Canon Difficulties #1: A Critique of the "subjectivity of the EU"
Disclaimer: This only applies to Legends
The "EU is subjective". This is a claim; I constantly hear when discussing star wars. It particularly shows up in regards to Anakin wank. There are two quotes I have seen which supposedly purport this notion.
Leland claims in this quote that the EU serves as a "foggy mirror" of true continuity. I think the question asked was certainly leading, but regardless Chee contradicts his superiors and himself. Sue Rostini, Chee's former boss, has stated,
This certainly does not come across as a foggy mirror of the genuine artifact. But, Rostoni is not alone in her advocacy for the EU's canonicity and validity. Perhaps, the most viable source on this topic is Howard Roffman. Howard Roffman is the creator and approver of the EU. He serves as 2nd in command to Kathlene Kennady and has intimate knowledge of canon and the universe as a whole.
Roffman served as Lucas's right-hand man for over 30 years his knowledge on this subject is undoubtedly reliable. We also have Chee's predecessor Allan Kausch who had advocated for the EU's validity. I mentioned up above that Chee has contradicted himself, and this patently true. Here are multiple quotes by Chee which disavow the notion of parallel universes.
This next quote is the most damning.
Chee has also said there is only one continuity.
But George actually does try to bind himself to the material.
And as previously mentioned Lucas is involved in basically every major decision.
And to quote Lucas,
Lucas was especially active in the early-stages of the EU. Every darkhorse comic being approved personally by him. I hope this clears up some misconceptions.
Well, the idea of it being a foggy mirror just is not corroborated by the vast majority of quotes. Chee has stated that there is no g-canon rather its all one thing. And Roffman says its completely accurate to Lucas's vision. And Ant has spoken about the subjective stuff.
That doesn't contradict the foggy mirrors idea, which maps onto the real world pretty well; different sources of evidence in real life also have varying levels of accuracy (e.g. DNA testing vs. eyewitness testimony) that each help us paint different approximations of the "truth". Likewise, we know that the foggy mirrors model works to some degree at the very least because sources will literally give different lines of dialogue for the same events and we presumably know that the Star Wars universe doesn't really look like, say, a cartoon or animation.
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Welp, due to the fact that most EU-during/post movies follow Lucas' vision is sort of subjectivity. Only TOR is free of Lucas' canon because it doesn't conflict with his characters.
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Chee has said that there is only one continuity. There are no different levels. the G-canon idea is a myth as I will discuss in my next blog. It is meant to be directly accurate and they are constrained by Lucas completely. To quote Howard Roffman,
We wanted to send a clear message to our fans that everything we do is part of that overall saga.” ~Howard Roffman, Executive Vice President, Franchise Management.
There is no variance in continuity. The only source that is more valid then the rest is the movies. There is just one continuity. The EU is not a foggy mirror of Lucas's true vision. It is a direct representation, as confirmed by Lucas's right-hand man.
That there's one continuity doesn't mean that everything is perfectly accurate for reasons I provided (e.g. how do you deal with conflicting descriptions of equivalent events? Is the Star Wars universe constantly transitioning between cartoon and live action color schemes?)
Besides, if our metric is Lucas's vision (mine isn't, but yours appears to be) I don't think him "approving" a random NJO book put on his desk one morning is the same as him actually directing and meticulously revising one of the movies.
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How you mentioned differing dialogue, but that is just an error on the continuity editors, but the sources themselves are all equal in value and are all accurate with the films.
Alright a few things, the differing dialogue is poor continuity editing. Lucas was involved in each NJO book, every big EU event, and looked at every dark horse series.
I doubt it. The RotS novelization for instance was line-edited by Lucas and yet has drastically different retellings of events that would be trivial to just match to the movie (thankfully Stover didn't do that) - some of the different dialogue and events he uses are obviously not like him misremembering RotS or misreading the script lol.
Um sure you're welcome to believe that Lucas cared about Legacy of the Force: Fury as much as he did about Revenge of the Sith.
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So all sources are equal, but some are more equal than others?
Yes but since you acknowledge there isn't 100% accuracy, obviously some sources get more attention than others, which is the point - it's a relative scale, not a black or white thing, even if that's by imperfection rather than design.
I do suppose you've reneged on the TFU-exaggerated argument then.
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Howard Roffman admits in 2017 video interview that Lucas would not allow there to be one Star Wars Universe. It won't let me post the link because I'm new just go to youtube and use 'Messing with a Classic — Howard Roffman, Lucasfilm, 2017 interview.' - Quotes from it below
They were seperate universes and Lucas did not care, he did what he wanted and he most certainly did not consider the EU canon. I've got tons of quotes but lets start with the Roffman video and the Dave Filoni video where he says Lucas only considered the 6 movies and the Clone Wars series canon and that Lucas Licensing lied about it being 'canonical'.
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"That was one of my mandates, when I began the spin off publishing program it
was a sacrosanct rule that everything had to relate to each other, be
consistent with each other and be consistent with the movies, 'which were
canon.'
We were pretty religious about doing that, our biggest problem was a guy named George Lucas, because he didn't buy into the spin off fiction and the game program and all the 'alternate universe' we were creating."
We wanted it to be one universe,we felt strongly that that's what it needed to
be, but George as the filmmaker didn't want to be beholden to somebody else's
creative vision.
So we would have very interesting skirmishes because we had a bunch of stuff
that became, for the fans, pretty much canon [head-canon] about what happened
after Return of the Jedi, what different places in the galaxy were called, lots of different things and if he was proposing to do something in the prequels that contradicted that we would have long debates which usually ended at least after the first session with "I don't care this is what I'm doing", and maybe after the 4th or 5th session sometimes "Alright 'maybe' we can change it this way"
Now that everything is controlled by one central committee [Lucasfilm Story Group] we can have canon that applies to everything."
Messing with a Classic — Howard Roffman, Lucasfilm, 2017 interview.
Dave Filoni saus Lucas only considered movies and TV series canon
Again it won't let me post links, but just look up 'Dave Filoni interview, extended edition', it was an episode of The Star Wars Show, here's the quote from it -
"There's this notion that everything changed when everything became Legends.
And I can see why people think that. But, you know, having worked with George
I can tell you that it was always very clear -- and he made it very clear --
that the films and the TV shows were the only things that he considered Canon.
That was it.*
"So everything else was a world of fun ideas, exciting characters, great
possibilities, the EU was created to explore all those things.And I know and I
fully respect peoples opinions about it that some of the material said 'the
next canon part of it' <wink,wink>.... But from the filmmaking world I was
brought into, *the films and TV shows were it".
~ Dave Filoni speaking about working with George Lucas
Leland Chee was a liar and got caught lieing and admitted the truth quotes
Leland Chee Quotes -
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[Sorry if im doing this wrong, I'm new here.
*Leland Chee Quotes on the Expanded Universe*
"What George did with the films and The Clone Wars was pretty much *his universe* ,” Chee said. “He didn’t really have that much concern for what we were doing in the books and games. *So the Expanded Universe was very much separate."*
~ Leland Chee, 2017 - SYFY WIRE
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*“Lucas’ canon – and when I say ‘his canon’, I’m talking about what he was doing in the films and what he was doing in The Clone Wars* – was hugely important. But what we were doing in *the books really wasn’t on his radar.”*
–Leland Chee, 2018
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"The dual universe question comes up often. *I know George Lucas has mentioned it being two universes* , but that’s not how I see it. His vision is definitely not beholden to ours, but ours is definitely beholden to his."
~ Leland Chee 2012
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“I did not have direct contact with George about Star Wars continuity. Dave Filoni, who worked on Clone Wars, definitely did. So for me, the spirit of George’s work is what’s in the films, and it doesn’t go too far beyond that.”
~ Leland Chee 2018
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*"I didn't have any direct contact with George about Star Wars. - I would see some notes based on the interviews or the meetings. But I did not have direct contact with George about Star Wars continuity."*
~ Leland Chee 2018
[He never even met George Lucas.]
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"Understand, that the *Holocron's primary purpose is to keep track of Star Wars continuity for Lucas Licensing* , and to some degree Lucas Online. To my knowledge, it is only *rarely used for production purposes."*
~ Leland Chee 2005/6
[Lucas was in Production]
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*"The G/C/S-level canon stuff is a construct specifically for the Holocron. Non-Holocron users would have no idea what this stuff even means* and I would say most of the people who use the Holocron don't use the field, instead looking specifically to the source of the material. Individual entries are not broken down by canon level."
~ Leland Chee 2005
*[What this means is that whole 'canon tier' he made up, that wasn't policy that was a filing system protocol like the Dewy Decimal system. It had no baring on actual canon or anything outside of his office.]*
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*"Star Wars continuity, even EU continuity, does not rest on my shoulders.* Our licensees submit product directly to either our editors or our product development managers. *The Holocron serves as a tool for them to check any issues regarding continuity,* and after that, if the editors or developers have any questions, they pass it along to me to check for continuity. At the same time, I am constantly on the lookout to make sure that any new continuity being created gets entered in the Holocron. *With regard to the the films and The Clone Wars, I am not involved in continuity approvals* though I have often
been asked to provide reference material."
~ Leland Chee
[This is the worst one of them all. Wow, just wow.]
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*"No, GWL has not given directives as to how things are entered in the Holocron."* (12-17-04) ~ Leland Chee ~ 2004
*"...applies only to the Holocron, but is not the same as their standing in LFL's canon hierarchy."* ~ Leland Chee ~ 2005
*"I'm unclear as to the definition of LFL in this case. I know of no other internal hierarchy currently in use."*
~ Leland Chee ~ 2004
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"Dave Filoni is better equipped to relay Lucas’ true feelings about the EU."
~ Leland Chee
Jan 20th, 2018 05:07 AM
