100% on point. Not respecting canon is not respecting the fans and what we love about Star Wars.

It will always perplex me why Hollywood buys whole franchises with an elaborate canon and lore, and and established audience, then gives directives to not just ignore the intricacies of that setting and story but will go out of their way to "subvert" or insult the very thing they're adapting. If this was the mindset when Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone and The Fellowship of the Ring were written and filmed, they would have alienated fans of the books and failed hard. Without that faithfulness to the spirit of the material, neither would be the iconic film series they are today.

It is crazy to think that people use excuses of the canon is too restrictive for any new stories. Any story set in our own current time and locations, like police dramas murder mysteries etc.. has to stay in the “established canon” of the real world

One of the main problems facing starwars is it’s run by people who use starwars as the selling point but they don’t want to make starwars they want to use it and make whatever they want to

One of the many reasons I hate the sequel trilogy is that the people who made them just didn’t seem to respect the stories that came before them that being the originals and prequel’s. I once saw a video on why toy story four failed it’s characters. That’s another movie I don’t like but that’s a whole other story, but in the video the guy said something along the lines of “the writers were so obsessed with telling their own story they never stop and think how their story would affect the larger one as a whole kind of like what Rian Johnson did with Luke in the last Jedi”. One of the reasons I love the Jedi games is because one there made by genuine Star Wars fans and two even though they’re confined by the time they take place in both games never really act like they aren’t either…

I wish more people who made shows and movies cared about canon. We're going through "who cares about canon" in star trek as well right now so it just feels like all these great stories don't matter any more.

"Using the Star Wars name as a crutch." The Rings of Power comes to mind. What they did to the Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's work and lore was unforgivable.

Yes. The thing is "the story needs to be able to stand on its own" is the very most basic rule of ANY story-telling. Debra Chao trying to sell that as a pearl of great wisdom kinda angers me. A lot. Because from looking at almost all the Disney SW it's obvious that this is simply an excuse from the corporation and its lackeys for why they never bothered to learn the canon in the first place. Instead, they clearly hate the canon and those of us who want to see it respected. Ultimately, Doomcock is right again: Without respect, we reject! Btw, this is also true for Asohka. If Filoni isn't able or willing to integrate his new show with the OT where it would be necessary then it doesn't matter how much he professes to "love" the canon. You are what you do.

This was exactly my problem with Kenobi. They had Kenobi fight and defeat Vader a second time, he had him dead to rights, but only spared him because he needs to be alive for Episode IV. Nevermind that Kenobi felt all of Vader’s blood was on his hands, for letting Anakin live. Same goes for Kenobi and Leia becoming friends, and they act like all is well if she doesn’t tell anyone, but nevermind that there's dozens if not hundreds of witnesses to Obi Wan shoplifting Leia. Maybe think these things through a little better, like have the Inquisitors chase Obi Wan off, or have Qui Gon show himself during that battle. Maybe blow up the base Leia was rescued from, then have Obi Wan mindwipe her with the Force, or show a seedier side of the Organas where they use the mind flayer on her.

Disney and KK hired mostly people with HUGE egos and their only goal is to show how good they are, that they can do it better than George Lucas, that their vision is better and we all should clap, cheer, love them for what they do to make SW Universe better. Disney, KK and all those "creators" got a 🖕 from the fans who pay for all of this nonsens ... wait! Fans are paying less and less 👍

Another issue they have imo is making stories that don't neccesarily break canon, but weaken the overall story. This is why I had such a hard time getting into rebels for a while. It doesn't necessarily go against known star wars facts, but having their be 3 jedi (counting ahsoka) working with the rebellion for multiple years goes against the story being told in the OT.

You made one of the best arguments here. The canon is literally why they get to even tell these stories. Without the canon, without the stories that came before, Star Wars doesn't exist, this universe doesn't exist, there isn't this place for you tell stories like this. Rejecting, ignoring, or disrespecting the canon is just nonsense. And like you said, it's not hard to respect the canon, unless you just don't want to try in the first place. But it's also, like... someone else built this amazing story and this world that you now get to exist in. You don't get to just disrespect what they built for your own ends. It doesn't work that way. If you want to tell your own story free of constraints... do it somewhere else. Create something new. But if you respect the creator of Star Wars, and the story he created, while wanting to further that story or explore it more deeply with respect and dignity, then go for it. There are so many great stories people can tell while respecting the canon and the story that came before. It's not hard. They just have to want to, and to put in the effort.

Canon and quality of a story do not have to compete with each other. I like writing fanfiction and one of the most fun parts of it is the careful study of the world and the characters that exist in it. My desire to make my story as authentic as possible is part of the creative process. Wanting to stick to canon is what pushes me to make the story good.

“Canon? We don’t even know what that word means!” - Disney Ohnaka

I like the idea of alternate universes with existing IP that greatly change things, like Star Wars Visions or Deltarune. In fact, I'd like more such stories to include explicit counterparts to characters from the main universe, ideally with the same given names, who are vastly different. But if you act as if the events of past installments happened, you kind of have to respect characterization and worldbuilding, and arguably even past plot victories.

I think another problem happens when you ignore the canon. If it doesn't have to make sense then anything can happen and nothing matters. There are no longer and stakes because anything can be rewritten at any time. It's not even liking a specific canon but that the overall world needs to make sense and be consistent.

I had a debate with my friend over this, mainly about Rings of Power though. He is of the belief that, since fiction is "made up," there is no such thing as canon. My argument, which he scoffed at, was that with a canon, a series has grounding. Then you can pick it up anywhere, and have something to relate to with other fans who picked it up in maybe a different media or era. It becomes real, and has a tangible history. This guy I debated works for Hollywood, so I can see where he gets his ideas lol.

Yeah good point. The current writers don’t Want to make Star Wars stories they just want to do their own thing.

Disney has no respect for the canon. They keep rewriting it in order to try and make The Sequels make sense.

The issue is that they just simply don't respect the original material. Cause if they did they would still be able to write a good story and even have the cannon change in a respectful and courteous way. But we can unfortunately see by the way they do it there is no respect there and at times seems as if they actually hate the original material.

Hey Thor, I agree 100% I feel that the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, although had some cool moments of nostalgia really missed the boat on a lot of areas that did not honor the legacy of what was set up in a new Hope.

The people who don't understand the importance of canon aren't actually fans of anything. Every franchise is based on its own continuity in order for the stories of that universe to make any sense in context with all the other stories in that universe. Only morons tend to believe that canon is irrelevant.

I'd DEFINITELY choose the "poor" story that sticks to the Canon over the "great" story that breaks or completely ignores the Canon.

Here's Disney's ideology. Take everything that was already well written and established, and somehow make everything worse that creates nothing but plot holes and breaks canon.

Spot on. Also, whenever you mention the Kenobi series, you should mention the Kai Patterson cut that made it a great story with an awesome ending, considering the source material he had to work with.

Whether or not a change to Canon is acceptable depends on how important the event in question is to the characters, the plot, and the themes. My favorite example demonstrating this is Maul coming back in TCW vs Sidious coming back in RoS. Maul's death was not that significant for Kenobi's story, but Sidous's death was essential to the main character of Star Wars.

When some companies buy an IP (like Star Wars), they are under the illusion that they are buying the fan base, and that they have absolutely no obligation to the history of the "universe" of that IP. Then they wonder why people get so pissed off - after all, they *DID* spend the money to buy the fan base. Clearly the fan base has no right to complain about anything. And clearly (in their mind) the fan base must spend money on every new release which uses names&places from the original IP. It doesn't matter what happens in that release, the fans *must* buy it. Uh, no.

Cannon doesn't "get in the way" of telling a story....it's the rules for telling the story in that universe - don't do it, and it doesn't belong/fit/exist in that universe anymore. It's gravity, it's time, it's entropy, it's the core rules that frame what is and isn't possible (and acceptable). If the story comes into conflict with the cannon of the universe it is trying to exist in - it's time to rework your story or admit it's not part of that universe and that you now have an unique story that will require you to build your own cannon and universe. THAT is the core problem writers are facing - they are too lazy or incompetent to build their own - so they steal the work of others as a short cut. And when they find their work doesn't fit in what they stole, they break the rules as blithely as they stole. If you don't want to be seen as a hack and thief, try borrowing (respect the source material), if that doesn't work - create. Sadly - Hollywood has become thieves - they are stealing short cuts - they have no intention of borrowing from the work of others....they always intended to steal it.

Totally agree. I actually am not completely in agreement with some decisions that Lucas himself made within his films, but I take it as a lesson in taking the canon and lore even more seriously than he did then. It is a vey different matter though when your talking about him making ANH or even ESB and not having the knowledge that there would be the PT let alone all that followed. IOW, I can forgive his change of direction in things during the OT given the context of it all then. Now that it's such a massive and complex franchise we can easily see how it is critical that it all lines up and is PLANNED OUT, looking at you current Lucasfilm. I'm sure if George had any idea that this would all build up to what it is today he would have structured it a bit differently as well. That said it's also HIS world not someone else's that he is stepping into and playing around with. So I have different standards for them than I do for George. I would accept ANY ST that George had given us as REAL Star Wars even if I didn't care for it. Lucasfilm today I expect less of in terms of quality of story but I do demand strict discipline with the canon because it's not really theirs, no matter what some contract says.

There was a recent article on Yahoo about what movies received so much promotion but failed to make expectations, and the sequels (namely TFA) were mentioned. On this, someone wrote along the lines of "The Star Wars sequels was like reading an essay where a bunch of people collaborated, but each one wrote each paragraph without reading what came before, so you got one big jumbled up mess."

I was just thinking about this the other day. When GL was ready to sell SW to Disney, he should have included two clauses: 1. They would have to finish the saga using HIS stories for VII, VIII, and IX and nothing else. If not, breach of contract. And 2: They could not do "in-betweens" of his stories, UNLESS they wanted to adapt The Clone Wars (which oddly enough, Dave Phoney Filoni is basically doing on Disney÷). The fact that everything they've done over the last 10 years basically just reduced the original stories to nothing shows that somehow they've had it out for SW from the beginning. If I didn't know any better, it's almost as if Lucas went to Disney first with ANH and they turned him down causing him to bad mouth them or something. So they sat in the shadows in order to rise up one day against him and destroy his legacy as soon as they could...Disney = Sith 🤣 I have TONS of SW toys I've collected over the years and I don't look at them the same anymore. I've even considered parting ways with most of them because SW doesn't quite mean what it once did to me. It's sad. Disney is garbage for what they did to my guy George Lucas. They massacred my boy...

This whole Kenobi series was canon buster. Completely invaildated so many lines from Star Wars Ep 4. " I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. when I left you I was the learner, now I am the master". I sense something... a presence I haven't felt since... are a couple. If just 8 years ago you got you butt whopped, you'd remember the guy..

A big part of the problem is when one (relatively important) story goes off-track from canon the stories that follow need to either deviate further from canon just to maintain consistency with their direct predecessor or ignore their direct predecessor to get back on track with the main canon and essentially retcon the last thing. Either way, the risk of having a snowball effect of retcons just by figuring out how to follow a story that breaks canon is severe and that harms the overall lore and subsequent stories. This is basically what happened with the sequels, TFA ignoring/retconing the set ups of 6 paved the way for TLJ to do more damage to canon followed by 9 being even worse; let alone all the tie-in stuff (ex: rise of kylo comic) adding to the snowball

Another KZfaqr said, "If you love what Star Wars could be more than what it already is, you don't actually love Star Wars." I feel that fits this discussion about canon very well. Star Wars is what it is, it has its history and its established moments. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. But that's what we all fell in love with! It's the facts of that galaxy far far away. Now when you "adjust" or throw out canon to suit your own ideas of what would make it better you're actually helping destroy what made it a loved universe to begin with. Work within the canon, nudge a little here or there, expand it, but don't blow it up. Especially because it's inconvenient to *your* story. And your last point is so spot on; if you don't like what's been created you don't have to be a part of it. Do your own thing, create your own universe and stories! But sadly I think people just want to mooch the built in audience because otherwise their stories will probably never be heard. Again, sometimes that's for better or for worse.

When these shows don't respect canon, they start to feel like fan fiction. That's how feel about the Kenobi Series, it was interesting to watch and I enjoyed it by itself, but didn't feel right with a New Hope. Also why is Bail so insistent on Kenobi rescuing Leai when I think he is working with Ahsoka (Tales of the Jedi). I mean Kenobi says he is not up to the task.

Ultimately canon is important above all else. The subjective nature of a story and its reception should be second to it fitting in with the larger timeline. This now decade, if not longer, willful abandonment of a stories canon shows only disrespect to the source material and it’s creator(s). What I gather from writers, show runners etc in games and film is that their is a sincere lack of a mandate to make faithful entries in what are ultimately “inherited franchises” it’s increasingly becoming less about telling a fulfilling story within the predefined boundaries of a universe more so than it is about the desire to redefine what the franchise is in essence. I’m more devoted to Halo and I am Star Wars, but the same issues are at play. Coming off of Halo 5, the canon was destroyed, Brian Reed did no service to anyone by writing a paradigm shifting story that was inherently adjacent to the ethos of the universe itself. This lended itself to Infinite becoming a “soft reboot” which did its job well, but now there is once again little hope for further stories to build off of what Infinite presented. This is an industry wide problem, writers are more concerned about chasing tigers than they are about making faithful entries into the inherited franchises they now have creative leverage over.

One of your most insightful videos, Thor. I would say that "tell you own story and see how many people are interested" applies to vast majority of the content being added to established franchises. I'm a person who will readily form my own head canon, and when I realize that an IP is in the hands of people that care less about it than I do, I will not consider anything they produce part of the canon. For example, Star Trek, for me, ended after the last TNG movie (even though none of them were particularly good). It exceedingly obvious that Abrams and Kurtzman have never been Star Trek fans. Even with the last season of Star Trek Picard being written by someone who cares about the lore, at this point it is way too far removed from actual canon. That is my attitude about Star Wars, as well. For me, nothing has been canon since episode 3. I have heard good things about Andor, but I'd be more likely to care if it was a standalone sci fi series, rather than part of a franchise that is, to be honest, dead to me.

Well....thist is what HAPPENS when the head of Star Wars "claimed" that the source material "didn't exist"! 🙁🤷

Why do these people act like it's so damn hard to write for Star Wars and stay within the Canon. Not ever story told needs a Skywalker to be attached to it; there that opens the Canon up [almost infinitely] Just one simple rule: the head must come before the heart. The how the you get to the scene is more important than how cool the scene looks [something Johnson, Abrams and Filoni just don't understand]

100% agree here. The past 7 years or so if anyone has asked what my opinion on Star Wars has been I've always started by clarifying if they mean 'real Star Wars' or the 'Disney Star Wars FanFic' To my mind Disney Star Wars occupies a place on the Canon totem pole roughly equal with fringe sanctioned products. It's fan fic, not 'real' Star Wars.

Disney controls Star Wars. What they did to Luke Skywalker, the King Arthur of Star Wars, in The Last Jedi demonstrates that they don't give a crap about canon.

You are pretty much on-point, Thor - with one little exception: The tense of your statement. The canon WAS Star Wars. Up until the point when Lucasfilm's "leadership" decided to give it the Alderaan-treatment. Gleefully and repeatedly. And now, all that is left are ashes and apathy. And whichever personal collection of physical media of actual Star Wars fans still possess.

As someone who was a Star Wars fan since I was 4 or 5, introduced to it from my brother, the canon is irreparably damaged. There is no fixing the sequel trilogy. There is no fixing Jake Skywalker, there is no fixing Rey being a Marvel Superhero instead of a Star Wars character. There is no fixing the choice made by Grogu for merchandise sales. There is no fixing the choice to have filler episodes of the Mandalorian. There is no fixing the Kenobi series and the undermining of Leia's character, let alone the blatant ignorance of the canon. There is no fixing of any of it. We are faced with a choice of what we do and do not think is canon at this point as fans, a choose your own adventure where in order to know what content is part of your canon you have to watch it all, good and bad, and decide that there was no story for your character beyond a certain point. I'm hesitant to even explore the Ahsoka series as I think Filoni is too attached to her and too interested in, frankly, replacing Luke with her in the hearts of the fan base after the events of the sequel trilogy. There is a hole for many fans left by Jake Skywalker and I think he's trying to fill it, trying to make it up to them, and in the end it's going to be another forcing of a character we used to like into a role we never saw them in.

It’s really interesting to see how the 80s/90s Star Trek managed to keep the canon intact while adding good stuff to it, nowadays I often feel Hollywood has forgotten what a Writer’s Bible is.

Andor was pretty good

I have friends who have watched all the newest Star Wars stuff. New Trilogy, Kenobi, Book of Boba Fett, etc. They know I'm a Star Wars fan. When I tell them I hated it (for precisely the reasons you mentioned in this video), they legitmately do not understand. In their minds, Star Wars fan + Star Wars stuff = Happiness. When I try to explain, they just don't get it. And I know why. THEY aren't Star Wars fans. They just watch it, get some enjoyment out of it, and then move on to something else (Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, etc.), and they never re-watch Star Wars or even think about it ever again. I cannot do that. Because they have broken the canon, I'm furious about that. I'm heartbroken. And it's because I really care. My theory is that Disney does have some actual Star Wars fans that work on Star Wars content. But the majority are just creating content like they are making a sandwich: put the ingredients in the proper order and it's edible (not necessarily appetizing, but that doesn't matter; follow the formula). To few who make this "Star Wars content" actually care and the series is in a slow death spiral, destined for destruction. And when it finally dies, my friends won't care... for them, it was just content that was on at the moment.

That is me. My friend keeps telling me about all these new great star wars books and I just can't reconcile them with the books from the 80s and 90s that were thousands of hours of my childhood. The clear lack of respect for the characters and canon by the overlords at Lucasfilm has made me unwilling to want to taint those happy memories with the new works. Moreover the attitude from KK and RJ that holds the hardcore old school fan in contempt makes me unwilling to support their product, and then I get called x-ist for not wanting to be insulted. And I'm just over it. There's so many new great fantasy worlds out there, from Dresden Files and the Cosmere, to Michael J Sullivan's Elan and Benedict Jacka's Alex Verus. Why should I go where I'm not wanted, and where the story (which should be king) gets blown in any random direction without regard for previous or future novels?

The minute Obi-Wan met Lord Darth Vader in the Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries...mentally and emotionally, I was taken out of the experience, and the miniseries immediately became almost completely non-canon. Funny, what you said, Thor: IF Andor had not been taking place in The SWU, I would have stopped watching it, after episode 3. Regarding The Sequel Trilogy...I will most likely NEVER watch any of those 3 films again. They're definitely not Lucas-verse canon, in my eyes.

A big problem I’ve noticed in the newer Star Wars productions (aside from the problems other people can point out) is that they want to tell a story that wants to not be Star Wars, but at the same time they shoehorn in so much Star Wars stuff to try and draw fans in. That’s one of the problems with Kenobi. It could’ve worked better if they had that her kidnappers were random crooks trying to ransom her and Kenobi has to rescue her without revealing himself to the Empire, but they just had to include the Inquisitorius and Vader for the fanservice. That’s a similar problem The Mandalorian had in Season 3. Grogu was too marketable to be removed, so they brought him back and made the story revolve around Bo Katarn. It’s like the main characters are massive gravity wells that the rest of the galaxy revolves around. And it’s not impossible to have a good story that has nothing to do with established characters, or fits a different genre. Hell, The Mandalorian did just that in the beginning. It was a space Western about a grizzled wanderer having to take care of a toddler, with the only connection to established characters being that Grogu was the same species as Yoda. Knights of the Old Republic worked really well too, and it set itself long before Star Wars specifically so that it wouldn’t be bogged down by lore. Canon is important because it is the history of the series and it’s people. But you can still tell good stories without being trapped by it so long as you don’t contradict it. And the current writers can’t seem to do that because the fanservice of the canon is the only thing drawing people in. So they either use it as a way to prop up their version, or they create something so not Star Wars that people get turned off. Like that living boulder from the High Republic that’s just too dumb to work with Star Wars.

I just want to toss out that nothing in the SW umbrella needs to "feel like Star Wars." honestly, if that were the case, the only fans over ~12 years old would be developmentally disabled in some form or another, because what "feels like Star Wars" really is a different experience for different age groups and what each individual defined as "quintessentially Star Wars." in other words, if my first experience of SW was the Prequels, there's no way I'm watching all the SW I've seen from CW onward, and I am certainly not nearly as upset about the debacle of the Sequel trilogy as I actually was. I'd just shrug at it like another Michael Bay movie and get on with my life. This does not at all conflict or challenge the main point of this video, which is "respect the canon, s'il , vous, and plait." Second, the whole "feels like Star Wars" line creeps me out. Let's take up the Andor discussion again. I don't care in the least whether or not Andor "feels like Star Wars." It has absolutely zero responsibility to "feel like Star Wars." Frankly, the SW universe is vast with a multitude of shit going on, and if you strive to make something "feel like SW," you kinda end-up on the J. J. Abrams TFA loop of retreading the same scenes and stories over and over (fwiw, the TPM quite clearly copied the death star finale, but it was hard for that fact to cheapen the experience given all the other nonsense in that movie). My point is this: Andor doesn't need to feel like anything. It just needs to NOT FUCK with established lore. I was satisfied that it has not (at least in s1) done so. Off the top of my head, Mon Mothma is the only existing character in Andor(?), and she was a blank slate/statue in the OT. So long as she ends the series as the leader of the Rebel Alliance...pretty much fair game, imo. So once again to the main point of the video: respect the canon. If you want to tell your space wars story with laser swords and blaster guns, then cool, yo. do it. just don't call it Star Wars and force it into an existing narrative. Anyway, the point of my diatribe is that there's a metric poop-ton of room in the SW universe to make stories that feel absolutely nothing like Star Wars (Ep4) or Revenge of the Sith, etc. Just don't twist existing canon (myth) to do so, please and thank you.

I’ve been saying for a long time now that rogue one broke canon and now you realize this.

Welcome to Star Wars fandom circa 2014. Good to have you join us.

The importance of cannon is letting you know things.matter. If you have lightsaber cuts people in cannon and turn them into nerf bats... Then there will be issues. A lot of Star Wars stores these days only get sold because of the brand... Because it sucks and wouldn't be made if it was sold on its own merit.

I am at a point where I think they understand that lore or canon is important, they simply don't care. For one simple reason: if you just stop for a second and use your brain, it would be clear. Fans love the franchise as it is/was created. If you love a certain recipe, you don't really appreciate it if someone just changes core elements of it. Sure, you can add here or there, or change little things, and you might be able to improve it. But the core pieces of the meal should not be changed or it is not the same. You can't really make a curry if you leave out curry. It all comes down to the people at the top. They would need to get people that understand this simple rule, and get people accordingly. But they either get people that don't care (and you would know that beforehand, or at the latest if you get the rough script) or are actually looking for them. It is just insane. And yes, it is true that the story or character should work without the Star Wars lore. That is a very good baseline, what you have to do afterwards is put it INTO the lore that it works inside said established lore. If you do that, it will be loved I'd argue. Andor is a great example. The story would have worked in other franchises as well, but it was also integrated in the overall lore well enough that it worked. Looking forward I'd say the Acolyte is already dead on arrival for me. What actors and people involved said in interviews and what they focused on really told me this will be just another one of "those" Star Wars shows. And Ahsoka, well, I'd say there are some very alarming things in the trailer and also said by people, while it is not as bad as the Acolyte but... it is already moving in the same general direction so I am very wary of it. And if they even do make the new Rey movie, I think this will also propably not be profitable. Rey is not beloved because her movie series was poorly written and made, so it is already a tough salespitch. Add to that the fact that the same person is still in charge that made those movies fail, why would I think the other one would be any better now? Don't get me wrong, it could be, in theory, but I won't watch it on opening weekend and wait to hear what the movie is actually about and if it is worthy of my time. And I guess many more will do the same. So they don't even get the initial burst of money from it, so if it isn't great, people simply won't go after finding out.

Like if we had just had those brief scenes in Adaraan and not had the kidnapping subplot and just left it with brief cameo from Princess Leia, I think it would have been fine. But unfortunately we had to make her meet Obi Wan and have him abandon Luke and it really undermined the whole series.

That's the thing, novel authors carry the vast bulk of the success or failure of their novel themselves, and in addition the, I would argue, longer process of writing a novel (400+ page manuscript) as opposed to a movie script (90-150 pages), causes the author to pay more attention, and when working in an established universe, they tend to be more attentive to that, as well as usually having an interest in the "universe" in the first place. Tv and movies on the other hand, have a lot of studio execs, producers, directors, screenwriters, actors that are too focused on doing their own thing, or "making it their own," which can be a huge problem for big established universes like Star Wars, Trek, Who, etc.

It's easier to write a story without researching the canon. The writers are being lazy as much as anything else.

They understand. But understanding and caring about are two veeery different things.

Don’t forget “canon” has had numerous incarnations within Star Wars. Canon gets tossed out and reset from time to time. Previous examples of “canon” include: •the Alan Dean Foster novels, •the two Ewok movies, •the Ewoks cartoon, •the Droids cartoon, •the NPR Radio plays (which Lucas considered more complete story-wise than EpIV) •the Sunday newspaper comic strip, •the original ‘70s-‘80s Marvel Comics run, •the “multi-media” Shadows of the Empire spin-off that was much-hyped as canon, •the 2D animated Clone Wars series, also much-hyped as canon... •The Force Unleashed •”Expanded Universe” novels (so, do they make the Alan Dean Foster novels “less canon”?) •West End Games role-playing game (1987), which invented names for characters and vehicles and ships that were previously known by nicknames the FX department gave to creature masks and Fx models) •Star Wars Cusotomizable Card Game (1995-2001) took lore for an even deeper dive, zeroing in on background minutiae, and also having been published when Owen Lars was still Obi-Wan’s brother - but they meticulously researched lore and their presentation of it was all approved as Official by Lucasfilm).

It is when some non-fan throws all the main characters into out of character situations, killing some of them off just because they make the character they made up seem sketchy and bogus by comparison. The whole story becomes about the destruction of what went on in all previous stories. Both the "cannon" characters and the newly introduced characters become irrelevant.

Canon is important like a soap opera. You come back to see what happened next to our heroes. If there was no canon then you have what I like to call a self contained Bugs Bunny cartoon. In those cartoons, they do t reference earlier episodes and it’s like they met for the first time. (Ground Hog’s Day) When canon is ruined like a never mentioned Spock’s sister or the Force time travel thing. There’s no Prime Directive in Star Wars so what’s to stop anyone from changing things as they see fit. Bleeding lightsabers… It’s too much for me.

In any franchise or story etc, a lack of consistency is what will break immersion. People can scream as much as they like that “this is only a story, it’s not real, you shouldn’t care”, but in the end getting the consumer to care is how you make a franchise/series etc. And when the canon is broken, the story becomes pointless, consumer investment will die, there is no more escapism. Breaking canon is insulting to intelligence of the reader imo - it’s the writer saying “your opinions/your love on this matter dont matter more than what I want to do. You’ll shut up and consume like a brainless ape just because I said so” As you said, Andor blends it near perfectly. Ms Cho isn’t wrong, you need a good skeleton of character to put the Star Wars onto, but if there is no SW or if you show me you don’t care about SW, then why should I care enough to consume your content? It’s why when Filoni comes in and rewrites canon, I feel less endeared to him as a creator. When Disney put out their Ahsoka novel (which I enjoyed) but then 5 minutes later rendered it moot, it felt like my investment in the product was worthless (but I still enjoyed my reading) because it is no longer a part of the story I’m told to follow.

This is why I don't want that Dawn of the Jedi movie by Mangold. It sounds like he doesn't care about canon. He doesn't care about Star Wars. He cares mostly about himself. If this story of "biblical proportions" fails for the reasons you mentioned, it will have a bad ripple effect on all of Star Wars that makes me very nervous. That movie MUST fit that balance and stick to canon.

This does not apply to just Star Wars, but to basically any immersive narration from the beginning of time. There are stories that are meant too be just funny or symbolic or poetic and canon doesn't matter, you can rearrange stories and characters as long as they are faithful to their meaning, and then there are stories where you enter a world and (if the author has done a good job) care about the characters as if they were real people and in that case stories must be innerly coherent.

Whats the point of previous movies if they can be undone at the drop of a hat? You would no longer get any love, care or passion for any story telling cuz all the tension could be removed and undone at any point

It's 100% about respect. I can't remember if it was the writers of Avatar the Last Airbender or someone else, but they said that the more restrictions and rules you put on a story, the better a story you can write. I normally hear this in terms of world building and magic systems, but I think it applies to canon as well. These are the limitations you have to work with, what can happen? In the example of the Kenobi show, let's say for arguments sake that Obi Wan and Vader fighting directly would break canon. So if we follow that rule, they can't meet directly. We'll, what about a Force battle? What about Vader coming so close to finding him only for Kenobi to pull some trick out that overwhelms Vader so he can escape? I'm sure there are more options, but my point is there are a bunch of alternatives that you are now required to explore so that the canon is not broken. When creators make these decisions to break canon for the sake of their project, it always comes across to me as disrespectful. That they think whatever they are breaking isn't important enough to work around. This is not to say don't break canon whatsoever, but it is to say don't break it lightly. Disney's handling of this franchise has not earned the right to break canon at this point

I think the problem with your example is that a "not great" story that sticks to canon is still a great story because it is "part" of Canon, but a "great" story that breaks canon HAS to be BETTER than the Canon it breaks, or it won't sell ITSELF, but further than that it can no longer sell its own Canon, because if a fan doesn't buy the new shattered Canon, then they won't buy the next break, and if they don't prefer the old Canon, you still can't depend on them following the new canon if you choose to ignore the break.

The "rematch of the century" felt more like the "rematch of the month" in my personal opinion.

Yes. I was definitely done with Star Wars not making sense, ignoring or changing aspects of the original trilogy (unchanged) that I always admired. Andor was so much Star Wars and yet could have been compelling as another IP. It may have got more viewers had it not been Star Wars, in my opinion, because of the damage already done to the brand. Articulate and well made point sir, much appreciated!

I think the elephant in the room is that Lucas himself had trouble following canon. Certainly Leia remember her mother only to have her die in child birth stands out. But honestly even Vader being Luke's father smells of a retcon based on the words of Ben. If it's hard not to notice these, how much harder is it when another writer comes in and changes canon. I'd even go as far as adding the tenor of the newer projects betrays canon. From the sequels using cartoonish characters like General Hux and modern day dialouge "That's a big ass door" to the streaming shows with the edgier vibe.

I agree completely. In the path they are in we are going to reach a point where "Star Wars" will be reduced to telekinesis and laser swords because everything else will have been so watered down and genericized.

Ask yourself this would you even know about let alone watch Harvey Wienstien's personal assistants show if it wasn't attached to SW. Probably not.

Hey Thor, in my opinion George Lucas directing the prequels was a pretty logical descision he made. Initially George Lucas didn't want to direct the prequels, he approached Robert Zemeckis, Steven Speilberg, and Ron Howard. They all told him the same thing, "George, you should do it." So I don't think anyone can criticize George for not getting someone else to direct the prequels when that's what he tried to do initially. Plus, Ron Howard said it would have been "too daunting", probably because George would have kept on looking over their shoulders like he did with the two directors of Empire and Jedi respectively. I say it was logical because if all three of your best friends, who are reputable in the film industry believe in your ability for film making, and if you are going to be there everyday overseeing production, why not appoint yourself as director? We can all debate whether George Lucas is a good director or not, (I personally think he is) but to me it made the most sense for him to direct the prequels if he was that dedicated to telling his story.

Yes they do care about canon. Their canon, not what's legacy. Try to rewrite Rey into an actual life like character and look how they freak out.

Imagine if there was a hot dog stand that was a local favorite and was part of the local community for over 40 years. Everyone loves the hot dogs, and everyone respected the vendor selling them. Then new ownership buys it and starts selling to the community what they call hot dogs, but is actually pizza. The people go there for hot dogs, not pizza. So people get upset when they receive pizza, and they’re upset that their favorite local hot dog place has been replaced by pizza, and they stop going there. But the new ownership becomes furious with the locals for not buying their food and starts insulting them, and can’t figure out why they don’t want to buy their food anymore. They say they have the rights to the hot dog stand, and this is what hot dogs are now. “Why don’t people buy our hot dogs!?”. Yeah...that’s like Disney. (Sorry for the stupid analogy haha)

I mean, the fact that we need to have this discussion already tells everything about disney

Disney does not care about Star Wars, They just wanted to make content.

It depends on how it’s done. Some diversions from Canon don’t bother me if it’s done well and supports the narrative, like alterations to the timeline, as opposed to big changes like altering the personality of a major character.

In retrospect I think the right play for Disney's LF would have been to just do `Star Wars Story' films and series' like Mando. The only safe play was to avoid the core story ad characters altogether. I think they likely thought if they did that fans would reject their lack of core elements they already know. I can see that, but I think the only thing they have done that has really messed up things all around is the ST. It is a massive obstacle for all writers moving forward. to a lesser extent there is some canon fiddling that exists with Solo and the other stories as well, but much easier to work with or around. Rogue One and Andor took a nice safe path or method or playing with the existing core via an associated story but while staying away from the characters and elements within that core. They stuck to new characters doing their own thing away from all that even though it was connected to it. The details of how they go about their story are much more free and flexible without damaging the original story. Gilroy could give us a story about the Bothans in the same way and not effect ROTJ for example. He only needs to make a few key plot points consistent, but has lots of room to play with. I still think the ST was a massive mistake to even do at all. I would have just made George's story period, with him driving the ship the whole way, or not at all. Then just make more Star Wars Stories like Mando with unrelated characters almost entirely. My favorite thing next to the OT in Star Wars is Andor, so I can't just crap all over Disney's Lucasfilm altogether. They can and do get it right sometimes. Unfortunately they just haven't learned the formula of how they get it right or not. I think they need Thor as an advisor on all this. :)

Yes. It is the limitations of the box, and what we don't do, that define the quality of the art. I will add however, that our reaction when someone colors outside the lines also plays a significant role in subsequent work. In episodes I, II and III, Lucas broke his own implied canon by making the Clones the good guys rather than the bad guys. To me, this mattered a lot, as I had spent countless hours fantasizing about the shape of things to come in that universe. Upon viewing the movies however, everything felt upside down and disorienting. But like a good book, repeated visits revealed more and more, until I was able to fully digest the story. Unfortunately, the many loud negative reactions to these movies changed the future of the franchise, and Lucas did not want to continue. He passed the baton, and now it seems only those with supreme confidence dare accept it. Those who do seem to have a "f---- em" attitude, either deliberately crossing lines, or not paying enough attention to even know where the lines are. So I would advise we spend more time acknowledging the efforts of the many people who do things right, even in the worst stories, so that they may continue, and hopefully discover the correct way through the minefield.

The nail was hit on the head by you. You are 100% right.

I wholeheartedly agree! I personally feel like I’ve been robbed with the sequels more than the prequels. Having said that, when it comes to Obi Wan, I can enjoy the story without taking it too seriously. It reminds me when extra books or stories were written to tell good stories to the Bible even before canon was a concept.

About "good story, but breaking the kanon" vs "bad story, but keeping on with kanon" - we haven't seen the first case yet. Instead, we've seen multiple cases of "bad stories breaking the kanon".

Hey Thor, thanks. If the Star Wars universe was a house that Lucas built. Andor seems to be, based on what you've said, a pleasant addition like a conservatory. Otherwise, at best, most everything else hass been a horrid, albeit in isolation, consistent addition. Like adding a glass and steel roof to a Victorian town house (well made, but doesnt fit). At worst, a bulldozer directly through a load-bearing wall. Unsurprisingly, the house looks hideous and is collapsing and many reminisce about what it was.

I'm starting to wonder if the studios even know how to leave the proverbial soap box behind when venturing into pre-established sand boxes.

A big reason for this is writing schools. Academic types usually despise the idea of a larger canon, and think all stories should be self-contained, since the larger a story gets, the more restrictive it becomes and only serves to kill creativity. Not to mention that they consider lore to be a shallow and pointless endeavour, since in writing, theme is supposed to be the point of writing itself.

Haha the extended time spent on Roundface' picture

This isn’t just a Star Wars issue. It seems to permeate many of the beloved IP’s. Take Doctor Who. Chris Chibnall made a massive decision that basically rewrote the basis for the Doctor in his absurd Timeless Child episode. It destroyed nearly 60 years canon and show history just to satisfy the ego of the show runner. I’ve completely given up on watching post Calpaldi Who. I’m not there yet with Star Wars, but I can feel it coming.

Canon is continuity. And continuity is accepting consequences. So violating canon means ignoring consequences. But it is consequences that give us narrative. We need cause and effect or else it’s just something happens and then something else happens. And that is boring.

I keep repeating it. There are those that want to enhance THE story, and those that want to enhance THEIR story. How they view the franchise is entirely dependent on if they view it as telling a story within said IP, or telling their story via using the IP. It shows a lack of creativity that you need to adjust the established source material to make your point when you have the freedom to build on it and do damn near anything you want.

No disagreement here, Thor. Your summary - it's the canon that gives Disney the opportunity to tell their stories - is a spot on assessment. As So Uncivilised said, "if you like Star Wars for what you think it can be rather than for what it is... then you don't actually like Star Wars".

They missed a great opportunity to have a young leia traveling around with her adoptive parents, learning how to navigate and subvert the bureaucracy while gaining valuable life and leadership skills...

The Canon star wars needs right now is a turbolaser to blast all the hack writers and producers holding it hostage.

What it has become a trend with the directors of Star Wars show is that we have two groups: group a respects the canon and we have shows like andor, the mandalorian, the clone wars, and the bad batch and to some extent episode 7. We then have group b who doesn’t respect the canon and give a shit on it and those include episodes 8 and 9 (yeah jj respected the canon in episode 7 to a degree then went nuts in episode 9 because of episode 8), the director here of kenobi and boba fett. The rebels series i can’t catalogue it as I haven’t seen it but of what I’ve heard it seems to respect the canon so it’s in group a but take this one with a grain of salt. Directors in group b claim that it’s hard to make a Star Wars project mainly because of the fans but in reality it’s because they can’t stay true with the canon. They don’t respect what prior directors/ writers have done with those characters in the past because they want to do something with them that it’s originally theirs. And that’s ok to have that idea of making a original idea out of the work of someone else. A clear example is Luke. Luke had established lore that in a way made him yeah predictable on how he was going to act. Rian Jonson could have written a luke that was similar and also one that would be his own. Yeah, you could have had the same old decrepit luke we had but when asked to come and join the fight, instead of dying from a force stroke have him redeem himself by rejoining with the good people. He instead wrote a defeated, decrepit Luke without any clear reason other than he thought the Jedi and sith were causing this shit and that he almost killed his nephew because of bad dreams. And to top it off, kill him in the most pathetic way. We had a similar trope here with obi wan. Old, decrepit hermit that not only he failed to prevent evil by not killing Darth Vader when he had the chance but do stupid shit and also somehow paint him as a villain by that inquisitor who targeted Luke and leai. Like if you think about it, the whole reason why Luke and leai were in danger was because of OBI WAN! Not because they were randomly targeted but because a person seemed to connect the dots, the dots that somehow nobody connected the 20 or so years that the empire reigned that “hey, bail used to be friends with one of the most wanted jedi there is… let’s question him to see if he has some answers as to his whereabouts” like wtf 🤦🏻‍♂️

How can you expect people who don't respect NATURE'S CANON of male and female to respect the Star Wars canon? These people don't believe in rules-based systems. Everything is momentarily relative. Fuck any logic or continuity.

I just watched a video on how Minecraft is so successful because they had basic firm principles that have never been violated.

Canon prevents them from writing whatever they want. Remember, the writer of Obi-Wan complained it was hard to write because of canon and was annoyed when they found out Obi-Wan knew Anakin was Vader

they do understand, they just don't care. they have a bunch people who never liked star wars on every project.

Andor built upon the rebellion being created in the deleted scenes from Revenge of the sith with using the foundation built by Lucas but instead of ruining it they added more and didn’t rush it indeed that’s fresh

2:03 - To which I said: _"In other words, it obliterates it"_ Hahahaha, I'm glad we agree on that point 🤣