It’s the ‘rocks in the stream’ approach to editing. We’re editing now within an absolute flowing torrent of new content and canon. Our edits, the rocks, can cause minor diversions - to minimise cringe, to restructure for impact, to emphasise and de-emphasise - but ultimately that water is going to flow in the same direction. Our starts and ends, and all of our main beats, have to fit within that flow, otherwise the franchise (and the potential FUTURE franchise) doesn’t work as a coherent whole. For example, I’m really against Rey being a Palpatine. I’d love a Nobody cut. But I know that sooner or later there’s going to be some new media - Rey’s Jedi Academy, Mandalorian 2.0, whatever - that references Rey Palpatine, and in order to enjoy that new bit of content we’re going to have to accept Rey Palpatine. So I’ll always edit towards preservation of the FRANCHISE canon, over canon from any one source - and I think that’s necessary in order that fanediting doesn’t become a Sisyphean effort. And in this case, I think the franchise now says “Those guys knew each other, which raises some awkward questions in the OT.”
That’s just me though, and I can understand people wishing it weren’t so enough to make it so.
Agree with every word of this. I mean, it’s a PT-derived product so evidently is going to have some minor contradictions with the OT. One could even say that the retcon of Anakin having a Padawan or Maul surviving have no basis whatsoever in what was depicted so far in the PT. But in the end it all amounted to a solid TV show that redeemed the prequel era for many fans including me.