BiggsFan44 said:
Good perspective. Just to clarify, I’m also talking about the idea of certain pieces of the canon not respecting other pieces even though they are supposed to be 9 parts of one story, which is slightly different from recasting etc.
On the topic of Trek, it’s funny that you mention scale, since now that I know that the saucer set in First Contact was not full size it bugs me, even though you can’t tell in the film that it is only 70 percent of the full size.But Star Wars has been disrespecting its own canon from day one. In the first film Luke, who had an obvious crush on Princess Leia, was the son of a war hero who’d been killed by Darth Vader. In the next film Lucas suddenly decided Vader was actually Luke’s father. Then he decided that Leia was Luke’s sister, the Emperor was a different bloke to the one we’d seen in Empire, and Luke had supposedly been ‘hidden’ at the family homestead and with Dad’s old surname intact no less! I haven’t even started on the prequels yet!
“Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?”
“Uh, well, ‘remember’ is such a strong word…”
I’m really not being clear, apparently.
That’s not the kind of disrespect I’m talking about. Lucas retconning his work doesn’t mean that he disagrees with those works, it just means he thought up a new story element.
For example, George does not feel about ANH the way JJ feels about the PT, I’m sure.What I’m getting out of this thread is that you don’t like Abrams/Johnson/the ST and want an echo chamber to complain about them under the guise of a discussion about coherent canon in a franchise that spans decades, and you jump down anyone’s throat who says even a slightly nice thing about the ST or a slightly critical thing about the OT/PT/Lucas.
Shame, because the topic of cohesiveness in a long-spanning canon is an interesting one. Wish I could actually discuss it here.
I don’t think that’s what you’re actually getting out of the thread, because it isn’t what I’m saying.
The OT was first, the PT came next and was made by the same guy, who attempted to graft on an expansion of the original story by making Luke’s father’s journey an inverse of Luke’s.
The ST is being made by people who can be assumed to strongly disagree with elements of the PT, and make movies that reflect that.
For example, Infinity War feels like a modern blockbuster- using all the tech at its disposal to craft a HUGE story.
Or even look at Solo and Rogue One- they’re shot with digital cameras.
But everything TFA does (cloning a resource limited movie from 1977 being a big one), is a condemnation of the last movies in the saga before it, real life-time wise.
Now, this isn’t even about whether TFA is better or worse than the PT, really. I’m simply asking- How are we supposed to believe that Episode 7 is the continuation of a collection movies that it is telling off half of?
BiggsFan44 said:
Good perspective. Just to clarify, I’m also talking about the idea of certain pieces of the canon not respecting other pieces even though they are supposed to be 9 parts of one story, which is slightly different from recasting etc.
On the topic of Trek, it’s funny that you mention scale, since now that I know that the saucer set in First Contact was not full size it bugs me, even though you can’t tell in the film that it is only 70 percent of the full size.But Star Wars has been disrespecting its own canon from day one. In the first film Luke, who had an obvious crush on Princess Leia, was the son of a war hero who’d been killed by Darth Vader. In the next film Lucas suddenly decided Vader was actually Luke’s father. Then he decided that Leia was Luke’s sister, the Emperor was a different bloke to the one we’d seen in Empire, and Luke had supposedly been ‘hidden’ at the family homestead and with Dad’s old surname intact no less! I haven’t even started on the prequels yet!
“Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?”
“Uh, well, ‘remember’ is such a strong word…”
I’m really not being clear, apparently.
That’s not the kind of disrespect I’m talking about. Lucas retconning his work doesn’t mean that he disagrees with those works, it just means he thought up a new story element.
For example, George does not feel about ANH the way JJ feels about the PT, I’m sure.Lucas absolutely retconned his work because he disagreed with earlier works. If you don’t believe me, go purchase an official Blu Ray release of the unaltered OT and tell me who shot first.
Closer, but still not what I’m talking about since he didn’t change Han’s character in the sequels, just superseded it in the movie it happened in.
The CANON isn’t at war with itself in that instance because only the SE is currently canon.The point I’m making is that Star Wars has never truly had a cohesive canon. Only ANH and TESB make total canon sense (obviously TESB not having to answer its own questions is an advantage!) but from there on its the proverbial dog’s breakfast. We all have our own canon boundaries as a result. For me things start getting ridiculous as early as RoTJ. For you it’s clearly anything that negates the PT. Some just relax into the overall story (like Yotsuya’s wonderful post) and disregard cgi/puppet disparities and/or niggling details. Abrams himself has publicly claimed that ‘Han shot first’, so he clearly doesn’t care that the SE is ‘official’ canon. Rian on the other hand happily calls Palpatine ‘Sidious’ and drops some clear PT homages in TLJ. To each their own. Star Wars ‘canon’ is like a buffet. Choose the bits you like.
I agree with you in practice, it’s more of a logical problem for me. It’s like, Episode 7 kind of implies an embrace of the previous 6 movies.
It’s like if Harry Potter 7 was clearly a response to the percieved failings of the first 3 Potter movies.