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Do you accept everything as Canon or do you pick and choose?
Jesse James:
Lucasfilm has said that everything is part of the "official continuity", but not canon, Lestat. So basically they've said your one suggestion... It's the films, and the rest is just part of the "continuity" (until they decide it isn't). You can choose to indulge in it if you want, or you can avoid it if you want. But only the films are something that can't be questioned, more or less.
Canon is what Lucas deems as such, nothing else is, and to me I'd say even that is open to debate at this point (hey, if he can dismiss anything LFL approved all willy nilly, why can't we dismiss even **** he writes? ;D). "Canon" is ultimately what you make it in your mind I think, and you can pick/choose whatever you like. However, the official stance from Lucasfilm has always been that Lucas has the only say on "canon", and everything else falls under their big catch-all "Official Continuity" stuff.
It's on SW.com if you want to see it. Just do a search. "Canon", everything is not.
Lestat:
I actually did what you suggested and googled "Star Wars" Canon. What I found was that there are levels of Canon with the movies taking ultimate precedence. EU is considered to be Canon, however if it contradicts something that has a higher level of presidence (like the movies) then the movies trump.
"By 1996, Licensing was keeping an in-house bible of reference materials as the volume of publications, facts, and figures grew to such unwieldy proportions that it became difficult to know everything relevant to a particular project. They finally decided something had to be done to organize the increasingly large collection of media which chronicled the Star Wars universe. A system of canon was developed that organized the materials into what was and wasn't fit for the Star Wars story.
In 2000, Lucas Licensing appointed Leland Chee to create a continuity tracking database referred to as the "Holocron". As with every other aspect having to do with the overall story of Star Wars, the Holocron follows the canon policy that has been in effect for years.
The Holocron is divided into 5 levels (in order of precedence): G-canon, T-canon, C-canon, S-canon, and N-canon.
G-canon is absolute canon; the movies (their most recent release), the scripts, the novelizations of the movies, the radio plays, and any statements by George Lucas himself. G-canon overrides the lower levels of canon when there is a contradiction. Within G-canon, many fans follow an unofficial progression of canonicity where the movies are the highest canon, followed by the scripts, the novelizations, and then the radio plays.
T-canon[1] refers to the canon level comprising only the two television shows: Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the Star Wars live-action TV series. Its precedence over C-Level canon was confirmed by Chee.[2]
C-canon is primarily composed of elements from the Expanded Universe including books, comics, and games bearing the label of Star Wars. Games and RPG sourcebooks are a special case; the stories and general background information are themselves fully C-canon, but the other elements such as character/item statistics and gameplay are, with few exceptions, N-canon.
S-canon is secondary canon; the story itself is considered non-continuity, but the non-contradicting elements are still a canon part of the Star Wars universe. This includes things like the online roleplaying game Star Wars: Galaxies and certain elements of a few N-canon stories.
N-canon is non-canon. "What-if" stories (such as stories published under the Star Wars: Infinities label), crossover appearances (such as the Star Wars character appearances in Soulcalibur IV), game statistics, and anything else directly contradicted by higher canon ends up here. N-canon is the only level that is not considered official canon by Lucasfilm. A significant amount of material that was previously C-canon was rendered N-canon by the release of Episodes I-III.
Leland Chee continues to answer questions about the Holocron in the Holocron continuity database questions thread at the starwars.com forums."
On August 4, 2004, when asked if the G and C-levels formed separate and independent canon, Chee responded by stating that both were part of a single canon: "There is one overall continuity."
So it's not quite as simple as the films are canon and everything else is not. The EU is canon unless it contradicts the TV show or the movies. "Official Continuity" and Canon mean the same thing so that's really double talk. What's approved by Lucasfilm is canon, it's just a matter of what level of precedence that canon takes over the rest. I agree with you though that ultimately whatever Lucas says is canon is canon.
JediJman:
Look at all the detail behind levels of canon. Like I siad, pretty silly debate.
Lestat:
--- Quote from: JediJman on February 3, 2011, 02:16 PM ---Look at all the detail behind levels of canon. Like I siad, pretty silly debate.
--- End quote ---
The debate is as silly as caring about Star Wars at all. Grown men collecting toys and dressing up as Boba fett is silly too but it is fun. In the same vein, debating the nuances of a galaxy far, far awy may be silly but it is also entertaining to talk about. Isn't that the point of having the forum? :)
Jesse James:
--- Quote from: JediJman on February 3, 2011, 02:16 PM ---Look at all the detail behind levels of canon. Like I siad, pretty silly debate.
--- End quote ---
Exactly...
The point is that they put those "levels" of canon in because NOT EVERYTHING IS CANON! It's like saying, "well if it fits and George doesn't contradict it, then it's canon".
That's lame. That's a cheesey way they've come up with trying to end these "what's canon" debates on nerd forums. They've always said their "Official Continuity" was all one story they intend to fit together... That's essentially what they're saying here too. What I said is just as true now as ever, they've just now decided to try making "levels of canon". Lame. But it doesn't make what I said any less true at all.
Everything's part of their "official continuity" as it was known, and now it's all part of their "official canon"... unless of course it contradicts something Lucas says. If it does, then Lucas denies it, and it now no longer fits into the canon's highest level. :) It's the same thing!
And it's why arguing about it is lame, haha.
Everything's basically official till Lucas says, "I don't like that, I need more money, and I'm going to rewrite that whole thing". Then someone at LFL tries really hard to cram them together so they make sense. It's why I, and most other people I know who care about EU stuff at all, basically just pick and choose what they like and ignore the rest of it. What you like can easily be written over at some point.
If someone wants to argue the fine points of The Old Republic era with you and you hate all the EU from that era though, how do you argue what's real and what isn't about a fictional universe that can be rewritten at its creator's whim? It's pointless.
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