some point in a comic shouldn’t

prevent us from getting a better story

told

elsewhere for example there was a novel

simply called ahsoka that covered the

events between maul and ahsoka during

the siege of mandalore

and though the novel was good i’m not

trying to bash it day filoni and company

for the most part all but ignored what

happened in it

when they made the siege of mandalore

arc for season 7 in the clone wars

but they ended up making arguably some

of the greatest star wars content in

recent memory

by ignoring that book and now with the

first episode of the bad batch dave

filoni and company have done something

like that again they’ve basically

overwritten something that happened in a

comic book

which i won’t get into the details of in

case someone out there

hasn’t had the chance to sit down and

watch the first two episodes of the bad

batch

and they don’t want anything spoiled

however here in regards to this episode

of the bad batch and that comic book and

going along with what i was saying just

moments ago

how people can sometimes see the same

thing and tell a different story or

different version of it

you could i guess say that’s happened

here there are similarities in the two

versions enough so that

yeah you can probably say they’re the

same or could be the same

but that the one telling the story

focused on completely different aspects

than the other one

but still as someone who buys and reads

all the books and comics who keeps up

with everything

it is a bit frustrating when something

just let’s be honest gets

overwritten on a whim especially for

example when it’s one of the few good

comics series we’ve gotten in the disney

era

because the main problem with the books

and comics as i see it is they tell

stories about characters or events

just for the sake of telling stories

about characters or events to sell books

and comics and often times they end up

feeling disjointed and sort of

unbelievable which kind of makes the few

good comics or books

even more memorable like the one that

got undone in this case

and a prime example of what i’m talking

about here about unnecessary stories you

could say

would be the first volume of the new

mainline star wars series for marvel

which ran for 75 issues and is set

between

episodes four and five and features of

course han luke

leia and so on and sees them all go on

these

often times strange adventures which

would very much feel out of place if you

saw them in the movie

or at least that’s how i feel about them

and you can just tell they’re coming up

with stories again just for the sake of

coming up with stories

to sell a comic book and i’m not saying

they’re all bad there are some diamonds

in the rough

but you can tell they’re trying to make

it as big and as interesting and as

weird as possible sometimes despite not

being able to really do anything that

impacts the overarching story

because that story is already set in

stone we know what’s going to happen to

those characters in the next movie

which is only a short time ahead of this

comic book on the timeline

and so they end up doing things like

teasing the romance between han and leia

which we know can’t come to fruition

till the empire strikes back

and i’m certainly not saying there’s no

story that could be told about these

characters in this time period in fact

i think there is i think there could be

one maybe two really good stories in

there

but not multiple not 75 issues it just

gets

unbelievable and yes i realize this is

all fiction anyway

but just get so unbelievable to see them

captured by the empire time and time

again

only to surprise surprise getaway in the

end

and so there’s already this part of me

that thinks well maybe the comics

shouldn’t be considered canon anyway

because they’re adding so much

unnecessary stuff

and in this example have now filled the

time period between episodes four and

five with so much odd stuff that there’s

no room to have maybe that

one or two good stories that could be

told in there in other words

i think one of the biggest problems with

the disney canon

is making content just for the sake of

making content

they don’t have an actual good story to

tell but they’ve got money to make so a

story gets made

regardless while the other big problem

is no true

overseer no one that has absolute

authority over the story of star wars

other than maybe kathleen kennedy who

let’s be honest is not an expert in star

wars lore

or someone who likely has a very deep

understanding of what makes for a truly

good star wars story

as i’ve said before sure maybe she can

run a company

but i don’t think she can run star wars

itself

and quite honestly it just baffles me

how poorly all around star wars has been

managed here in the disney era

it could be doing so much better it

could be making so much more money for

disney and making fans happier than

they’ve ever been before

but it’s not which isn’t to say there

are no good parts of it

there certainly are but it’s nowhere

near what it could be

this is not the golden age of star wars

that we were promised when disney took

over

well that’s all i’ve got for this time

now it’s your turn to tell me what you

think about all this does it bother you

when things get overwritten or do you

really not care maybe because you don’t

really get into all the other stuff

anyway

and how do you think star wars could be

run better what would you do

if you were in charge whatever the case

may be

leave a comment below and let’s talk

some star wars and until next time

thanks for watching

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