What do think of the EU and what do you accept as Star Wars canon?

If this has already been addressed in another thread, please direct me to it.

I recently adopted the view that the entirety of Star Wars canon was really an embellished history of what happened, not what "actually" happened. That would explain wonky Star Wars physics, ridiculously short travel times, continuity errors, inconsistencies, etc. So I include all formally accepted canon as canon, but don't regard it as infallible and completely accurate.

I would love to hear what everyone else includes in their personal canon, so fire at will!

Pre-ROTJ publications are canon to me. Everything published after that becomes dubious.

I have mixed feelings on the EU; I like a fair sized portion of the EU written prior to TPM's release - though a lot of the novels released during the 90's are pretty poor stuff - but I haven't much love for the modern EU due to all the prequelisms and comics-styled "event" storylines that have infected it.

As for what I consider canon, here is my more-or-less comphrensive guide to it

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/What-do-think-of-the-EU-and-what-do-you-accept-as-Star-Wars-canon/topic/16048/

If you just want a brief overview, though, then it goes something like this:


CANON

A fanedit of the OT that exists only inside my head.

My own alternate version of the PT that exists only inside my head.

Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Willow.


DEUTEROCANON aka SECONDARY CANON

A large portion of the pre-May 19, 1999 EU.

A small portion of the post-May 19, 1999 EU.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Most of the Indiana Jones comic books.

THX 1138.

I absolutely hate the EU. It twists the meaning of the movies in every way it can. Worse, some fans seem to want the sequel trilogy to be consistent with it!!!!!!!!!! I would run out of the theater if the sequel trilogy is consistent with the EU.

I would prefer they made good movies than follow the EU, but if they can make a good movie while maintaining consistency with the EU, then that's even better! But the chances of that are slim, so I just hope the sequels are better than the prequels now that George Lucas is only some kind of correspondent.

Some EU novels out there are pretty good though, so even if they mess with other Star Wars, they make a good read on their own. Among my favourites are The Old Republic series and the Thrawn Trilogy.

My personal canon is the original unaltered trilogy including the Return of the Jedi story conferences in which Lucas explained that Anakin didn't know his wife was pregnant (therefore her pregnancy had nothing to do with his reasons for turning to the dark side), and that his wife survived the pregnancy and took Leia to Alderaan and died when Leia was very young but still old enough to reasonably have vague memory of her (only Luke was separated at birth).

In my canonical interpretation, Yoda was Obi Wan's master who trained him to be a Jedi (I reject the idea that it was someone else like The Phantom Menace claims). Also in my canon, Obi Wan decided to train Anakin on his own, not to keep a promise to someone else.

I find EU to be very interesting and I like parts of it, but besides my interpretation of unaltered trilogy and those Jedi conferences, there is literally nothing else I consider "canon."

There are so many inconsistencies between the prequels and the OT and the EU and the movies that you can't really accept official canon as "true" Star Wars canon. Hence my interpretation that basically everything Star Wars (maybe except for most of the OT) isn't exactly what happened, and the details have been mixed up, since everything happened so long, long ago in a galaxy far away :P.

I don't care for "canon". At all. As for why I don't care about canon, why would I care about canon?

darklordoftech said:

I don't care for "canon". At all. As for why I don't care about canon, why would I care about canon?

I guess canon sometimes takes away from the enjoyment of Star Wars. Especially since not all canon is worth reading/seeing and sometimes it makes you want to forget about the whole thing (ex. the Star Wars Holiday Special, which is somehow considered canon).

The only thing I consider canon are the original three unaltered movies (ANH, ESB & ROTJ). I consider the prequels to be EU, and I consider EU to be nothing more than fan fiction.

Calling the PT fan fiction is disingenuous ...

... to fan fiction.

The EU repeats the same story over and over, just like The Legend of Zelda. Specifically:

Many characters, general events and places from the EU are practically "canon" to me. The details of these events and places are not necessarily "canon", though.

The most important characters are: Kyle Katarrn, Jan Ors, Jacen, Jaina and Anakin Solo, Mara Jade, Thrawn, Talon Karrde, Ben Skywalker, Hobbie Klivian, Tycho Celchu, Gavin Darklighter and Corran Horn.

Places: Corellian System with Correllia, Talus, Tralus and Centerpoint Station. Nar Shadaa and Nal Hutta.

Stories: Tales of the [Mos Eisley Cantina, Bounty Hunters, Jabba's Palace]. The Empire became the New Republic after ROTJ, but not all of it: Former Rebels fight warlords and bandits that have snatched what the Empire left behind.

I do NOT consider canon: Dark Jedi (including Starkiller), post-ROTJ Sith such as Darth Talon etc., Yuzhaan Vong, darksabers, Han almost losing Leia to someone else, superweapons, Clone Emperors,  Ssi-ruuk, ...

The rest, I don't care either way.

Darth Lars said:

Many characters, general events and places from the EU are practically "canon" to me. The details of these events and places are not necessarily "canon", though.

That's pretty much the way I feel about it.

Maybe these are embellished stories based on information found in a time capsule from a now dead galaxy.

Scientists took devices from the capsule and reverse-engineered a lightsaber (the experiments are rough; the saber blade stays on for a few seconds, flickers out). "Jedi Knights" are the hypothetical warriors who would have wielded these. Translators worked tirelessly on a holographic card with scattered reports of war with an Empire and a devastating weapon. We have names of people, planets, species, technology, but it's difficult to piece it all together into something coherent. For all we know, Luke, Leia and Han lived in different time periods and never actually met.

I'm fully sane, but playing make-believe. If SW was based on historical events from a different galaxy such as in the opening line, then realistically the truth would be a mixture of fascinating and outright disappointing.

The Virgin Mary probably wasn't a drop-dead gorgeous supermodel dressed in blue and white. She would've been an everyday woman.

I kind of think that way too. My personal canon includes the basic story-line, so it is not specific enough that Adywan's edit and the SE contradict each other.

What I consider to be my "canon" for ANH is that a farmer boy on a desert planet acquires two robots who are carrying technical readouts for a battle station constructed by an evil galactic empire. The empire tracks down the robots and kills the boy's family (the boy is away with the droids at the time). A friend of the boy who was once a famous Jedi and is now in hiding decides to take the boy with him to deliver the droids to a rebel base when he discovers that the droids are carrying the plans. They hire a smuggler to fly them to the base, but when they arrive, the planet on which the base was located and has been destroyed by the battle station. Their ship is captured, but they manage to exit the ship in disguise. The Jedi goes to disable the tractor beam holding the ship in place, and the boy and the smuggler end up rescuing a key leader of the rebellion who is on the station. The Jedi disables the tractor beam, but is killed, and the rest of them escape on their ship. They travel to another rebel base and form a plan to disable the battle station. The battle station arrives to destroy the rebel base, but is destroyed. I don't consider anything more detailed than that outline to be definite canon.

darklordoftech said:

The modern EU repeats the same story over and over, just like The Legend of Zelda. Specifically:

1. Jedi and Republic are complacent and believe the Sith to be extinct
2. The Sith, who were defeated long ago, corrupt someone and take over
3. The Sith are betrayed by a high-up apprentice, saving the day

RicOlie_2 said:

I kind of think that way too. My personal canon includes the basic story-line, so it is not specific enough that Adywan's edit and the SE contradict each other.

What I consider to be my "canon" for ANH is that a farmer boy on a desert planet acquires two robots who are carrying technical readouts for a battle station constructed by an evil galactic empire. The empire tracks down the robots and kills the boy's family (the boy is away with the droids at the time). A friend of the boy who was once a famous Jedi and is now in hiding decides to take the boy with him to deliver the droids to a rebel base when he discovers that the droids are carrying the plans. They hire a smuggler to fly them to the base, but when they arrive, the planet on which the base was located and has been destroyed by the battle station. Their ship is captured, but they manage to exit the ship in disguise. The Jedi goes to disable the tractor beam holding the ship in place, and the boy and the smuggler end up rescuing a key leader of the rebellion who is on the station. The Jedi disables the tractor beam, but is killed, and the rest of them escape on their ship. They travel to another rebel base and form a plan to disable the battle station. The battle station arrives to destroy the rebel base, but is destroyed. I don't consider anything more detailed than that outline to be definite canon.

Cool way of looking at it, Ric! Leaves plenty of room for ambiguity.

And allows a guy to ignore stupid detailed explanations of why the wrong arm ended up on the floor in the cantina scene or the fact that half the galaxy is related to each other and the same five people are involved in every major conflict and event over a period of fifty years.

Oh, and it means that I can wipe Jar Jar out of my canon or give him a completely different personality if I so wish. According to my canon, there is no contradiction because everything is just a different interpretation or an embellishment of the "real" story. So details don't matter, and I can enjoy two separate EU books that completely contradict each other and include both in my personal canon. And of course the prequels were just a shoddy telling of the story, they aren't the story itself.

So to sum it up, I just view Star Wars as a telling of a story, not the literal facts about what happened in the Star Wars universe. And of course that is just to serve my own imagination...not because I've gone wacko and think this is all real :)

RicOlie_2 said:

And allows a guy to ignore stupid detailed explanations of why the wrong arm ended up on the floor in the cantina scene